There is a pervasive misconception that removing complex mechanics reduces skill from a competitive game and adding complex mechanics adds more skill to the game. This is not true.
If removing mechanics, for example removing denying, items, and individual levels from HotS compared to Dota 2, reduces the skill required to play a competitive game, then what separates the winning team from the losing team and why can't you always win? Because it doesn't remove skill, it merely shifts where skill is needed.
The origin of this false belief is simple: people argue that because a mechanic was removed, it is easier to play the game and win. But this is wrong, because in a competitive game, removing a mechanic also makes it easier for your opponent to play the game and win. These two forces exactly cancel out, so in fact, the game is not any easier. The skill required is the same.
In symbols: Your skill: X. Your opponent's skill: Y. If X > Y, then you win. If a complex mechanic is removed, you (incorrectly) think you're better as a result of the game being made easier: Your skill: X+c. Your opponent’s skill: Y, where c>0. But in fact, what's really happened is that: Your skill: X+c. Your opponent’s skill: Y+c, and so the game isn't easier, the skill required to win is completely unchanged.
Humans can only do a finite number of things at one time. So, for example, removing pointless gimmicks and restrictions in MOBAs frees players to focus on other real skills, like strategizing around merc camps and map objectives, landing skillshots, and winning team fights. Therefore, instead of doing less and lowering the achievable skill ceiling, the achievable skill ceiling doesn't change, it's still bounded by the finite amount of things humans can do just as before, but it shifts where skill is needed. In a picture:
To appreciate this point, let's consider a few examples that people would incorrectly believe to be dumbing down games.
Example 1: Adding auto-aim to CS:GO (removing complexity) Aiming is a huge part of CS:GO, it's one of the most important skills in the game. Does adding auto-aim dumb down the game, reduce skill or kill depth? No. The game will still require just as much skill as it does now. Instead of being about aiming, auto-aim would shift the game to be about positioning, strategy, flashing and firing with maximum lethality (minimizing recoil). The team with more skill in avoiding situations where they will be killed by the opponent's auto-aim by being at the right place at the right time would win. The skill of correct positioning would be absolutely critical. So playing CS:GO with auto-aim would require the same amount of skill it requires now, it just emphasizes different types of skills, like positioning.
Example 2: Removing units and buildings from WC3 (removing complexity) Suppose people thought that WC3 was too hard to play. Microing an army with up to 3 heroes and building units was just too hard. So some people wanted to play a very dumbed down version of the game by removing everything except heroes. But even microing up to 3 heroes was too hard, so to further dumb it down, each person only controls 1 hero. And thus, Dota and with it, the MOBA genre, was born. Did this remove skill and depth, dumb down the game too much, or make it too easy? No, instead of focusing on building and microing armies, the focus has shifted to things like pushing lanes, last hitting, and buying the right items. And if more mechanics like items, individual levels and denying were removed like in HotS, the game will require just as much skill, instead the skill will shift to strategizing around map objectives, executing and winning team fights. In fact, if we take it to the extreme of removing abilities, levels and buildings, so that all heroes can only auto-attack in a small arena, there will still be an incredible amount of skill involved in getting the right engagements, attacking the right target, and positioning. If such a game had esports tournaments and ladders, you will still be destroyed by the most skilled teams, proving that skill has not being reduced at all.
Example 3: Removing multiple unit selection, building queues and rally points from SC2 (adding complexity) Early in the development of SC2, a bunch of complainers lamented the addition of multiple building selection for dumbing down the game and that it would destroy SC2. They've been completely discredited as SC2 is not destroyed and still requires an insane amount of skill. If it didn't, why haven't these complainers won all the GSLs? But why stop at multiple building selection? If making the UI harder to use adds skill to the game, then removing multiple unit selection, building queues and rally points would add even more skill. So why not do that? Because it doesn't add more skill. It just shifts the skill from building the right units, microing, harassing, executing the correct strategy to the lame skill of fighting the UI by moving 1 unit at a time, building 1 unit at a time and rallying each unit individually. Removing multiple unit selection makes it harder for you to play. But it equally makes it harder for your opponent to play, so nothing has changed, the skill required to win won't increase. Thus, the game would neither be harder nor require more skill.
Example 4: Removing everything from SC2 except workers (removing complexity) SC2 is a complicated game, and requires skill to play. Perhaps one way of dumbing it down is to remove everything except SCVs. The game would then be SCV Wars. But such a game also requires the same amount of skill as SC2 currently. Instead of being about macroing and microing armies, it would be about microing 6 SCVs, when to focus fire, and when to pull away the SCV that is being focused by your opponent. Blizzard could make a ladder for SCV Wars, and the people in Diamond league of the SCV Wars ladder will still be destroyed by those in Masters league, because the game requires the same amount of skill, just in different areas. If there were SCV Wars esports touraments, your chance of beating those winners at a game of SCV Wars would be as astronomically small as your chance of beating Zest in SC2, because the equivalent of Zest in SCV Wars will have godlike SCV micro as if psychically control by his mind.
In fact, the following fact holds:
Law of Dumbing Down Games The only way to reduce skill in a competitive game is to change the rules so that there is an optimal strategy satisfying the following 3 conditions: 1. The optimal strategy is implementable by players/teams. 2. When implemented by one player/team, but not the opposing player/team, the player/team that implements the optimal strategy wins. 3. When implemented by both players/teams, the game either results in a draw or is completely determined by luck.
Examples include SCV Wars where both players have only 1 SCV (the optimal stratgy is attack) or Tic-tac-toe.
Thus, the question is not whether removing features reduces skill (it doesn't), instead it's about what skill the game mechanics emphasize. Is the game about skill in capturing map objectives or skill in memorizing optimal rune builds? Skill in microing armies or skill in fighting against a UI that doesn't have multiple-unit selection? Skill in winning team fights or skill in last hitting creeps?
A corollary of the Law of Dumbing Down Games is that, in a competitive game, any argument that removing a mechanic, such as last hitting or items, that does not change the game to satisfy the above 3 condition's, would dumb down the game or make the game require less skill is automatically invalid and wrong. A further corollary is that mechanics should not be chosen to increase or reduce skill required, because virtually every mechanic will have no effect on skill required. Instead mechanics should be chosen based on whether they are fun, interesting to watch, and fits with the design goals of the game. For this reason, a much greater emphasis on team fights as can be found in HotS is the objectively correct way to design a MOBA, and last hitting in MOBAs is as pointless and unnecessary as the following mechanic: Your hero is granted +1 basic attack permanently under the following conditions: "If you hit a minion with 2 basic attacks where the time between the two attacks is between 1.4 to 1.6 seconds, then a pop-up appears with a simple arithmetic problem, like '4x13=?', and if you type in the correct answer within 2 seconds,you are awarded +1 basic attack permanently".
TLDR: In a competitive game, if you make it easier to do X, people won't simply do less, they will do less X and more Y.
Your entire post runs on the assumption that when you remove a complex mechanic, the skill ceiling still stays at the same height. You even claim that it doesn't lower it, but you never prove this. You simply say that it is so.
You can't just say that "removing X causes more skill to be deposited into doing Y". This discussion is done all the time comparing SC:BW to SC2.
Your argument essentially says, "By adding MBS, people just focus more on positioning and strategy, therefore the overall skill level hasn't diminished".
The skill ceiling for any one game is an aggregate of the skill ceilings for all the individual things that you do in the game. The statement (add MBS = more skill for positioning) assumes that the skill ceiling for positioning/strategy in SC2 is high enough to compensate for the skill that isn't used in macro when compared to BW. However, it's pretty easy to argue that this is false, and that BW actually uses more positioning skill than SC2 does, despite the fact that BW also requires more skill on the macro side of things.
In the end, you're operating under the assumption that each category of skill in a game has a static (and possibly infinite) skill ceiling. This simply is not true. There's only so much you can do in terms of positioning, strategy, micro, macro, etc. in any given game, and many of these categories are met in any given game. You can't just say, "Well people will focus on positioning more and get better at positioning!" if there isn't any better play to be had in that facet of the game.
Doesn't this assume that the skill ceilings of all games are the same?I think different games have different ceilings and various mechanics cause that.
There's one thing you're also not accounting for, which is that every single one of these games, which is that on the list of factors needed to win the game, random chance is also a part of every one of the mentioned games. In shooters it's random bullet spread. In Warcraft 3, it's item drops from creep camps. In DotA/LoL, it's crit chance/miss chance, etc.
Even if we take what you said to be true, that removing an aspect of the game simply redistributes the contribution toward winning the game that every other component makes--the random element is also one of these components. If removing a mechanic increases the relative importance of every other aspect of the game to fill the divide, it also increases the relative importance of luck and random chance.
This is where the somewhat justified belief of removing mechanics' impact on skill comes from. While the "skill-cap" is still the same, the relative importance of luck becomes higher as you remove player input/decision making. If the relative importance of luck is higher, it likewise means the probability that a weaker player will beat a stronger player based purely on getting lucky is also higher--which consequently makes the game *feel* less skill-dependent.
This argument is mostly semantics. However, reducing complexity should bring skill ranges closer together.
In brood war the difference between a top 10% player vs a top 9% player vs top 8% vs a top 5% player vs a top 1% player vs a top .01% player were more noticeable than in sc2 for example. In brood war i once played against 4 of my friends at the same time, and they were "good casual players", and I beat them all at the same time. This is just completely impossible in sc2. And it's because no matter how good someone is at starcraft 2, they will never be able to have a big enough gap in skill vs players with even a remote clue to pull off something like that.
I agree with your overall idea though. People are not reaching or coming close to skill ceilings in any competitive game.
On August 17 2014 13:32 Stratos_speAr wrote: Your entire post runs on the assumption that when you remove a complex mechanic, the skill ceiling still stays at the same height. You even claim that it doesn't lower it, but you never prove this. You simply say that it is so.
You can't just say that "removing X causes more skill to be deposited into doing Y". This discussion is done all the time comparing SC:BW to SC2.
Your argument essentially says, "By adding MBS, people just focus more on positioning and strategy, therefore the overall skill level hasn't diminished".
The skill ceiling for any one game is an aggregate of the skill ceilings for all the individual things that you do in the game. The statement (add MBS = more skill for positioning) assumes that the skill ceiling for positioning/strategy in SC2 is high enough to compensate for the skill that isn't used in macro when compared to BW. However, it's pretty easy to argue that this is false, and that BW actually uses more positioning skill than SC2 does, despite the fact that BW also requires more skill on the macro side of things.
In the end, you're operating under the assumption that each category of skill in a game has a static (and possibly infinite) skill ceiling. This simply is not true. There's only so much you can do in terms of positioning, strategy, micro, macro, etc. in any given game, and many of these categories are met in any given game. You can't just say, "Well people will focus on positioning more and get better at positioning!" if there isn't any better play to be had in that facet of the game.
You have not understood the argument. Games with many complex mechanics can have a very high theoretical skill ceiling, and removing those mechanics can lower the skill ceiling. But lowering the theoretical skill ceiling generally does not dumb down nor make the game require less skill to play, because, as I explained, players are constrained by the finite number of things humans can do, so they can't hit that skill ceiling. It is obvious that lowering a skill ceiling that cannot be hit changes nothing about the skill required to play a game by a human, because they can't hit it anyway.
In a competitive game, if the game is made easier (e.g. multiple unit selection is added), you can still change your play to 1-up your opponent, by focusing more on strategy and less on selecting units, one at a time. If not, then why can't you win 100% of the time? If another mechanic is changed to make it easier (e.g. multiple building selection is added), again you can still change your play to 1-up your opponent, by focusing less on macro and more on micro. This can be repeated indefinitely as long as the skill ceiling doesn't fall below what humans can do. If it does, that's when the Law of Dumbing Down Games applies, and both players can't do anything more to improve their game and increase their chance of winning because they are using the optimal strategy. Only in that case is the game truly dumbed down.
You claim that BW requires both more macro skill and positioning skill than SC2, so that the loss of macro skill in SC2 is not compensated and my argument is wrong. No. Even if BW requires more skill in both, my argument is still correct, because it's not about how each mechanic adds to the "aggregate skill cap", that's irrelevant, it's about whether the aggregate skill cap remains above what is humanly possible. And it is. Thus, the game is no easier because you can't always win as more skilled humans will still beat you.
You also mention some skills, like positioning, cannot be improved any more. If a game was dumbed down so much that it's 100% about positioning (e.g. CS:GO with auto-aim and auto-fire) and positioning really can't be improved by humans (i.e. there is an optimal strategy that satisfies the 3 conditions), then by applying the Law of Dumbing Down Games, it can be concluded that in this case the game is dumbed down and skill has been reduced. But SC2 is not 100% about positioning, and positioning can virtually always be improved, if only slightly. In a game like CS:GO with auto-aim and auto-fire, a slight improvement in skill in positioning can be the difference between winning and losing. But I don't see anyone using this argument that "the game has been reduced to a skill with an optimal strategy, implementable by humans, that cannot be improved", which would be a logical valid argument.
My argument is simple: If a competitive game is dumbed down to require less skill, then why can't you always win? If you can play an optimal strategy that makes it so that you always win or always draw or reduce the game to 100% luck, by the Law of Dumbing Down Games, the game's skill has been reduced. But if you can't, then you don't have an optimal strategy and so there's more you can do to improve your skill further.
Adding and removing meaningless gimmick paragraphs do not change the overall bullshit ceiling and this is consistent with the Law of Conciseness of Bullshit. Then why do you spend so many seemingly complex paragraphs trying to explain the complexity and nuances of your Bullshit when removing the paragraphs obviously wouldn't dumb it down at all.
On August 17 2014 14:12 TheYango wrote: There's one thing you're also not accounting for, which is that every single one of these games, which is that on the list of factors needed to win the game, random chance is also a part of every one of the mentioned games. In shooters it's random bullet spread. In Warcraft 3, it's item drops from creep camps. In DotA/LoL, it's crit chance/miss chance, etc.
Even if we take what you said to be true, that removing an aspect of the game simply redistributes the contribution toward winning the game that every other component makes--the random element is also one of these components. If removing a mechanic increases the relative importance of every other aspect of the game to fill the divide, it also increases the relative importance of luck and random chance.
This is where the somewhat justified belief of removing mechanics' impact on skill comes from. While the "skill-cap" is still the same, the relative importance of luck becomes higher as you remove player input/decision making. If the relative importance of luck is higher, it likewise means the probability that a weaker player will beat a stronger player based purely on getting lucky is also higher--which consequently makes the game *feel* less skill-dependent.
Yes, if a game has an element of RNG, then removing complex mechanics increases the contribution of RNG. However, many games don't have RNG (although they lack perfect information), e.g. CS:GO, SC2 and HotS
But I don't see anyone arguing that removing mechanic X from Dota 2 is bad because it increases the contribution of RNG since the contribution of RNG is quite negligible and the removal of one mechanic is usually replaced with another (e.g. remove items and denying from HotS, but add talents and map objectives). Who's going around saying, don't remove X, because it would make the game too much about RNG?
Minor point. In Dota there is psuedo random chance on many random factors. Meaning it is possible to effect the probability of the next attack being a bash or crit for example. If you make it fully random you decrease possible player input into the game mechanic. Very few people actually try to effect the random chances though, which makes a case for other factors being more important.
The discussion about full random or psuedo random rages pretty hard at times. A thing like 4 bashes in a row on a 10% probability can win or lose a lane. Perhaps effect a full games win chance 5%, which is a huge thing on random factors.
Adding and removing meaningless gimmick paragraphs do not change the overall bullshit ceiling and this is consistent with the Law of Conciseness of Bullshit. Then why do you spend so many seemingly complex paragraphs trying to explain the complexity and nuances of your Bullshit when removing the paragraphs obviously wouldn't dumb it down at all.
Well I wanted to do this, but I don't have the added banhammer protection that comes with actually being a useful member of the Team Liquid community, so I'll just quote this instead. Also, did anyone else have trouble telling whether or not he was being sarcastic? Alarm bells started going off like crazy after he came up with the SCV wars example, but it seems like he was actually serious?
"In a competitive game, if you make it easier to do X, people won't simply do less, they will do less X and more Y."
So? I can be argued when everything is automated for the player, is that even a point to playing such games. If I want to just play tactics and strategy i might as well play chess,checkers or ff tactics or some similar thinking game that actually tests your ability to think and make decisions.
not something that just rely on secondguessing BO and fending off cheese/timings like SC2, which is more akin to poker than the mechanical behemoth that is SC1.
Plus your argument that dumbing down game mechanics does not really affect game play is wrong. the person that has better mechanics is unable to differentiate themselves from the rest due to the limitations of the game not allowing him to do so.
Lets say that there are two persons, person A and person B
person A has inherently better "mechanical" skill than B. He can input commands faster, has better APM etc. on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 the lowest and 10 the highest , lets say A has mechanical skill of rating "8" while B only has rating of "5". Otherwise he is essentially similar to person B in terms of decision making, positioning etc.
now for the sake of simplifying a game the dev has decided to make X, a skill which requires a lot of mechanical skill to pull off better, much easier to do. this can encompass a wide range of functions within a game and may not be limited to just one aspect of the game itself. things like introducing autoaim or automating various things that usually require lots of mechanical input
Essentially what the dev has done to lower the ceiling of the spectrum of X. Lets say in the process of automating all this shit the game essentially goes down from a potentially limitless rating to say, "4"
If B has played A before the dumb-down of game mechanics, his lower rating of 5 compared to A rating of 8 would make him unable to compete with A within a single game in the longer term and would have to rely on cheese/timings to have the highest chance of winning, since other than mechanics he is on par with A as a player.
After the mechanics dumb-down, A whom a potential rating of 8 and is now hampered by the game mechanical ceiling of "4" every time he plays against B.
Now, B stands a much higher chance of winning than A throughout the game simply because the game mechanical ceiling has been dumbed down.
Now the only thing I wonder is that if you consider mechanics as part of the spectrum of "skills" or your Dunning Krueger mindset can't handle the fact that there will always be a player mechanically better than you, hence you starting this thread to dismiss the notion that the whole "dumbing down of games" trend is nothing more than to cater to the casual playerbase.
On August 17 2014 14:46 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:
Well I wanted to do this, but I don't have the added banhammer protection that comes with actually being a useful member of the Team Liquid community, so I'll just quote this instead. Also, did anyone else have trouble telling whether or not he was being sarcastic? Alarm bells started going off like crazy after he came up with the SCV wars example, but it seems like he was actually serious?
Well such posts are always either troll or just general dumbness from lack of experience in older games.
Yes, if a game has an element of RNG, then removing complex mechanics increases the contribution of RNG. However, many games don't have RNG (although they lack perfect information), e.g. CS:GO, SC2 and HotS
Any game that involves decision making (i.e. all of them) is ultimately subject to randomness because a player who does not know the correct decision in a given situation is going to be guessing. The less decisions there are to make due to the removal of aspects of the game, the higher the likelihood that a weaker player can "guess" his way through the game because there are less things for him to guess wrong on, even though the relative importance of each decision becomes higher.
But I don't see anyone arguing that removing mechanic X from Dota 2 is bad because it increases the contribution of RNG since the contribution of RNG is quite negligible and the removal of one mechanic is usually replaced with another (e.g. remove items and denying from HotS, but add talents and map objectives). Who's going around saying, don't remove X, because it would make the game too much about RNG?
This is because fundamentally the way people think about games is results-oriented, not process-oriented. When they see a weaker player luck his way into beating a better player, they focus on the result as the problem (weaker player beat a better player--must mean that the better player's skill difference didn't impact the game enough) and not on the process that led to that outcome.
On August 17 2014 14:50 Probemicro wrote: "In a competitive game, if you make it easier to do X, people won't simply do less, they will do less X and more Y."
So? I can be argued when everything is automated for the player, is that even a point to playing such games. If I want to just play tactics and strategy i might as well play chess,checkers or ff tactics or some similar thinking game that actually tests your ability to think and make decisions.
not something that just rely on secondguessing BO and fending off cheese/timings like SC2, which is more akin to poker than the mechanical behemoth that is SC1.
Plus your argument that dumbing down game mechanics does not really affect game play is wrong. the person that has better mechanics is unable to differentiate themselves from the rest due to the limitations of the game not allowing him to do so.
Lets say that there are two persons, person A and person B
person A has inherently better "mechanical" skill than B. He can input commands faster, has better APM etc. on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 the lowest and 10 the highest , lets say A has mechanical skill of rating "8" while B only has rating of "5". Otherwise he is essentially similar to person B in terms of decision making, positioning etc.
now for the sake of simplifying a game the dev has decided to make X, a skill which requires a lot of mechanical skill to pull off better, much easier to do. this can encompass a wide range of functions within a game and may not be limited to just one aspect of the game itself. things like introducing autoaim or automating various things that usually require lots of mechanical input
Essentially what the dev has done to lower the ceiling of the spectrum of X. Lets say in the process of automating all this shit the game essentially goes down from a potentially limitless rating to say, "4"
If B has played A before the dumb-down of game mechanics, his lower rating of 5 compared to A rating of 8 would make him unable to compete with A within a single game in the longer term and would have to rely on cheese/timings to have the highest chance of winning, since other than mechanics he is on par with A as a player.
After the mechanics dumb-down, A whom a potential rating of 8 and is now hampered by the game mechanical ceiling of "4" every time he plays against B.
Now, B stands a much higher chance of winning than A throughout the game simply because the game mechanical ceiling has been dumbed down.
Now the only thing I wonder is that if you consider mechanics as part of the spectrum of "skills" or your Dunning Krueger mindset can't handle the fact that there will always be a player mechanically better than you, hence you starting this thread to dismiss the notion that the whole "dumbing down of games" trend is nothing more than to cater to the casual playerbase.
On August 17 2014 14:46 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:
Well I wanted to do this, but I don't have the added banhammer protection that comes with actually being a useful member of the Team Liquid community, so I'll just quote this instead. Also, did anyone else have trouble telling whether or not he was being sarcastic? Alarm bells started going off like crazy after he came up with the SCV wars example, but it seems like he was actually serious?
Well such posts are always either troll or just general dumbness from lack of experience in older games.
Yes, you seem to have understood the argument. Yes, if someone excels at mechanical skills, and a change is made to make those mechanical skills less relevant, then the skill required to play the game would shift from mechanical skills to other skills. And someone who can't adapt to that would be worse off. But the skill required to play the game hasn't been reduced, it's just shifted from mechanical skill to, for example, skills in positioning and microing.
So as I said, the question is not whether skill has reduced, it hasn't, the question is what skill should the game emphasize. Thus, "multiple unit selection is bad because SC2 should be more about mechanical skills" is a valid argument, "multiple unit selection is bad because adding it dumbs the game down and makes it require less skill" is not a valid argument.
Adding and removing meaningless gimmick paragraphs do not change the overall bullshit ceiling and this is consistent with the Law of Conciseness of Bullshit. Then why do you spend so many seemingly complex paragraphs trying to explain the complexity and nuances of your Bullshit when removing the paragraphs obviously wouldn't dumb it down at all.
Well I wanted to do this, but I don't have the added banhammer protection that comes with actually being a useful member of the Team Liquid community, so I'll just quote this instead. Also, did anyone else have trouble telling whether or not he was being sarcastic? Alarm bells started going off like crazy after he came up with the SCV wars example, but it seems like he was actually serious?
Yes, if a game has an element of RNG, then removing complex mechanics increases the contribution of RNG. However, many games don't have RNG (although they lack perfect information), e.g. CS:GO, SC2 and HotS
Any game that involves decision making (i.e. all of them) is ultimately subject to randomness because a player who does not know the correct decision in a given situation is going to be guessing. The less decisions there are to make due to the removal of aspects of the game, the higher the likelihood that a weaker player can "guess" his way through the game because there are less things for him to guess wrong on, even though the relative importance of each decision becomes higher.
But I don't see anyone arguing that removing mechanic X from Dota 2 is bad because it increases the contribution of RNG since the contribution of RNG is quite negligible and the removal of one mechanic is usually replaced with another (e.g. remove items and denying from HotS, but add talents and map objectives). Who's going around saying, don't remove X, because it would make the game too much about RNG?
This is because fundamentally the way people think about games is results-oriented, not process-oriented. When they see a weaker player luck his way into beating a better player, they focus on the result as the problem (weaker player beat a better player--must mean that the better player's skill difference didn't impact the game enough) and not on the process that led to that outcome.
There's 2 types of randomness that should be distinguished here. First is pure RNG (e.g. if an attack has 20% chance to crit, whether it crits or not is pure RNG, because it's determined by a RNG). Second is uncertainty, what I meant when I said some games lack perfect information (e.g. not knowing what strategy your opponent is doing in SC2 or where your opponent's heroes are in HotS).
If a game has both types of randomness, then removing a complex mechanic would generally increase the contribution of both types of randomness to winning. But increasing the contribution from the second type of randomness, uncertainty, is increasing the contribution of a legitimate skill, often called "game sense". So if a game has no randomness of the first type (e.g. CS:GO, HotS, SC2), then removing a complex mechanic still just shifts the skill required from one type of skill to another, without lowering the skill required to play the game and without dumbing the game down.
If a game becomes too random because too many complex mechanics are removed so that the first type of randomness has a huge contribution to winning or losing, then that's a legitimate argument that people should make, but they're not making that argument, not just because they're "result-oriented", but also because it's often not true of the particular game and can't be supported.
Why do you get to decide what is and what isn't a pointless gimmick or restriction? Why not just design a game where only one single skill is required? If your infinite skill ceiling theory holds, it should be just as competitive as a game with all these so called gimmicks.
When you strip everything off a game it becomes purely decision-making based, and that is not something that is neither entertaining nor competitively interesting.
Feats of mechanical skill are usually those that make the game interesting to watch and to appreciate. See, quake/sf/bw/....
On August 17 2014 18:57 ahswtini wrote: Why do you get to decide what is and what isn't a pointless gimmick or restriction? Why not just design a game where only one single skill is required? If your infinite skill ceiling theory holds, it should be just as competitive as a game with all these so called gimmicks.
It's a finite skill theory, not an infinite skill theory. The reason not to design a copetitive game with only a single skill, like SCV Wars, is because it's uninteresting and boring to watch. It's NOT because a game like SCV Wars requires low skill, it requires just as much skill as SC2 as explained above.
And that's the point, whether a mechanic should be in or out depends on whether it is interesting or fits the design goals of the game, not whether it adds or removes skill, because almost always, it niether adds nor removes skill.
So you can argue that last hitting should be in all MOBAs, because MOBAs are inherently about the skill of last hitting creeps, that people really love watching creeps get last hit and find it more fun than any of the alternatives. While such an argument sounds ridiculous, at least it's not logically flawed. On the other hand, as explained in the OP, the argument that last hitting should be in because it adds skill to the game, and taking it out would remove skill from the game, is simply bullshit.
Adding and removing meaningless gimmick paragraphs do not change the overall bullshit ceiling and this is consistent with the Law of Conciseness of Bullshit. Then why do you spend so many seemingly complex paragraphs trying to explain the complexity and nuances of your Bullshit when removing the paragraphs obviously wouldn't dumb it down at all.
I was gonna write a wall but this pretty much sums up my thoughts.
You over complicate something that's really simple.
The game where there's more things to do that will give you and advantage over your opponent, will have more factors and thus a higher learning curve and more things to keep in mind and more things to do = more "straining" and therefore harder to learn if nothing else.
You also mention last hitting in MOBA's which is the "economy" of the game, so by saying that it is unnecessary, you're also saying that macro in RTS' are pointless and should be replaced by something automatic cus macro is boring and uninteresting or where are you getting at? Any dedicated RTS player I know loves finding new little things that speed up your build by just that tiny margin that gives you an advantage, by the same logic in MOBA's, pressuring your opponent just that tiny little more with a little "something" will make you have a better economy than your opponent.
And is the skillcap finite? Would theoretically be if we were bots, but there's also the psychological factor (mindgames) sooo yeah, your arguement is flawed
One of the things I dislike about this argument is that it takes as a given that the skill ceiling is this one value that you can either reach or not reach. Remove all the difficult mechanics from Starcraft and you will also remove a lot of comeback potential, the ability for good players to showcase near-inhuman feats of skill, the general ability to differentiate yourself from other players. It's foolish to act like all of this is independent of one's concept of skill, and by using the term skill ceiling you neglect a lot of the subtler behavior.
Also, skill ceiling is a metaphor, you're not supposed to take it literally. The fact you shouldn't becomes obvious immediately when you start to use graphs that measure aggregate skill combining all aspects of the game as just one variable.
And now, from the guy who brought you 'Riki and Ursa are op' after becoming an expert after 1 month of play, the guy who literally comes from a not-so-parallel universe, comes another awful argument that wont convince anyone!
On August 18 2014 03:46 Tephus wrote: And now, from the guy who brought you 'Riki and Ursa are op' after becoming an expert after 1 month of play, the guy who literally comes from a not-so-parallel universe, comes another awful argument that wont convince anyone!
On August 17 2014 14:15 travis wrote: This argument is mostly semantics. However, reducing complexity should bring skill ranges closer together.
In brood war the difference between a top 10% player vs a top 9% player vs top 8% vs a top 5% player vs a top 1% player vs a top .01% player were more noticeable than in sc2 for example. In brood war i once played against 4 of my friends at the same time, and they were "good casual players", and I beat them all at the same time. This is just completely impossible in sc2. And it's because no matter how good someone is at starcraft 2, they will never be able to have a big enough gap in skill vs players with even a remote clue to pull off something like that.
I agree with your overall idea though. People are not reaching or coming close to skill ceilings in any competitive game.
Yeah, the more you remove complexity from a game, the easier it is to focus on what remains, so lesser players will be able to catch up to better players easier. So even if the remaining aspect is complex in itself, it will be easier to master it as you don't have to split your attention/knowledge, it reduces the general practice time necessary to improve at the game as a whole, etc.
On August 18 2014 03:46 Tephus wrote: And now, from the guy who brought you 'Riki and Ursa are op' after becoming an expert after 1 month of play, the guy who literally comes from a not-so-parallel universe, comes another awful argument that wont convince anyone!
On August 17 2014 14:15 travis wrote: This argument is mostly semantics. However, reducing complexity should bring skill ranges closer together.
In brood war the difference between a top 10% player vs a top 9% player vs top 8% vs a top 5% player vs a top 1% player vs a top .01% player were more noticeable than in sc2 for example. In brood war i once played against 4 of my friends at the same time, and they were "good casual players", and I beat them all at the same time. This is just completely impossible in sc2. And it's because no matter how good someone is at starcraft 2, they will never be able to have a big enough gap in skill vs players with even a remote clue to pull off something like that.
I agree with your overall idea though. People are not reaching or coming close to skill ceilings in any competitive game.
Yeah, the more you remove complexity from a game, the easier it is to focus on what remains, so lesser players will be able to catch up to better players easier. So even if the remaining aspect is complex in itself, it will be easier to master it as you don't have to split your attention/knowledge, it reduces the general practice time necessary to improve at the game as a whole, etc.
This is really apparent when I compared SC:BW to SC2. I absolutely destroyed most of my friends at BW. However in SC2 I actually struggled to beat them, and I couldn't beat some of them at all it was a complete reversal of how BW was. Removing and/or streamlining mechanics allows poorer players to compete with better players. I call this the casual curse.
I actually don't really disagree with the general sentiment of this post. Things like MBS or worker rallying did not lower the skill ceiling of Starcraft because RTS games have a HUGE surplus of actions that nobody does even though they could contribute to winning because there is simply too much to do. The computer controlled "perfect" unit control for splitting marines and zerglings used around 2000 APM on unit control alone and shifting 50 APM away from moving workers to minerals and towards splitting zerglings does not reduce the skill ceiling for a human player.
The BIG thing i will say is that removing mechanics reduces clarity in the quality of a player. If a game requires you to do 200 things then a player who can reasonably manage 150 is clearly better than somebody who can only manage 100 and this is how we experience Broodwar. If there are only 3 things to do then everybody will manage to do all of those things at every level and we are forced to subjectively determine skill qualitatively rather than quantitatively.
On August 18 2014 03:46 Tephus wrote: And now, from the guy who brought you 'Riki and Ursa are op' after becoming an expert after 1 month of play, the guy who literally comes from a not-so-parallel universe, comes another awful argument that wont convince anyone!
I wonder what's next for our hero!
thanks i had a good laugh while checking what it was
On August 18 2014 08:36 Velocirapture wrote: I actually don't really disagree with the general sentiment of this post. Things like MBS or worker rallying did not lower the skill ceiling of Starcraft because RTS games have a HUGE surplus of actions that nobody does even though they could contribute to winning because there is simply too much to do. The computer controlled "perfect" unit control for splitting marines and zerglings used around 2000 APM on unit control alone and shifting 50 APM away from moving workers to minerals and towards splitting zerglings does not reduce the skill ceiling for a human player.
The BIG thing i will say is that removing mechanics reduces clarity in the quality of a player. If a game requires you to do 200 things then a player who can reasonably manage 150 is clearly better than somebody who can only manage 100 and this is how we experience Broodwar. If there are only 3 things to do then everybody will manage to do all of those things at every level and we are forced to subjectively determine skill qualitatively rather than quantitatively.
Your second paragraph, I agree with. However, I keep seeing the argument in the first paragraph, and intuitively, I don't feel that it's a good heuristic, because I feel that micro is relatively more difficult to attain mastery past a certain point. This is invariably due to the nature of the mouse vs. the keyboard, as our accuracy with controlling a mouse is tied into micro to a great extent. The essential nature of "micro" means that there are greater difficulties in achieving significant levels of differentiation (there have been studies on the asymptotic nature of skill levels past a certain point in musicians, and it largely falls into this same line of reason). Multitasking, on the other hand, seems to me to have a far higher soft-cap, as keyboard speed, how much information one can hold at once, how fast one processes such information, etc. all come into play more prominently, vs. one's ability to accurately move the mouse down to micrometers.
Now, all of this is basically through a priori reasoning and anecdotal experience of what micro and macro are, so I could be totally off.
Skill ceiling is absolutely real, the thing is though that there's no one with the reflexes and decision making to do everything perfectly in a real time game all the time and the emotional maturity to never go on tilt, so even if you see a few perfect games from someone they'll eventually start choking.
Dota's skill ceiling is obviously higher than LoL's, BW's skill ceiling is obviously higher than SC2's, but no one has perfect mechanics and decisions every game in any of those games.
edit: The OP seems to be poking at everything from the wrong angles. People play games to have fun. A lot of suggestions in the OP, such as adding auto-aim to CS:GO or taking away multiple building/unit selection in SC2, would make the games less fun for people who play them. People play games to have fun, and then the people who are the best at those games compete in tournaments sometimes.
So here's the real "Law of Dumbing Down Games":
1. Sometimes a lower skill ceiling results in more people enjoying your game. (WC3 vs Dota, Dota vs LoL) 2. Sometimes having a higher skill ceiling results in more people enjoying your game. (hypothetical example of adding auto-aim to CS:GO. hypothetical example of workers-only SC2) 3. Making a game that people want to play is more important than worrying about skill ceiling, since as stated before, no one will consistently hit the skill ceiling anyway.
edit 2: skill is not "added elsewhere", decision-making and emotional control are just as important in Dota and BW as they are in LoL and SC2. Dota and BW have an additional mechanical layer of complexity, there's no way anyone can argue that.
Let me propose another model called "Some people are more capable than others". This is the general theory that sometimes, one person has the ability to do something that another person cannot. For example, let's say you played Basketball with LeBron James and it was srs business. In oversimplified math:
LeBron = 1 You = 1
1/1 = 1
SO U ARE EQUAL!!!!!! HOLY SHIT U CAN TOTALLY KICK HIS ASS
Thank you Kupon3ss, ninazerg, and amazingxkcd for submitting reason to the thread, and suggesting that the game I just invented of walking to my kitchen and back does not require as much skill as chess.
I mean, it makes me feel good to think that it does, because I'm one of the best in the world at walking to my kitchen and back... but unfortunately it doesn't actually mean I'm at the same relative skill level as, say, tennis pros.
On August 18 2014 03:15 Grumbels wrote: One of the things I dislike about this argument is that it takes as a given that the skill ceiling is this one value that you can either reach or not reach. Remove all the difficult mechanics from Starcraft and you will also remove a lot of comeback potential, the ability for good players to showcase near-inhuman feats of skill, the general ability to differentiate yourself from other players. It's foolish to act like all of this is independent of one's concept of skill, and by using the term skill ceiling you neglect a lot of the subtler behavior.
Also, skill ceiling is a metaphor, you're not supposed to take it literally. The fact you shouldn't becomes obvious immediately when you start to use graphs that measure aggregate skill combining all aspects of the game as just one variable.
On August 18 2014 11:02 Cheren wrote: Skill ceiling is absolutely real, the thing is though that there's no one with the reflexes and decision making to do everything perfectly in a real time game all the time and the emotional maturity to never go on tilt, so even if you see a few perfect games from someone they'll eventually start choking.
Dota's skill ceiling is obviously higher than LoL's, BW's skill ceiling is obviously higher than SC2's, but no one has perfect mechanics and decisions every game in any of those games.
edit: The OP seems to be poking at everything from the wrong angles. People play games to have fun. A lot of suggestions in the OP, such as adding auto-aim to CS:GO or taking away multiple building/unit selection in SC2, would make the games less fun for people who play them. People play games to have fun, and then the people who are the best at those games compete in tournaments sometimes.
So here's the real "Law of Dumbing Down Games":
1. Sometimes a lower skill ceiling results in more people enjoying your game. (WC3 vs Dota, Dota vs LoL) 2. Sometimes having a higher skill ceiling results in more people enjoying your game. (hypothetical example of adding auto-aim to CS:GO. hypothetical example of workers-only SC2) 3. Making a game that people want to play is more important than worrying about skill ceiling, since as stated before, no one will consistently hit the skill ceiling anyway.
edit 2: skill is not "added elsewhere", decision-making and emotional control are just as important in Dota and BW as they are in LoL and SC2. Dota and BW have an additional mechanical layer of complexity, there's no way anyone can argue that.
On August 18 2014 12:44 ninazerg wrote: Let me propose another model called "Some people are more capable than others". This is the general theory that sometimes, one person has the ability to do something that another person cannot. For example, let's say you played Basketball with LeBron James and it was srs business. In oversimplified math:
LeBron = 1 You = 1
1/1 = 1
SO U ARE EQUAL!!!!!! HOLY SHIT U CAN TOTALLY KICK HIS ASS
BUT WAIT I HAVE THIS GRAFF THAT SHOWS THIS:
You've all missed the point. I never said anything about the actual skill ceiling of the game. I only referred to the maximum achievable skill by humans or "achievable skill ceiling".
And in fact, if you would read the OP, the actual skill ceiling is irrelevant to the discussion. The actual skill ceiling does not determine how much skill is required to succeed at the game as long as no one can reach the actual skill ceiling (Law of Dumbing Down Games).
On August 18 2014 03:46 Tephus wrote: And now, from the guy who brought you 'Riki and Ursa are op' after becoming an expert after 1 month of play, the guy who literally comes from a not-so-parallel universe, comes another awful argument that wont convince anyone!
I wonder what's next for our hero!
What's this? Another Dota 2 fanboy that can't admit that he's wrong. Even back when they had a win rate of around 60% (worse than essentially the greatest imbalances in SC2), you still couldn't admit any fault with Dota 2. Let me address those awful counter-arguments you've given to debunk the OP. Oh wait, there's no counter-arguments at all. No substance. Because I'm right, you're not, and you've provided nothing at all.
On August 18 2014 03:46 Tephus wrote: And now, from the guy who brought you 'Riki and Ursa are op' after becoming an expert after 1 month of play, the guy who literally comes from a not-so-parallel universe, comes another awful argument that wont convince anyone!
On August 18 2014 03:46 Tephus wrote: And now, from the guy who brought you 'Riki and Ursa are op' after becoming an expert after 1 month of play, the guy who literally comes from a not-so-parallel universe, comes another awful argument that wont convince anyone!
I wonder what's next for our hero!
What's this? Another Dota 2 fanboy that can't admit that he's wrong. Even back when they had a win rate of around 60% (worse than essentially the greatest imbalances in SC2), you still couldn't admit any fault with Dota 2. Let me address those awful counter-arguments you've given to debunk the OP. Oh wait, there's no counterarguments at all. No substance. Because I'm right, you're not, and you've provided nothing at all.
Because it's not about skill levels of the majority of games those heroes are being played in or anything. This isn't the place to discuss how wrong you are on that topic unfortunately.
On August 17 2014 14:15 travis wrote: This argument is mostly semantics. However, reducing complexity should bring skill ranges closer together.
In brood war the difference between a top 10% player vs a top 9% player vs top 8% vs a top 5% player vs a top 1% player vs a top .01% player were more noticeable than in sc2 for example. In brood war i once played against 4 of my friends at the same time, and they were "good casual players", and I beat them all at the same time. This is just completely impossible in sc2. And it's because no matter how good someone is at starcraft 2, they will never be able to have a big enough gap in skill vs players with even a remote clue to pull off something like that.
I agree with your overall idea though. People are not reaching or coming close to skill ceilings in any competitive game.
Yeah, the more you remove complexity from a game, the easier it is to focus on what remains, so lesser players will be able to catch up to better players easier. So even if the remaining aspect is complex in itself, it will be easier to master it as you don't have to split your attention/knowledge, it reduces the general practice time necessary to improve at the game as a whole, etc.
This is really apparent when I compared SC:BW to SC2. I absolutely destroyed most of my friends at BW. However in SC2 I actually struggled to beat them, and I couldn't beat some of them at all it was a complete reversal of how BW was. Removing and/or streamlining mechanics allows poorer players to compete with better players. I call this the casual curse.
If you can't beat them, then how are you more skilled? You're not.
On August 18 2014 08:47 amazingxkcd wrote: This entire OP is basically flamebait, otherwise rock paper sisscors is the toughest game in the world
Maybe you should read the OP:
Law of Dumbing Down Games The only way to reduce skill in a competitive game is to change the rules so that there is an optimal strategy satisfying the following 3 conditions: 1. The optimal strategy is implementable by players/teams. 2. When implemented by one player/team, but not the opposing player/team, the player/team that implements the optimal strategy wins. 3. When implemented by both players/teams, the game either results in a draw or is completely determined by luck.
On August 18 2014 12:44 ninazerg wrote: Let me propose another model called "Some people are more capable than others". This is the general theory that sometimes, one person has the ability to do something that another person cannot. For example, let's say you played Basketball with LeBron James and it was srs business. In oversimplified math:
LeBron = 1 You = 1
1/1 = 1
SO U ARE EQUAL!!!!!! HOLY SHIT U CAN TOTALLY KICK HIS ASS
On August 17 2014 14:15 travis wrote: This argument is mostly semantics. However, reducing complexity should bring skill ranges closer together.
In brood war the difference between a top 10% player vs a top 9% player vs top 8% vs a top 5% player vs a top 1% player vs a top .01% player were more noticeable than in sc2 for example. In brood war i once played against 4 of my friends at the same time, and they were "good casual players", and I beat them all at the same time. This is just completely impossible in sc2. And it's because no matter how good someone is at starcraft 2, they will never be able to have a big enough gap in skill vs players with even a remote clue to pull off something like that.
I agree with your overall idea though. People are not reaching or coming close to skill ceilings in any competitive game.
Yeah, the more you remove complexity from a game, the easier it is to focus on what remains, so lesser players will be able to catch up to better players easier. So even if the remaining aspect is complex in itself, it will be easier to master it as you don't have to split your attention/knowledge, it reduces the general practice time necessary to improve at the game as a whole, etc.
Then why not remove multiple unit selection?
This is wrong. Removing complexity from the game does not make it easier for "lesser players" to catch up to "better players". The removal of complexity makes it easier for your opponent to play the game, but it equally makes it easier for you to play the game too. Therefore, the skill required to win remains unchanged.
What do you mean by "lesser player" or "better player"? As I explained in the OP, removing complexity mechanics shifts where skill is needed, but doesn't reduce the skill required. So if we remove the complexity of aiming in CS:GO by introducing auto-aim, the "lesser player" who couldn't aim before is still no better than the "better player" who can aim, if the "lesser player" still has worse positioning skills than the "better player". But if the "lesser player" has more positioning skills than the "better player", then the "lesser player" isn't lesser anymore, he's legitimately the more skilled player now, because CS:GO with auto-aim isn't about the skill of aiming, it's about the skill of positioning.
And positioning is a legitimate skill that can't truly be mastered by humans. If not, then why can't you always win CS:GO with auto-aim? Because, there are people with more positioning skills than you. As I said in the OP, the question is not whether removing features reduces skill (it doesn't), instead it's about what skill the game mechanics emphasize.
The OP just seems confused as the difference in depth and complexity by talking about only complexity when depth actually matters a lot when you talk about skill required for games.
A small number of mechanics with depth can lead to a game requiring significant skill, like Tetris for example. This doesn't mean that complexity isn't important though, the difference between checkers and chess is the addition of slightly more complex mechanics but the results are striking.
There is a nice balance, Dwarf Fortress for example is something highly complex with a lot of depth, the problem there is the complexity is so vast its difficult to see the depth.
My point is simply that you can't really have this discussion of skill and complexity without discussing depth which is why the OP has missed the mark on this one. It's entirely possible to reduce complexity without reducing depth, and this would retain a skill ceiling like the OP suggests, however the removal of complexity may also significantly harm the depth of the game and that would affect the skill required.
On August 18 2014 08:36 Velocirapture wrote: The BIG thing i will say is that removing mechanics reduces clarity in the quality of a player. If a game requires you to do 200 things then a player who can reasonably manage 150 is clearly better than somebody who can only manage 100 and this is how we experience Broodwar. If there are only 3 things to do then everybody will manage to do all of those things at every level and we are forced to subjectively determine skill qualitatively rather than quantitatively.
No, it reduces clarity in the quality of mechanical skills of a player. So if there's an interface to control SC2 with your mind, then the game would require no skill? Of course not, there would still be skill required to create strategies, counter your opponent, and control armies.
Ask yourself this: What does it mean to reduce the skill required to play a competitive game?
The question is NOT "what does it mean to reduce a particular skill (e.g. mechanical skill) required to play a competitive game?", the question is "what does it mean to reduce the skill required to play a competitive game?" as in the overall skills needed to win at the game.
As long as everyone can do something more to improve their play, to increase their wins, then the skill required to play the game hasn't been reduced, because everyone can do more to play better. Thus, what it means to reduce the skill to play a competitive game, must be a situation where some people cannot possibly do anything more to improve their play as they've found an optimal strategy to play the game. Thus we have the Law of Dumbing Down Games: The only way to reduce skill in a competitive game is to change the rules so that there is an optimal strategy satisfying the following 3 conditions: 1. The optimal strategy is implementable by players/teams. 2. When implemented by one player/team, but not the opposing player/team, the player/team that implements the optimal strategy wins. 3. When implemented by both players/teams, the game either results in a draw or is completely determined by luck.
On August 17 2014 13:32 Stratos_speAr wrote: Your entire post runs on the assumption that when you remove a complex mechanic, the skill ceiling still stays at the same height. You even claim that it doesn't lower it, but you never prove this. You simply say that it is so.
You can't just say that "removing X causes more skill to be deposited into doing Y". This discussion is done all the time comparing SC:BW to SC2.
Your argument essentially says, "By adding MBS, people just focus more on positioning and strategy, therefore the overall skill level hasn't diminished".
The skill ceiling for any one game is an aggregate of the skill ceilings for all the individual things that you do in the game. The statement (add MBS = more skill for positioning) assumes that the skill ceiling for positioning/strategy in SC2 is high enough to compensate for the skill that isn't used in macro when compared to BW. However, it's pretty easy to argue that this is false, and that BW actually uses more positioning skill than SC2 does, despite the fact that BW also requires more skill on the macro side of things.
In the end, you're operating under the assumption that each category of skill in a game has a static (and possibly infinite) skill ceiling. This simply is not true. There's only so much you can do in terms of positioning, strategy, micro, macro, etc. in any given game, and many of these categories are met in any given game. You can't just say, "Well people will focus on positioning more and get better at positioning!" if there isn't any better play to be had in that facet of the game.
You have not understood the argument. Games with many complex mechanics can have a very high theoretical skill ceiling, and removing those mechanics can lower the skill ceiling. But lowering the theoretical skill ceiling generally does not dumb down nor make the game require less skill to play, because, as I explained, players are constrained by the finite number of things humans can do, so they can't hit that skill ceiling. It is obvious that lowering a skill ceiling that cannot be hit changes nothing about the skill required to play a game by a human, because they can't hit it anyway.
In a competitive game, if the game is made easier (e.g. multiple unit selection is added), you can still change your play to 1-up your opponent, by focusing more on strategy and less on selecting units, one at a time. If not, then why can't you win 100% of the time? If another mechanic is changed to make it easier (e.g. multiple building selection is added), again you can still change your play to 1-up your opponent, by focusing less on macro and more on micro. This can be repeated indefinitely as long as the skill ceiling doesn't fall below what humans can do. If it does, that's when the Law of Dumbing Down Games applies, and both players can't do anything more to improve their game and increase their chance of winning because they are using the optimal strategy. Only in that case is the game truly dumbed down.
You claim that BW requires both more macro skill and positioning skill than SC2, so that the loss of macro skill in SC2 is not compensated and my argument is wrong. No. Even if BW requires more skill in both, my argument is still correct, because it's not about how each mechanic adds to the "aggregate skill cap", that's irrelevant, it's about whether the aggregate skill cap remains above what is humanly possible. And it is. Thus, the game is no easier because you can't always win as more skilled humans will still beat you.
You also mention some skills, like positioning, cannot be improved any more. If a game was dumbed down so much that it's 100% about positioning (e.g. CS:GO with auto-aim and auto-fire) and positioning really can't be improved by humans (i.e. there is an optimal strategy that satisfies the 3 conditions), then by applying the Law of Dumbing Down Games, it can be concluded that in this case the game is dumbed down and skill has been reduced. But SC2 is not 100% about positioning, and positioning can virtually always be improved, if only slightly. In a game like CS:GO with auto-aim and auto-fire, a slight improvement in skill in positioning can be the difference between winning and losing. But I don't see anyone using this argument that "the game has been reduced to a skill with an optimal strategy, implementable by humans, that cannot be improved", which would be a logical valid argument.
My argument is simple: If a competitive game is dumbed down to require less skill, then why can't you always win? If you can play an optimal strategy that makes it so that you always win or always draw or reduce the game to 100% luck, by the Law of Dumbing Down Games, the game's skill has been reduced. But if you can't, then you don't have an optimal strategy and so there's more you can do to improve your skill further.
tic tac toe when played by two equally skilled played will always end in a cats game
On August 18 2014 17:15 adwodon wrote: The OP just seems confused as the difference in depth and complexity by talking about only complexity when depth actually matters a lot when you talk about skill required for games.
A small number of mechanics with depth can lead to a game requiring significant skill, like Tetris for example. This doesn't mean that complexity isn't important though, the difference between checkers and chess is the addition of slightly more complex mechanics but the results are striking.
There is a nice balance, Dwarf Fortress for example is something highly complex with a lot of depth, the problem there is the complexity is so vast its difficult to see the depth.
My point is simply that you can't really have this discussion of skill and complexity without discussing depth which is why the OP has missed the mark on this one. It's entirely possible to reduce complexity without reducing depth, and this would retain a skill ceiling like the OP suggests, however the removal of complexity may also significantly harm the depth of the game and that would affect the skill required.
You don't seem to make any sense. How does considering "depth" make my argument wrong?
What is "depth"? I would consider it to be how big the set of strategies for the game are. But for most games like SC2, Dota 2, HotS, CS:GO, etc., removing complexity doesn't reduce skill required to play the game because people can always do something more to improve their play and increase their wins. Thus, there must already be huge depth, otherwise, how is it possible that no one has come up with the optimal strategy to win at these games?
Also, checkers is a bad example. It's a solved games so it falls into condition 2 and 3 of the Law of Dumbing Down Games: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solved_game
On August 17 2014 13:32 Stratos_speAr wrote: Your entire post runs on the assumption that when you remove a complex mechanic, the skill ceiling still stays at the same height. You even claim that it doesn't lower it, but you never prove this. You simply say that it is so.
You can't just say that "removing X causes more skill to be deposited into doing Y". This discussion is done all the time comparing SC:BW to SC2.
Your argument essentially says, "By adding MBS, people just focus more on positioning and strategy, therefore the overall skill level hasn't diminished".
The skill ceiling for any one game is an aggregate of the skill ceilings for all the individual things that you do in the game. The statement (add MBS = more skill for positioning) assumes that the skill ceiling for positioning/strategy in SC2 is high enough to compensate for the skill that isn't used in macro when compared to BW. However, it's pretty easy to argue that this is false, and that BW actually uses more positioning skill than SC2 does, despite the fact that BW also requires more skill on the macro side of things.
In the end, you're operating under the assumption that each category of skill in a game has a static (and possibly infinite) skill ceiling. This simply is not true. There's only so much you can do in terms of positioning, strategy, micro, macro, etc. in any given game, and many of these categories are met in any given game. You can't just say, "Well people will focus on positioning more and get better at positioning!" if there isn't any better play to be had in that facet of the game.
You have not understood the argument. Games with many complex mechanics can have a very high theoretical skill ceiling, and removing those mechanics can lower the skill ceiling. But lowering the theoretical skill ceiling generally does not dumb down nor make the game require less skill to play, because, as I explained, players are constrained by the finite number of things humans can do, so they can't hit that skill ceiling. It is obvious that lowering a skill ceiling that cannot be hit changes nothing about the skill required to play a game by a human, because they can't hit it anyway.
In a competitive game, if the game is made easier (e.g. multiple unit selection is added), you can still change your play to 1-up your opponent, by focusing more on strategy and less on selecting units, one at a time. If not, then why can't you win 100% of the time? If another mechanic is changed to make it easier (e.g. multiple building selection is added), again you can still change your play to 1-up your opponent, by focusing less on macro and more on micro. This can be repeated indefinitely as long as the skill ceiling doesn't fall below what humans can do. If it does, that's when the Law of Dumbing Down Games applies, and both players can't do anything more to improve their game and increase their chance of winning because they are using the optimal strategy. Only in that case is the game truly dumbed down.
You claim that BW requires both more macro skill and positioning skill than SC2, so that the loss of macro skill in SC2 is not compensated and my argument is wrong. No. Even if BW requires more skill in both, my argument is still correct, because it's not about how each mechanic adds to the "aggregate skill cap", that's irrelevant, it's about whether the aggregate skill cap remains above what is humanly possible. And it is. Thus, the game is no easier because you can't always win as more skilled humans will still beat you.
You also mention some skills, like positioning, cannot be improved any more. If a game was dumbed down so much that it's 100% about positioning (e.g. CS:GO with auto-aim and auto-fire) and positioning really can't be improved by humans (i.e. there is an optimal strategy that satisfies the 3 conditions), then by applying the Law of Dumbing Down Games, it can be concluded that in this case the game is dumbed down and skill has been reduced. But SC2 is not 100% about positioning, and positioning can virtually always be improved, if only slightly. In a game like CS:GO with auto-aim and auto-fire, a slight improvement in skill in positioning can be the difference between winning and losing. But I don't see anyone using this argument that "the game has been reduced to a skill with an optimal strategy, implementable by humans, that cannot be improved", which would be a logical valid argument.
My argument is simple: If a competitive game is dumbed down to require less skill, then why can't you always win? If you can play an optimal strategy that makes it so that you always win or always draw or reduce the game to 100% luck, by the Law of Dumbing Down Games, the game's skill has been reduced. But if you can't, then you don't have an optimal strategy and so there's more you can do to improve your skill further.
tic tac toe when played by two equally skilled played will always end in a cats game
So skill can be reduced.
That was already addressed in the original post:
Law of Dumbing Down Games The only way to reduce skill in a competitive game is to change the rules so that there is an optimal strategy satisfying the following 3 conditions: 1. The optimal strategy is implementable by players/teams. 2. When implemented by one player/team, but not the opposing player/team, the player/team that implements the optimal strategy wins. 3. When implemented by both players/teams, the game either results in a draw or is completely determined by luck.
Examples include SCV Wars where both players have only 1 SCV (the optimal stratgy is attack) or Tic-tac-toe.
On August 18 2014 11:24 SwatRaven wrote: Just for curiosity's sake did you get any information about this topic from something similar to an academic paper or was this all your own creation?
No, it's simply the conclusion of logical deduction from some basic axioms. However, the whole argument is essentially summarized by the Law of Dumbing Down Games, which in the language of Game Theory applied to real-time video games, basically says that the game is not solved, has no Nash equilibrium, and no optimal strategy.
Interesting post but I think your view as the "opposite view" you describe with your scheme are simply not right both, actually your two scheme will make people not take you seriously as they are too much absolute and so plain wrong. Indeed removing a mechanic in a game does not mean automatically that the skill ceiling is lower but the contrary is also wrong as said this automatically completely shift skills toward other aspects of the game.
There is a reason why game designer scratch their head about mechanics in their game all the time as it is not obvious to wether a mechanic or realistic feature add depth to the game or dumb it down to the point less skill is needed.
I invite you to see the almost 1+ year debate between Star Citizen and Elite: Dangerous on the realistics mechanics and their impact on skill in the space sim genre. The truth has not been told yet and I doubt there is one truth in this domain :D .
It was a good essay also very open to debate! THanks for the try man!
You must either be a troll (weren't you the one who made an argument that Ursa was imba?) or you are just really dense. Assuming the latter, here is why your entire argument is wrong.
On August 17 2014 13:04 paralleluniverse wrote:
The origin of this false belief is simple: people argue that because a mechanic was removed, it is easier to play the game and win. But this is wrong, because in a competitive game, removing a mechanic also makes it easier for your opponent to play the game and win. These two forces exactly cancel out, so in fact, the game is not any easier. The skill required is the same.
In symbols: Your skill: X. Your opponent's skill: Y. If X > Y, then you win. If a complex mechanic is removed, you (incorrectly) think you're better as a result of the game being made easier: Your skill: X+c. Your opponent’s skill: Y, where c>0. But in fact, what's really happened is that: Your skill: X+c. Your opponent’s skill: Y+c, and so the game isn't easier, the skill required to win is completely unchanged.
The fallacy here is that you assume skill levels can grow arbitrarily high. In reality every game has a skill ceiling P where any player whose skill >= P plays a perfect game. So the actual logic goes like this:
Your skill = X. Opponent's skill = Y, where X and Y <= P. Game becomes easier. Your skill becomes min(X+c, P). Opponent's skill becomes min(Y+c, P). Hence there exists values of c (c >= P - min(X, Y)) where, after the change, X and Y will play the same level even if they were originally possessed different skill levels. Which is why people may become worried if competitive games are dumbed down without a good reason.
Try to think about it for a while, it's not that hard.
On August 18 2014 18:05 writer22816 wrote: You must either be a troll (weren't you the one who made an argument that Ursa was imba?) or you are just really dense. Assuming the latter, here is why your entire argument is wrong.
The origin of this false belief is simple: people argue that because a mechanic was removed, it is easier to play the game and win. But this is wrong, because in a competitive game, removing a mechanic also makes it easier for your opponent to play the game and win. These two forces exactly cancel out, so in fact, the game is not any easier. The skill required is the same.
In symbols: Your skill: X. Your opponent's skill: Y. If X > Y, then you win. If a complex mechanic is removed, you (incorrectly) think you're better as a result of the game being made easier: Your skill: X+c. Your opponent’s skill: Y, where c>0. But in fact, what's really happened is that: Your skill: X+c. Your opponent’s skill: Y+c, and so the game isn't easier, the skill required to win is completely unchanged.
The fallacy here is that you assume skill levels can grow arbitrarily high. In reality every game has a skill ceiling P where any player whose skill >= P plays a perfect game. So the actual logic goes like this:
Your skill = X. Opponent's skill = Y, where X and Y <= P. Game becomes easier. Your skill becomes min(X+c, P). Opponent's skill becomes min(Y+c, P). Hence there exists values of c (c >= P - min(X, Y)) where, after the change, X and Y will play the same level even if they were originally possessed different skill levels. Which is why people may become worried if competitive games are dumbed down without a good reason.
Try to think about it for a while, it's not that hard.
Thanks, you've proved my argument:
And in fact, if you would read the OP, the actual skill ceiling is irrelevant to the discussion. The actual skill ceiling does not determine how much skill is required to succeed at the game as long as no one can reach the actual skill ceiling (Law of Dumbing Down Games).
As long as everyone can do something more to improve their play, to increase their wins, then the skill required to play the game hasn't been reduced, because everyone can do more to play better. Thus, what it means to reduce the skill to play a competitive game, must be a situation where some people cannot possibly do anything more to improve their play as they've found an optimal strategy to play the game. Thus we have the Law of Dumbing Down Games: The only way to reduce skill in a competitive game is to change the rules so that there is an optimal strategy satisfying the following 3 conditions: 1. The optimal strategy is implementable by players/teams. 2. When implemented by one player/team, but not the opposing player/team, the player/team that implements the optimal strategy wins. 3. When implemented by both players/teams, the game either results in a draw or is completely determined by luck.
If a competitive game is dumbed down to require less skill, then why can't you always win? If you can play an optimal strategy that makes it so that you always win or always draw or reduce the game to 100% luck, by the Law of Dumbing Down Games, the game's skill has been reduced. But if you can't, then you don't have an optimal strategy and so there's more you can do to improve your skill further.
Which is why allow me to make a long ass longwinded post about why this thread is completely irrelevant and insane
See, this thread is ultimately based on the assumption that skill is a finite resource, that there is a cap of human potential on how well a game can ever be played (a concept which i find unlikely, i do not believe there is any sort of finite potential in humanity, and believing so is rather a bleak outlook, don't you think?).
But let me propose something to you.
Your graph shows a 'highest skill achieveable by humans', but for some reason you compress all the mechanics into there
That is foolish, you mistake that the highest skill achievable is the limit of human skill, and thus things have limited importance, there is a skill cap beyond human potential, those silly SC2 micro bots on youtube.
So these skills can extend far beyond human potential, which creates an interesting quandry
It creates a kind of interplay between players, This guys really good at Macro, but not as good at micro, while this other guy has amazing micro, but is lacking in macro a bit, yet they can both be top players because they're simply at the top of their game in important skills and still good at the rest.
When you reduce the skill to 100% achievable by humans in all areas, as in someone can MASTER the game completely, well all the best players master the game, and then you start to loose distinction between them
This is a problem because ultimately, it leads towards a solved game, games like Checkers, Connect Four, even games like Go have been partially solved
The beauty of a game like Dota or SC2 is that there are so many variables in play, so many insane possibilities that it quite simply, will never be solved, an an unsolvable game is an INTERESTING game, thats why we talk about things like making plays, and innovations in strategy, and the way that games are now updated multiple times a year changes the 'solution' over and over
The more you simplify a game, the more it comes to reach a point where it can be mastered, and ultimately solved. There is a drop in the skill ceiling of a game as you simplify.
HotS is a simpler game than DotA or LoL, anyone can see that, there's less variables at play, its easier to stumble your way towards victory
If a team perfected team play in DotA, there's no way HotS could possibly have more focus on team play than there is available in DotA, thats where the skill ceiling comes in
Skill ceiling is a moving target in these kinds of games, there may be a skill ceiling for a certain skill, but that skill has a different ceiling between games
Basically, your entire thesis is that if i take away the individual pieces from Chess, and make it checkers, that that game of checkers now has more emphasis on positioning on the board, but it is undoubtedly a less skilled game
because you know, Checkers is a solved game.
And I know you include an BUT IF ITS A SOLVED GAME AFTER THAT IT DOESN'T APPLY but thats simply bullshit, lol.
Not all infinities are equal, and the sum of multiple infinities is greater than a single infinity (mathematically provable although it can be hard to get your head around). A theoretically infinite skill ceiling in SC2 is not necessarily equal to a infinite skill ceiling in BW, and a greater number of greater infinities (skill ceilings in various areas, e.g. micro, macro) means a technically greater skill ceiling, even if both are infinite.
I understand your argument because I felt the same way when switching from 'Gunz: The Duel' (top play requiring an APM an order of magnitude above SC2 or BW) to 'Team Fortress 2' - mechanically a simple game but with a very high skill ceiling that no-one is close to reaching. The fact is that they require different types of skill. What makes SC2 and BW uniquely competitive is the fact that many different, high tier and somehow archetypal skillsets (e.g. speed, strategy) are being tested simultaneously. Chess on the other hand pushes one skillset to the extreme. Mathematically the skill ceiling for SC2/BW is higher, but this is not necessarily relevant.
Ultimate it depends on what you want to demonstrate with your competitive gaming. Chess limits the relevance of factors like hand-eye coordination, subsequently maximising the relevance of strategy (depending on the match this can be slow or fast). If you want to prove superiority in hand-eye coordination you might play a fighter or an FPS.
If you want to push your limits on all these fronts at once, you play an RTS like SC2/BW, with BW having the higher skill ceiling because of the demands of its mechanics. You will never succeed in reaching anything close to the strategic depth of high level chess in these games, however.
TLDR; if reduced to a crude number, the skill ceiling of BW > SC2 > Chess - and BW also has a steeper learning curve than chess. However, these games test different skillsets and the strategic depth of BW will never match that of Chess. All sufficiently complex games have infinite skill ceilings for various skillsets, but the sum of these infinities is not equal. Different games test different aspects of human physical/cognitive abilities; SC2/BW are considered more competitive because they test more archetypal skillsets simultaneously.
It's true that chess boxing is not a more skillful activity than either chess or boxing, but this is rather obvious and useless as an observation because all it allows you to do after the addition or removal of any mechanic is to state: this will not necessarily make the game worse or better. Which everyone already knows.
And there are also a lot of ways in which this argument can be abused to defend mangling of any competitive aspect of the game, because if taken to an extreme you're saying that essentially no mechanic has an effect on skill (outside of degenerate cases like tictactoe) and that skill as a dimension of the game is outside of the scope of human observation. Which is contrary to experience.
Equally you can argue that your point is still important, as sometimes it's necessary to state the obvious, but one would hope you could exercise a bit more humility in doing so.
On August 18 2014 18:17 Shaella wrote: Which is why allow me to make a long ass longwinded post about why this thread is completely irrelevant and insane
See, this thread is ultimately based on the assumption that skill is a finite resource, that there is a cap of human potential on how well a game can ever be played (a concept which i find unlikely, i do not believe there is any sort of finite potential in humanity, and believing so is rather a bleak outlook, don't you think?).
But let me propose something to you.
Your graph shows a 'highest skill achieveable by humans', but for some reason you compress all the mechanics into there
That is foolish, you mistake that the highest skill achievable is the limit of human skill, and thus things have limited importance, there is a skill cap beyond human potential, those silly SC2 micro bots on youtube.
So these skills can extend far beyond human potential, which creates an interesting quandry
It creates a kind of interplay between players, This guys really good at Macro, but not as good at micro, while this other guy has amazing micro, but is lacking in macro a bit, yet they can both be top players because they're simply at the top of their game in important skills and still good at the rest.
When you reduce the skill to 100% achievable by humans in all areas, as in someone can MASTER the game completely, well all the best players master the game, and then you start to loose distinction between them
This is a problem because ultimately, it leads towards a solved game, games like Checkers, Connect Four, even games like Go have been partially solved
The beauty of a game like Dota or SC2 is that there are so many variables in play, so many insane possibilities that it quite simply, will never be solved, an an unsolvable game is an INTERESTING game, thats why we talk about things like making plays, and innovations in strategy, and the way that games are now updated multiple times a year changes the 'solution' over and over
The more you simplify a game, the more it comes to reach a point where it can be mastered, and ultimately solved. There is a drop in the skill ceiling of a game as you simplify.
HotS is a simpler game than DotA or LoL, anyone can see that, there's less variables at play, its easier to stumble your way towards victory
If a team perfected team play in DotA, there's no way HotS could possibly have more focus on team play than there is available in DotA, thats where the skill ceiling comes in
Skill ceiling is a moving target in these kinds of games, there may be a skill ceiling for a certain skill, but that skill has a different ceiling between games
Basically, your entire thesis is that if i take away the individual pieces from Chess, and make it checkers, that that game of checkers now has more emphasis on positioning on the board, but it is undoubtedly a less skilled game
because you know, Checkers is a solved game.
And I know you include an BUT IF ITS A SOLVED GAME AFTER THAT IT DOESN'T APPLY but thats simply bullshit, lol.
Those SC2 micro bots proves that SC2 requires just as much skill as SC1, because no one is able to micro that well. If they can, they should almost always win.
The theoretical skill ceiling is irrelevant to the discussion, only what humans can achieve matters. The theoretical skill ceiling does not determine how much skill is required to succeed at the game (that's bounded by what humans can achieve) as long as no one can reach the theoretical skill ceiling.
If humans can always do something more to improve their play, to increase their wins, then by definition, people haven't hit the theoretical skill ceiling. Therefore, the skill required to play the game hasn't been reduced, because everyone can do more to play better. Thus, what it means to reduce the skill required to play a competitive game, must be a situation where some people cannot possibly do anything more to improve their play as they've found an optimal strategy to play the game. Thus we have the Law of Dumbing Down Games: The only way to reduce skill in a competitive game is to change the rules so that there is an optimal strategy satisfying the following 3 conditions: 1. The optimal strategy is implementable by players/teams. 2. When implemented by one player/team, but not the opposing player/team, the player/team that implements the optimal strategy wins. 3. When implemented by both players/teams, the game either results in a draw or is completely determined by luck.
You say that we don't want games to be solved. Well, that's exactly what the Law of Dumbing Down Games says. If a game was solved if would fall into condition 2 and 3.
But HotS is not a solved game. If you think it is, then tell us the optimal strategy that gives your team a 100% win/draw rate.
On August 18 2014 18:41 Shaella wrote: wow way to not listen to what i said whatever you're a loony that can't be convinced otherwise, they're always out there.
But i'm sure you're an expert. I mean, you sure know that Ursa and Riki are gamebreaking
Here's another hint on why this discussion is silly
Game design is subjective.
I read exactly what you said. You didn't read.
Your argument is that we don't want the game to be solved. Well, I said the exact same thing in the OP. But you failed to read.
So now not only do you admit that, what was at the time, a 60% win rate (worse than virtually any imbalance in SC2 ever) is just fine, you also can't read, and have failed to provide us with the optimal strategy to the solved game of Heroes of the Storm.
On August 18 2014 03:46 Tephus wrote: And now, from the guy who brought you 'Riki and Ursa are op' after becoming an expert after 1 month of play, the guy who literally comes from a not-so-parallel universe, comes another awful argument that wont convince anyone!
I wonder what's next for our hero!
What's this? Another Dota 2 fanboy that can't admit that he's wrong. Even back when they had a win rate of around 60% (worse than essentially the greatest imbalances in SC2), you still couldn't admit any fault with Dota 2. Let me address those awful counter-arguments you've given to debunk the OP. Oh wait, there's no counter-arguments at all. No substance. Because I'm right, you're not, and you've provided nothing at all.
You're basing your entire deluded theory that Riki and Ursa are op on the contextless statistic that is a 60% winrate? Let's look at TI4 winrates: Riki: 3 picks, 0% winrate Ursa: 15 picks, 53.3% winrate ok you're right, totally op.
Oh but you said "back when they had a winrate of around 60%", so I guess you were talking about how op they were before they were nerfed. Except pretty much every change they've had in the past 2 years have been buffs.
Are you saying that game design should be around removing frivolous mechanics until the skill ceiling is just a bit above what the most skilled player can achieve?
On August 18 2014 18:05 writer22816 wrote: You must either be a troll (weren't you the one who made an argument that Ursa was imba?) or you are just really dense. Assuming the latter, here is why your entire argument is wrong.
On August 17 2014 13:04 paralleluniverse wrote:
The origin of this false belief is simple: people argue that because a mechanic was removed, it is easier to play the game and win. But this is wrong, because in a competitive game, removing a mechanic also makes it easier for your opponent to play the game and win. These two forces exactly cancel out, so in fact, the game is not any easier. The skill required is the same.
In symbols: Your skill: X. Your opponent's skill: Y. If X > Y, then you win. If a complex mechanic is removed, you (incorrectly) think you're better as a result of the game being made easier: Your skill: X+c. Your opponent’s skill: Y, where c>0. But in fact, what's really happened is that: Your skill: X+c. Your opponent’s skill: Y+c, and so the game isn't easier, the skill required to win is completely unchanged.
The fallacy here is that you assume skill levels can grow arbitrarily high. In reality every game has a skill ceiling P where any player whose skill >= P plays a perfect game. So the actual logic goes like this:
Your skill = X. Opponent's skill = Y, where X and Y <= P. Game becomes easier. Your skill becomes min(X+c, P). Opponent's skill becomes min(Y+c, P). Hence there exists values of c (c >= P - min(X, Y)) where, after the change, X and Y will play the same level even if they were originally possessed different skill levels. Which is why people may become worried if competitive games are dumbed down without a good reason.
Try to think about it for a while, it's not that hard.
And in fact, if you would read the OP, the actual skill ceiling is irrelevant to the discussion. The actual skill ceiling does not determine how much skill is required to succeed at the game as long as no one can reach the actual skill ceiling (Law of Dumbing Down Games).
As long as everyone can do something more to improve their play, to increase their wins, then the skill required to play the game hasn't been reduced, because everyone can do more to play better. Thus, what it means to reduce the skill to play a competitive game, must be a situation where some people cannot possibly do anything more to improve their play as they've found an optimal strategy to play the game. Thus we have the Law of Dumbing Down Games: The only way to reduce skill in a competitive game is to change the rules so that there is an optimal strategy satisfying the following 3 conditions: 1. The optimal strategy is implementable by players/teams. 2. When implemented by one player/team, but not the opposing player/team, the player/team that implements the optimal strategy wins. 3. When implemented by both players/teams, the game either results in a draw or is completely determined by luck.
If a competitive game is dumbed down to require less skill, then why can't you always win? If you can play an optimal strategy that makes it so that you always win or always draw or reduce the game to 100% luck, by the Law of Dumbing Down Games, the game's skill has been reduced. But if you can't, then you don't have an optimal strategy and so there's more you can do to improve your skill further.
lmao. Proving that no one can reach the actual skill ceiling is a nontrivial argument. Which is why people get worried in the first place.
On August 18 2014 03:46 Tephus wrote: And now, from the guy who brought you 'Riki and Ursa are op' after becoming an expert after 1 month of play, the guy who literally comes from a not-so-parallel universe, comes another awful argument that wont convince anyone!
I wonder what's next for our hero!
What's this? Another Dota 2 fanboy that can't admit that he's wrong. Even back when they had a win rate of around 60% (worse than essentially the greatest imbalances in SC2), you still couldn't admit any fault with Dota 2. Let me address those awful counter-arguments you've given to debunk the OP. Oh wait, there's no counter-arguments at all. No substance. Because I'm right, you're not, and you've provided nothing at all.
You're basing your entire deluded theory that Riki and Ursa are op on the contextless statistic that is a 60% winrate? Let's look at TI4 winrates: Riki: 3 picks, 0% winrate Ursa: 15 picks, 53.3% winrate ok you're right, totally op.
Oh but you said "back when they had a winrate of around 60%", so I guess you were talking about how op they were before they were nerfed. Except pretty much every change they've had in the past 2 years have been buffs.
I showed in that thread your talking about, that at the time, they had a win rate around 60%, which is worse than virtually any imbalance ever in the history of SC2. The metagame has changed since then. But here we have a fanboy who can't admit a win rate around 60%, which is worse than virtually any imbalance ever in the history of SC2, is overpowered, and is still obsessed over being completely wrong about everything.
Are you saying that game design should be around removing frivolous mechanics until the skill ceiling is just a bit above what the most skilled player can achieve?
No.
I said: "mechanics should not be chosen to increase or reduce skill required, because virtually every mechanic will have no effect on skill required [as long as the theoretical skill ceiling is above what humans can achieve]. Instead mechanics should be chosen based on whether they are fun, interesting to watch, and fits with the design goals of the game."
On August 18 2014 18:05 writer22816 wrote: You must either be a troll (weren't you the one who made an argument that Ursa was imba?) or you are just really dense. Assuming the latter, here is why your entire argument is wrong.
On August 17 2014 13:04 paralleluniverse wrote:
The origin of this false belief is simple: people argue that because a mechanic was removed, it is easier to play the game and win. But this is wrong, because in a competitive game, removing a mechanic also makes it easier for your opponent to play the game and win. These two forces exactly cancel out, so in fact, the game is not any easier. The skill required is the same.
In symbols: Your skill: X. Your opponent's skill: Y. If X > Y, then you win. If a complex mechanic is removed, you (incorrectly) think you're better as a result of the game being made easier: Your skill: X+c. Your opponent’s skill: Y, where c>0. But in fact, what's really happened is that: Your skill: X+c. Your opponent’s skill: Y+c, and so the game isn't easier, the skill required to win is completely unchanged.
The fallacy here is that you assume skill levels can grow arbitrarily high. In reality every game has a skill ceiling P where any player whose skill >= P plays a perfect game. So the actual logic goes like this:
Your skill = X. Opponent's skill = Y, where X and Y <= P. Game becomes easier. Your skill becomes min(X+c, P). Opponent's skill becomes min(Y+c, P). Hence there exists values of c (c >= P - min(X, Y)) where, after the change, X and Y will play the same level even if they were originally possessed different skill levels. Which is why people may become worried if competitive games are dumbed down without a good reason.
Try to think about it for a while, it's not that hard.
Thanks, you've proved my argument:
And in fact, if you would read the OP, the actual skill ceiling is irrelevant to the discussion. The actual skill ceiling does not determine how much skill is required to succeed at the game as long as no one can reach the actual skill ceiling (Law of Dumbing Down Games).
As long as everyone can do something more to improve their play, to increase their wins, then the skill required to play the game hasn't been reduced, because everyone can do more to play better. Thus, what it means to reduce the skill to play a competitive game, must be a situation where some people cannot possibly do anything more to improve their play as they've found an optimal strategy to play the game. Thus we have the Law of Dumbing Down Games: The only way to reduce skill in a competitive game is to change the rules so that there is an optimal strategy satisfying the following 3 conditions: 1. The optimal strategy is implementable by players/teams. 2. When implemented by one player/team, but not the opposing player/team, the player/team that implements the optimal strategy wins. 3. When implemented by both players/teams, the game either results in a draw or is completely determined by luck.
If a competitive game is dumbed down to require less skill, then why can't you always win? If you can play an optimal strategy that makes it so that you always win or always draw or reduce the game to 100% luck, by the Law of Dumbing Down Games, the game's skill has been reduced. But if you can't, then you don't have an optimal strategy and so there's more you can do to improve your skill further.
lmao. Proving that no one can reach the actual skill ceiling is a nontrivial argument. Which is why people get worried in the first place.
Thank you, you've proven my argument.
It's trivial. Observe that no one consistently has a 100% win/draw rate and that no one has an optimal strategy. QED.
When people play like this, then you can start to worry:
On August 18 2014 03:46 Tephus wrote: And now, from the guy who brought you 'Riki and Ursa are op' after becoming an expert after 1 month of play, the guy who literally comes from a not-so-parallel universe, comes another awful argument that wont convince anyone!
I wonder what's next for our hero!
What's this? Another Dota 2 fanboy that can't admit that he's wrong. Even back when they had a win rate of around 60% (worse than essentially the greatest imbalances in SC2), you still couldn't admit any fault with Dota 2. Let me address those awful counter-arguments you've given to debunk the OP. Oh wait, there's no counter-arguments at all. No substance. Because I'm right, you're not, and you've provided nothing at all.
You're basing your entire deluded theory that Riki and Ursa are op on the contextless statistic that is a 60% winrate? Let's look at TI4 winrates: Riki: 3 picks, 0% winrate Ursa: 15 picks, 53.3% winrate ok you're right, totally op.
Oh but you said "back when they had a winrate of around 60%", so I guess you were talking about how op they were before they were nerfed. Except pretty much every change they've had in the past 2 years have been buffs.
I showed in that thread your talking about, that at the time, they had a win rate around 60%, which is worse than virtually any imbalance ever in the history of SC2. The metagame has changed since then. But here we have a fanboy who can't admit a win rate around 60%, which is worse than virtually any imbalance ever in the history of SC2, is overpowered, and is still obsessed over being completely wrong about everything.
Are you saying that game design should be around removing frivolous mechanics until the skill ceiling is just a bit above what the most skilled player can achieve?
No.
I said: "mechanics should not be chosen to increase or reduce skill required, because virtually every mechanic will have no effect on skill required [as long as the theoretical skill ceiling is above what humans can achieve]. Instead mechanics should be chosen based on whether they are fun, interesting to watch, and fits with the design goals of the game."
don't think Ursa and Riki ever had a 60% competetive winrate at that time.
even if they have, their pick rate is so low as to be irrelevant.
On August 18 2014 18:41 Shaella wrote: wow way to not listen to what i said whatever you're a loony that can't be convinced otherwise, they're always out there.
But i'm sure you're an expert. I mean, you sure know that Ursa and Riki are gamebreaking
Here's another hint on why this discussion is silly
Game design is subjective.
I read exactly what you said. You didn't read.
Your argument is that we don't want the game to be solved. Well, I said the exact same thing in the OP. But you failed to read.
So now not only do you admit that, what was at the time, a 60% win rate (worse than virtually any imbalance in SC2 ever) is just fine, you also can't read, and have failed to provide us with the optimal strategy to the solved game of Heroes of the Storm.
You do realise those winrates don't mean anything. They take in account every single game played by every single player, at all skill levels. In different brackets of Dota 2, some heroes are easier to win with due to their simple execution (e.g. Juggernaut or Viper), while they "lose power" in the higher brackets because people are better and know how to counter them.
The same holds true for SC2. Some strategies are stronger in lower level play because people don't know how to deal with it. Hell, I'm sure some Protoss players are still mass gating their way into winning in Bronze and Silver.
In order to have a consistent and meaningful winning rate, you'd have to carefully select like 1000 players of the same skill, put them in the exact same situation, give them the same heroes and items put up against one another, and see what happens. Virtually impossible.
I truly don't understand how you can believe yourself to be right when everybody keeps slamming you on the head with arguments to counter you biased views. How about you address some of the other points made in the thread to give yourself more credibility?
Such as: is Riki truly OP? If so, why? Same goes for Ursa. Let us see those graphics!
Also, it's ludicrous to ask someone to come up with a 100% winning strategy in HotS when they most likely don't have access to the game. What game has 100% winning strategy anyway? I have very little knowledge of Chess, but I do know it has deep strategy to it, and I'm sure there are some that have more merits. The thing is: in Chess, both players have the exact same units and have access to the same possibilities.
This does not transfer over to games like Dota 2, HotS and SC2, where players do not always play the exact same units. In SC2 it's possible, but in Dota 2 it is not. One thing your "law" leaves out is personal skill, the difference of skill that exists between every player, and the interactions between the heroes/races they choose.
Let's say I'm playing Dota 2. I choose Tiny and, for some reason, want to go mid. My opponent chooses Viper. I get my balls torn apart. Does that mean Viper is OP? Even in that scenario, I'm sure some Tiny players will manage to win, simply because they are better. Meaning that even in this incredibly unbalanced match-up, a 100% winning strategy is not achievable.
I ask you again, all opinions put aside and answering only with true facts: how can you believe you are right?
On August 18 2014 03:46 Tephus wrote: And now, from the guy who brought you 'Riki and Ursa are op' after becoming an expert after 1 month of play, the guy who literally comes from a not-so-parallel universe, comes another awful argument that wont convince anyone!
I wonder what's next for our hero!
What's this? Another Dota 2 fanboy that can't admit that he's wrong. Even back when they had a win rate of around 60% (worse than essentially the greatest imbalances in SC2), you still couldn't admit any fault with Dota 2. Let me address those awful counter-arguments you've given to debunk the OP. Oh wait, there's no counter-arguments at all. No substance. Because I'm right, you're not, and you've provided nothing at all.
You're basing your entire deluded theory that Riki and Ursa are op on the contextless statistic that is a 60% winrate? Let's look at TI4 winrates: Riki: 3 picks, 0% winrate Ursa: 15 picks, 53.3% winrate ok you're right, totally op.
Oh but you said "back when they had a winrate of around 60%", so I guess you were talking about how op they were before they were nerfed. Except pretty much every change they've had in the past 2 years have been buffs.
I showed in that thread your talking about, that at the time, they had a win rate around 60%, which is worse than virtually any imbalance ever in the history of SC2. The metagame has changed since then. But here we have a fanboy who can't admit a win rate around 60%, which is worse than virtually any imbalance ever in the history of SC2, is overpowered, and is still obsessed over being completely wrong about everything.
Are you saying that game design should be around removing frivolous mechanics until the skill ceiling is just a bit above what the most skilled player can achieve?
No.
I said: "mechanics should not be chosen to increase or reduce skill required, because virtually every mechanic will have no effect on skill required [as long as the theoretical skill ceiling is above what humans can achieve]. Instead mechanics should be chosen based on whether they are fun, interesting to watch, and fits with the design goals of the game."
lol. Again you point at a naked 60% winrate stat and claim imbalance. Competitive games are and should be balanced around the highest levels of play. Heroes like Ursa and Riki stomp low skilled players, and to a lesser extent, uncoordinated but higher skilled players. That does not make them overpowered. You say the meta has changed since then, and the heroes are no longer overpowered. What? Both heroes have received buffs in the past year. If what has caused their nerf is a change in meta, then surely there was nothing wrong with the heroes themselves in the first place?
Everyone in this thread is saying you're wrong, yet you continue. Either you're some sort of enlightened illuminati who knows more than we do, or you're hopelessly arrogant and deluded.
On August 18 2014 18:17 Shaella wrote: Which is why allow me to make a long ass longwinded post about why this thread is completely irrelevant and insane
See, this thread is ultimately based on the assumption that skill is a finite resource, that there is a cap of human potential on how well a game can ever be played (a concept which i find unlikely, i do not believe there is any sort of finite potential in humanity, and believing so is rather a bleak outlook, don't you think?).
But let me propose something to you.
Your graph shows a 'highest skill achieveable by humans', but for some reason you compress all the mechanics into there
That is foolish, you mistake that the highest skill achievable is the limit of human skill, and thus things have limited importance, there is a skill cap beyond human potential, those silly SC2 micro bots on youtube.
So these skills can extend far beyond human potential, which creates an interesting quandry
It creates a kind of interplay between players, This guys really good at Macro, but not as good at micro, while this other guy has amazing micro, but is lacking in macro a bit, yet they can both be top players because they're simply at the top of their game in important skills and still good at the rest.
When you reduce the skill to 100% achievable by humans in all areas, as in someone can MASTER the game completely, well all the best players master the game, and then you start to loose distinction between them
This is a problem because ultimately, it leads towards a solved game, games like Checkers, Connect Four, even games like Go have been partially solved
The beauty of a game like Dota or SC2 is that there are so many variables in play, so many insane possibilities that it quite simply, will never be solved, an an unsolvable game is an INTERESTING game, thats why we talk about things like making plays, and innovations in strategy, and the way that games are now updated multiple times a year changes the 'solution' over and over
The more you simplify a game, the more it comes to reach a point where it can be mastered, and ultimately solved. There is a drop in the skill ceiling of a game as you simplify.
HotS is a simpler game than DotA or LoL, anyone can see that, there's less variables at play, its easier to stumble your way towards victory
If a team perfected team play in DotA, there's no way HotS could possibly have more focus on team play than there is available in DotA, thats where the skill ceiling comes in
Skill ceiling is a moving target in these kinds of games, there may be a skill ceiling for a certain skill, but that skill has a different ceiling between games
Basically, your entire thesis is that if i take away the individual pieces from Chess, and make it checkers, that that game of checkers now has more emphasis on positioning on the board, but it is undoubtedly a less skilled game
because you know, Checkers is a solved game.
And I know you include an BUT IF ITS A SOLVED GAME AFTER THAT IT DOESN'T APPLY but thats simply bullshit, lol.
While I do think that the OP's argument has some flaws, I have something to point out in your arguments:
1. Checker is "weakly solved" by a computer. The result if the all the moves are optimal, then the result will be a draw. This would follow the OP's proposed law.
Also, we need to be clear on OP's assumption too. I do think that OP's assumption is that the game's absolute skill ceiling is unreachable by any human therefore is irrelevant to the discussion. However, I do think that OP needs to clearly state this assumption as his most important argument.
Moreover, most of the solved games are done by computer algorithm that has far superior computational power than human. In this case, the absolute skill ceiling becomes relevant because it becomes reachable. So I think OP has to make another assumption that the game will only be attempted to solve by human, or that the skill ceiling of competitive games is unreachable even with computer programming.
2. Go is partially and weakly solved on 5x5 board. Go is a very bad example in this case because it is weakly solved on a smallest possible board that is not play competitively.
Overall, I kinda agree with the OP's argument but I think he should present it in a better way (like bardtown). Also, an attack on OP's claim on what he said about OP heroes in the past is kinda irrelevant to the argument here. I feel it is more like ad honiem argument that does not contribute to the debate.
On August 18 2014 19:05 Veldril wrote: Overall, I kinda agree with the OP's argument but I think he should present it in a better way (like bardtown). Also, an attack on OP's claim on what he said about OP heroes in the past is kinda irrelevant to the argument here. I feel it is more like ad honiem argument that does not contribute to the debate.
Because he seems to be the authority on what are pointless gimmicks and restrictions in moba games, deriving his idea of what are "real" moba skills from his own shitty experiences in mobas.
On August 18 2014 19:05 Veldril wrote: Overall, I kinda agree with the OP's argument but I think he should present it in a better way (like bardtown). Also, an attack on OP's claim on what he said about OP heroes in the past is kinda irrelevant to the argument here. I feel it is more like ad honiem argument that does not contribute to the debate.
Because he seems to be the authority on what are pointless gimmicks and restrictions in moba games, deriving his idea of what are "real" moba skills from his own shitty experiences in mobas.
That is another argument but I don't think it is his argument in the OP. And I do think he is wrong in that part and that the argument about gimmicks and restrictions is also invalidated by his argument in this thread.
If the subtraction of mechanics does not change the overall skill in competitive play, therefore adding mechanics to a game would also not change the level of skill. It would merely shift other skills required in the game to mechanical skill.
Of course this would base on the assumption that the absolute skill ceiling of the game is unreachable by any human.
On August 18 2014 11:24 SwatRaven wrote: Just for curiosity's sake did you get any information about this topic from something similar to an academic paper or was this all your own creation?
No, it's simply the conclusion of logical deduction from some basic axioms. However, the whole argument is essentially summarized by the Law of Dumbing Down Games, which in the language of Game Theory applied to real-time video games, basically says that the game is not solved, has no Nash equilibrium, and no optimal strategy.
Translation: I made all this bullshit up. But I will use the words logical deduction to all unearned authority to my personal opinion.
And to those complaining that people are being to agressive with the OP, he is well knowing for making this argument. A lot of people are tired of have the same argument with the same person, who never listens and just calls people fanboys when he loses the argument.
His argument is not real support for anything, it's only broadly applicable to negate obviously stupid ideas on game design.
What's his endgame? There has to be more to it than this purely abstract argument. Is it entirely about his dislike of last hitting or something?
Also, p.u. fails to recognize that automaton bots aren't that great as an argument because it doesn't take into account the stereotype of sc2 as having only one fight per game that lasts only five seconds. Frequently the outcome is predetermined according to composition, and not every race has marines that allow them to micro like this to begin with. In this scenario there is still an infinite skill ceiling, but it's a rather pointless observation as anyone can tell there is something really wrong with the ability of players to express their skill in this game. (Not saying sc2 is like this)
his endgame is to prove to us all the HotS is the superior game, and that it is not merely enough for heros of the storm to succeed, but DotA and LoL must fail
because he's butthurt about it. Maybe he's a blizzard fanboy?
On August 18 2014 19:27 Grumbels wrote: His argument is not real support for anything, it's only broadly applicable to negate obviously stupid ideas on game design.
What's his endgame? There has to be more to it than this purely abstract argument. Is it entirely about his dislike of last hitting or something?
Read the last 4-5 pages on the Heroes of the Storm thread. You'll understand.
Man this guy is the best, all his arguments end up being "I'm right, you're just wrong and refuse to read what i've written" The world is wrong and he is right. I mean you could spend all the time in the world coming up with good arguments and show him how he's looking at it the wrong way or that he's failing to understand an aspect, but in the end you'll still be wrong.
He stopped making this argument in the Heroes thread because people had to much evidence to cite of all of his flawed arguments.
Seriously, logical deduction cannot be the bases of an argument. Science and law don't allow you to just say "its logical that this is true, therefore it is" and then tell everyone they are wrong or the case they cite is invalid because of some rule you made up.
I just think that for a guy who sounds like he's writing a thesis and sleeps with a thesaurus, and who really likes graphs, he takes a really shallow approach when it comes to analysing winrate percentages.
On May 12 2012 22:02 paralleluniverse wrote: There seems to be increased talk about ways to beat Ursa in the last several posts, but this is all irrelevant. As I've said, balance isn't about strategies or counters, it's about probability and statistics.
how can we possibly take him seriously? Because kiting a melee hero in dota is fucking rocket science and never happens every.
Also, those graphs are un-fucking-readable. He clearly thinks that if he adds a bullshit graph to any discussion, it makes his opinion fact.
On August 18 2014 18:41 Shaella wrote: wow way to not listen to what i said whatever you're a loony that can't be convinced otherwise, they're always out there.
But i'm sure you're an expert. I mean, you sure know that Ursa and Riki are gamebreaking
Here's another hint on why this discussion is silly
Game design is subjective.
I read exactly what you said. You didn't read.
Your argument is that we don't want the game to be solved. Well, I said the exact same thing in the OP. But you failed to read.
So now not only do you admit that, what was at the time, a 60% win rate (worse than virtually any imbalance in SC2 ever) is just fine, you also can't read, and have failed to provide us with the optimal strategy to the solved game of Heroes of the Storm.
You do realise those winrates don't mean anything. They take in account every single game played by every single player, at all skill levels. In different brackets of Dota 2, some heroes are easier to win with due to their simple execution (e.g. Juggernaut or Viper), while they "lose power" in the higher brackets because people are better and know how to counter them.
The same holds true for SC2. Some strategies are stronger in lower level play because people don't know how to deal with it. Hell, I'm sure some Protoss players are still mass gating their way into winning in Bronze and Silver.
In order to have a consistent and meaningful winning rate, you'd have to carefully select like 1000 players of the same skill, put them in the exact same situation, give them the same heroes and items put up against one another, and see what happens. Virtually impossible.
I truly don't understand how you can believe yourself to be right when everybody keeps slamming you on the head with arguments to counter you biased views. How about you address some of the other points made in the thread to give yourself more credibility?
Such as: is Riki truly OP? If so, why? Same goes for Ursa. Let us see those graphics!
Also, it's ludicrous to ask someone to come up with a 100% winning strategy in HotS when they most likely don't have access to the game. What game has 100% winning strategy anyway? I have very little knowledge of Chess, but I do know it has deep strategy to it, and I'm sure there are some that have more merits. The thing is: in Chess, both players have the exact same units and have access to the same possibilities.
This does not transfer over to games like Dota 2, HotS and SC2, where players do not always play the exact same units. In SC2 it's possible, but in Dota 2 it is not. One thing your "law" leaves out is personal skill, the difference of skill that exists between every player, and the interactions between the heroes/races they choose.
Let's say I'm playing Dota 2. I choose Tiny and, for some reason, want to go mid. My opponent chooses Viper. I get my balls torn apart. Does that mean Viper is OP? Even in that scenario, I'm sure some Tiny players will manage to win, simply because they are better. Meaning that even in this incredibly unbalanced match-up, a 100% winning strategy is not achievable.
I ask you again, all opinions put aside and answering only with true facts: how can you believe you are right?
Win rates for top players tend to be more skewed than for all players due to MMR.
No one has countered my arguments, and I have addressed all relevant arguments (if you don't think so, then point out what relevant argument you want me to address). In fact, I've got some of the Dota 2 fanboys above to accept that the skill required to play games is always equal as long as no human can reach the theoretical skill ceiling, because there is more that people can do to improve their play, which is basically the whole point of the OP. Now they're in the ridiculous position of proving that people can hit the skill ceiling. No one has done so.
I asked for an optimal strategy, so it can be 100% win or draw. You ask what game has such a strategy: Tic-tac-toe and checkers, for example.
In your example, you don't have a 100% win/draw rate, so you can do more to improve your play. As everyone can do something more to improve their play, to increase their wins, then the skill required to play the game hasn't been reduced, because everyone can do more to play better. Thus, what it means to reduce the skill to play a competitive game, must be a situation where some people cannot possibly do anything more to improve their play as they've found an optimal strategy. You have given no such strategy.
On August 18 2014 18:26 Grumbels wrote: It's true that chess boxing is not a more skillful activity than either chess or boxing, but this is rather obvious and useless as an observation because all it allows you to do after the addition or removal of any mechanic is to state: this will not necessarily make the game worse or better. Which everyone already knows.
Yes, it should be obvious. But it's not obvious to Dota 2 fanboys when it comes to last hitting. They're too blinded by their fanboyism.
And there are also a lot of ways in which this argument can be abused to defend mangling of any competitive aspect of the game, because if taken to an extreme you're saying that essentially no mechanic has an effect on skill (outside of degenerate cases like tictactoe) and that skill as a dimension of the game is outside of the scope of human observation.
This is correct, except for the part where you say "that skill as a dimension of the game is outside of the scope of human observation." I never said that. Yes, you can remove almost anything without affecting the skill required to play the game. But that's why as I said in the OP: "mechanics should not be chosen to increase or reduce skill required, because virtually every mechanic will have no effect on skill required. Instead mechanics should be chosen based on whether they are fun, interesting to watch, and fits with the design goals of the game."
Blah blah blah, everyone who disagrees with me is a fan boy. Also, I will make broad statements with little context or follow up like "Win rates for top players tend to be more skewed than for all players due to MMR." Why point out the direction they are skewed in? Or what this means in context to the discussion? Fuck that, Im going to just say "no one has countered my arguments" again, because its easy and makes me right.
I would make substantive arguments, but past interactions with you have proven to me that you will simply disregard all of them, or deem them irrelevant due to your personal rule set.
On August 18 2014 18:41 Shaella wrote: wow way to not listen to what i said whatever you're a loony that can't be convinced otherwise, they're always out there.
But i'm sure you're an expert. I mean, you sure know that Ursa and Riki are gamebreaking
Here's another hint on why this discussion is silly
Game design is subjective.
I read exactly what you said. You didn't read.
Your argument is that we don't want the game to be solved. Well, I said the exact same thing in the OP. But you failed to read.
So now not only do you admit that, what was at the time, a 60% win rate (worse than virtually any imbalance in SC2 ever) is just fine, you also can't read, and have failed to provide us with the optimal strategy to the solved game of Heroes of the Storm.
You do realise those winrates don't mean anything. They take in account every single game played by every single player, at all skill levels. In different brackets of Dota 2, some heroes are easier to win with due to their simple execution (e.g. Juggernaut or Viper), while they "lose power" in the higher brackets because people are better and know how to counter them.
The same holds true for SC2. Some strategies are stronger in lower level play because people don't know how to deal with it. Hell, I'm sure some Protoss players are still mass gating their way into winning in Bronze and Silver.
In order to have a consistent and meaningful winning rate, you'd have to carefully select like 1000 players of the same skill, put them in the exact same situation, give them the same heroes and items put up against one another, and see what happens. Virtually impossible.
I truly don't understand how you can believe yourself to be right when everybody keeps slamming you on the head with arguments to counter you biased views. How about you address some of the other points made in the thread to give yourself more credibility?
Such as: is Riki truly OP? If so, why? Same goes for Ursa. Let us see those graphics!
Also, it's ludicrous to ask someone to come up with a 100% winning strategy in HotS when they most likely don't have access to the game. What game has 100% winning strategy anyway? I have very little knowledge of Chess, but I do know it has deep strategy to it, and I'm sure there are some that have more merits. The thing is: in Chess, both players have the exact same units and have access to the same possibilities.
This does not transfer over to games like Dota 2, HotS and SC2, where players do not always play the exact same units. In SC2 it's possible, but in Dota 2 it is not. One thing your "law" leaves out is personal skill, the difference of skill that exists between every player, and the interactions between the heroes/races they choose.
Let's say I'm playing Dota 2. I choose Tiny and, for some reason, want to go mid. My opponent chooses Viper. I get my balls torn apart. Does that mean Viper is OP? Even in that scenario, I'm sure some Tiny players will manage to win, simply because they are better. Meaning that even in this incredibly unbalanced match-up, a 100% winning strategy is not achievable.
I ask you again, all opinions put aside and answering only with true facts: how can you believe you are right?
Win rates for top players tend to be more skewed than for all players due to MMR.
This is bullshit. Do you know who top players tend to play? Other top players. Why are their winrates skewed? Matches at that level represent the most accurate outcome of interactions between heroes, and should be the basis of any balance analysis.
I'd still like you to tell me how you change the amount of skill required in a game.
I don't see you addressing anything. I see you repeating the same stuff over and over while other people come up with many different answers to your, again, very biased views.
The only real point you've made is that the skill ceiling cannot be reached by any human, and that there is always room for improvement. That pretty much applies to everything, hence the constant, never-ending progress of the human race both in terms of technology and quality of life. But all games have the same skill? That is in no way true. Does that mean a CS:GO pro player should be able to go pro on SC2 as well? Does that mean Bobby Fischer would rock everyone in Dota 2, or to speak your language: in HotS?
Again, tic-tac-toe and checkers give both players access to the same possibilities, the same units, and so on. There are no differences in terms of options available, only decision-making matters. This does not, cannot, and will never apply to games like Dota 2 or HotS, because there are too many variables. Some heroes lose against others, and vice versa. And, again, even in those bad situation of a poor hero match-up, some people do manage to win. Because they are better. I don't know how many times I can repeat myself.
You're not proving anything. Everybody tells you so. Do you pay attention to what is happenig at all?
Lastly, you've stopped answering in the HotS thread, after the many posts addressing your... point of view.
On August 18 2014 18:17 Shaella wrote: Which is why allow me to make a long ass longwinded post about why this thread is completely irrelevant and insane
See, this thread is ultimately based on the assumption that skill is a finite resource, that there is a cap of human potential on how well a game can ever be played (a concept which i find unlikely, i do not believe there is any sort of finite potential in humanity, and believing so is rather a bleak outlook, don't you think?).
But let me propose something to you.
Your graph shows a 'highest skill achieveable by humans', but for some reason you compress all the mechanics into there
That is foolish, you mistake that the highest skill achievable is the limit of human skill, and thus things have limited importance, there is a skill cap beyond human potential, those silly SC2 micro bots on youtube.
So these skills can extend far beyond human potential, which creates an interesting quandry
It creates a kind of interplay between players, This guys really good at Macro, but not as good at micro, while this other guy has amazing micro, but is lacking in macro a bit, yet they can both be top players because they're simply at the top of their game in important skills and still good at the rest.
When you reduce the skill to 100% achievable by humans in all areas, as in someone can MASTER the game completely, well all the best players master the game, and then you start to loose distinction between them
This is a problem because ultimately, it leads towards a solved game, games like Checkers, Connect Four, even games like Go have been partially solved
The beauty of a game like Dota or SC2 is that there are so many variables in play, so many insane possibilities that it quite simply, will never be solved, an an unsolvable game is an INTERESTING game, thats why we talk about things like making plays, and innovations in strategy, and the way that games are now updated multiple times a year changes the 'solution' over and over
The more you simplify a game, the more it comes to reach a point where it can be mastered, and ultimately solved. There is a drop in the skill ceiling of a game as you simplify.
HotS is a simpler game than DotA or LoL, anyone can see that, there's less variables at play, its easier to stumble your way towards victory
If a team perfected team play in DotA, there's no way HotS could possibly have more focus on team play than there is available in DotA, thats where the skill ceiling comes in
Skill ceiling is a moving target in these kinds of games, there may be a skill ceiling for a certain skill, but that skill has a different ceiling between games
Basically, your entire thesis is that if i take away the individual pieces from Chess, and make it checkers, that that game of checkers now has more emphasis on positioning on the board, but it is undoubtedly a less skilled game
because you know, Checkers is a solved game.
And I know you include an BUT IF ITS A SOLVED GAME AFTER THAT IT DOESN'T APPLY but thats simply bullshit, lol.
While I do think that the OP's argument has some flaws, I have something to point out in your arguments:
1. Checker is "weakly solved" by a computer. The result if the all the moves are optimal, then the result will be a draw. This would follow the OP's proposed law.
Also, we need to be clear on OP's assumption too. I do think that OP's assumption is that the game's absolute skill ceiling is unreachable by any human therefore is irrelevant to the discussion. However, I do think that OP needs to clearly state this assumption as his most important argument.
Moreover, most of the solved games are done by computer algorithm that has far superior computational power than human. In this case, the absolute skill ceiling becomes relevant because it becomes reachable. So I think OP has to make another assumption that the game will only be attempted to solve by human, or that the skill ceiling of competitive games is unreachable even with computer programming.
2. Go is partially and weakly solved on 5x5 board. Go is a very bad example in this case because it is weakly solved on a smallest possible board that is not play competitively.
Overall, I kinda agree with the OP's argument but I think he should present it in a better way (like bardtown). Also, an attack on OP's claim on what he said about OP heroes in the past is kinda irrelevant to the argument here. I feel it is more like ad honiem argument that does not contribute to the debate.
I agree with most of this.
However, on the solvability of a game by a computer, the relevance to real-time video games is whether the solution is implementable by a human (condition 1). For example, checkers is solvable by a computer, but it's a low skill game because that solution is implementable by a human (let the computer calculate your move, then copy that move), but a solution to SC2 (which almost certainly doesn't exist) can't be implemented by a human because humans physically can't micro like a computer, so it's not a low skill game.
On August 18 2014 19:05 Veldril wrote: Overall, I kinda agree with the OP's argument but I think he should present it in a better way (like bardtown). Also, an attack on OP's claim on what he said about OP heroes in the past is kinda irrelevant to the argument here. I feel it is more like ad honiem argument that does not contribute to the debate.
Because he seems to be the authority on what are pointless gimmicks and restrictions in moba games, deriving his idea of what are "real" moba skills from his own shitty experiences in mobas.
If the subtraction of mechanics does not change the overall skill in competitive play, therefore adding mechanics to a game would also not change the level of skill. It would merely shift other skills required in the game to mechanical skill.
Of course this would base on the assumption that the absolute skill ceiling of the game is unreachable by any human.
The idea that removing mechanics doesn't change overall "skill" in competitive games so long as attention can be shifted to other areas of the game and so long as that extra attetion can still differentiate "more skilled" from "less skilled" players is not an unreasonable one, but the problem is that it is conceivable that "decreasing marginal returns" may set in on the leftover areas of the game, so the potential to differentiate players ends up lower even if the theoretical skill ceiling is impossible to reach. Assuming there is a random element to the game (and there always is in games with imperfect information).
Overall, though, the OP is getting way more flak than deserved, then again indirectly arguing against time-honored mechanics is bound to leave some people butthurt.
The problem is, his entire argument is based on the flawed logic that all games require equal skill to play, as long as those games have an unattainable skill ceiling.
On August 18 2014 11:24 SwatRaven wrote: Just for curiosity's sake did you get any information about this topic from something similar to an academic paper or was this all your own creation?
No, it's simply the conclusion of logical deduction from some basic axioms. However, the whole argument is essentially summarized by the Law of Dumbing Down Games, which in the language of Game Theory applied to real-time video games, basically says that the game is not solved, has no Nash equilibrium, and no optimal strategy.
Translation: I made all this bullshit up. But I will use the words logical deduction to all unearned authority to my personal opinion.
And to those complaining that people are being to agressive with the OP, he is well knowing for making this argument. A lot of people are tired of have the same argument with the same person, who never listens and just calls people fanboys when he loses the argument.
I didn't make it up. Start with what it means to reduce the skill required to play a competitive game. As long as everyone can do something more to improve their play, to increase their wins, then the skill required to play the game hasn't been reduced, because everyone can do more to play better. Thus, what it means to reduce the skill to play a competitive game, must be a situation where some people cannot possibly do anything more to improve their play as they've found an optimal strategy to play the game. Thus we have the Law of Dumbing Down Games, as given in the OP. Then everything follows from that.
What's your counter-argument? Right, there is none.
What is there to counter? You're stating the obvious. Please, actually read the posts. The points people are bashing on you for are different than that one.
On August 18 2014 11:24 SwatRaven wrote: Just for curiosity's sake did you get any information about this topic from something similar to an academic paper or was this all your own creation?
No, it's simply the conclusion of logical deduction from some basic axioms. However, the whole argument is essentially summarized by the Law of Dumbing Down Games, which in the language of Game Theory applied to real-time video games, basically says that the game is not solved, has no Nash equilibrium, and no optimal strategy.
Translation: I made all this bullshit up. But I will use the words logical deduction to all unearned authority to my personal opinion.
And to those complaining that people are being to agressive with the OP, he is well knowing for making this argument. A lot of people are tired of have the same argument with the same person, who never listens and just calls people fanboys when he loses the argument.
I didn't make it up. Start with what it means to reduce the skill required to play a competitive game. As long as everyone can do something more to improve their play, to increase their wins, then the skill required to play the game hasn't been reduced, because everyone can do more to play better. Thus, what it means to reduce the skill to play a competitive game, must be a situation where some people cannot possibly do anything more to improve their play as they've found an optimal strategy to play the game. Thus we have the Law of Dumbing Down Games, as given in the OP. Then everything follows from that.
What's your counter-argument? Right, there is none.
Its impossible to argue against you, you just ignore people who provide evidence contrary to your opinion.
Also, YOU MADE UP THAT LAW. Thats not the basis for an argument. You can't cite your own laws you haven't proven. Just like you can't use a word to define itself.
On August 18 2014 19:27 Grumbels wrote: His argument is not real support for anything, it's only broadly applicable to negate obviously stupid ideas on game design.
Yes, you're correct that it should be obvious. But it's not obvious to Dota 2 fanboys.
What's his endgame? There has to be more to it than this purely abstract argument. Is it entirely about his dislike of last hitting or something?
Also, p.u. fails to recognize that automaton bots aren't that great as an argument because it doesn't take into account the stereotype of sc2 as having only one fight per game that lasts only five seconds. Frequently the outcome is predetermined according to composition, and not every race has marines that allow them to micro like this to begin with. In this scenario there is still an infinite skill ceiling, but it's a rather pointless observation as anyone can tell there is something really wrong with the ability of players to express their skill in this game. (Not saying sc2 is like this)
The outcome of a fight in SC2 can partly be determined by composition, but having the right composition is itself a skill. Something may be wrong with SC2 that it's mostly decided by 1 big deathball fight, but that doesn't make it require less skill, just not the type of skill you think it should be based off. But you seem to have realized this.
On August 18 2014 19:53 Plansix wrote: He stopped making this argument in the Heroes thread because people had to much evidence to cite of all of his flawed arguments.
On August 18 2014 19:53 Plansix wrote: He stopped making this argument in the Heroes thread because people had to much evidence to cite of all of his flawed arguments.
Name one piece of evidence.
Umm... Looking at the thread in question is enough? You've disappeared for the last 3 pages or so, after people, including myself, answered your posts with arguments. I believe that constitutes written evidence, if not proof.
Also, what exactly is your point? Last hitting sucks? Because if so, then damn, that's a whole lot of wasted e-ink for nothing.
On August 18 2014 20:31 Sbrubbles wrote: The idea that removing mechanics doesn't change overall "skill" in competitive games so long as attention can be shifted to other areas of the game and so long as that extra attetion can still differentiate "more skilled" from "less skilled" players is not an unreasonable one, but the problem is that it is conceivable that "decreasing marginal returns" may set in on the leftover areas of the game, so the potential to differentiate players ends up lower even if the theoretical skill ceiling is impossible to reach.
This. His logic, if you strip it down to its most simplistic form, works.
Let's say you have 5 skill points that you can invest into four different mechanics, called A, B, C and D. And let's say all those mechanics have individual ceilings of 10. In one scenario you invest your points as follows: A: 1 B: 2 C: 1 D: 2
Now let's remove mechanic D, we can now spend those 2 points on something else. Fine. You still have spent all your skill points and have not gotten anywhere close to the skill ceiling of the game.
So why aren't games stripped down so that there are only two skills for players to have to master? If you do it right, people will still never reach the skill ceiling. Why not just have pure worker micro in Starcraft? Let the AI build and command your units? Your game can be all about maximising worker efficiency.
On August 18 2014 19:53 Plansix wrote: He stopped making this argument in the Heroes thread because people had to much evidence to cite of all of his flawed arguments.
Name one piece of evidence.
Most people don't attack your argument. Your methodology for making the argument is so shitty that people mostly focus on that. That and the bullshit graphs you put in there that literally mean nothing really hammer home how your argument is nothing more than personal opinion.
Can someone go find his terrible ass, terrible blog about Dota? I need to go to work and couldn't pull it up.
On August 18 2014 18:41 Shaella wrote: wow way to not listen to what i said whatever you're a loony that can't be convinced otherwise, they're always out there.
But i'm sure you're an expert. I mean, you sure know that Ursa and Riki are gamebreaking
Here's another hint on why this discussion is silly
Game design is subjective.
I read exactly what you said. You didn't read.
Your argument is that we don't want the game to be solved. Well, I said the exact same thing in the OP. But you failed to read.
So now not only do you admit that, what was at the time, a 60% win rate (worse than virtually any imbalance in SC2 ever) is just fine, you also can't read, and have failed to provide us with the optimal strategy to the solved game of Heroes of the Storm.
You do realise those winrates don't mean anything. They take in account every single game played by every single player, at all skill levels. In different brackets of Dota 2, some heroes are easier to win with due to their simple execution (e.g. Juggernaut or Viper), while they "lose power" in the higher brackets because people are better and know how to counter them.
The same holds true for SC2. Some strategies are stronger in lower level play because people don't know how to deal with it. Hell, I'm sure some Protoss players are still mass gating their way into winning in Bronze and Silver.
In order to have a consistent and meaningful winning rate, you'd have to carefully select like 1000 players of the same skill, put them in the exact same situation, give them the same heroes and items put up against one another, and see what happens. Virtually impossible.
I truly don't understand how you can believe yourself to be right when everybody keeps slamming you on the head with arguments to counter you biased views. How about you address some of the other points made in the thread to give yourself more credibility?
Such as: is Riki truly OP? If so, why? Same goes for Ursa. Let us see those graphics!
Also, it's ludicrous to ask someone to come up with a 100% winning strategy in HotS when they most likely don't have access to the game. What game has 100% winning strategy anyway? I have very little knowledge of Chess, but I do know it has deep strategy to it, and I'm sure there are some that have more merits. The thing is: in Chess, both players have the exact same units and have access to the same possibilities.
This does not transfer over to games like Dota 2, HotS and SC2, where players do not always play the exact same units. In SC2 it's possible, but in Dota 2 it is not. One thing your "law" leaves out is personal skill, the difference of skill that exists between every player, and the interactions between the heroes/races they choose.
Let's say I'm playing Dota 2. I choose Tiny and, for some reason, want to go mid. My opponent chooses Viper. I get my balls torn apart. Does that mean Viper is OP? Even in that scenario, I'm sure some Tiny players will manage to win, simply because they are better. Meaning that even in this incredibly unbalanced match-up, a 100% winning strategy is not achievable.
I ask you again, all opinions put aside and answering only with true facts: how can you believe you are right?
Win rates for top players tend to be more skewed than for all players due to MMR.
This is bullshit. Do you know who top players tend to play? Other top players. Why are their winrates skewed? Matches at that level represent the most accurate outcome of interactions between heroes, and should be the basis of any balance analysis.
I'd still like you to tell me how you change the amount of skill required in a game.
If we add an overpowered hero in Dota 2 or make a race overpowered, then people who play this hero or race will win more and get higher MMR. Thus, unadjusted win rates tend to be around 50%, and win rates at the top usually tend to be more skewed (more than 50%). This is what Blizzard even states as the reason for releasing skill-adjusted win rates: because everything else is around 50% (if it's not, there's a problem). But this is not on-topic.
I've already stated how to reduce skill required in a game. Go read the OP:
Law of Dumbing Down Games The only way to reduce skill in a competitive game is to change the rules so that there is an optimal strategy satisfying the following 3 conditions: 1. The optimal strategy is implementable by players/teams. 2. When implemented by one player/team, but not the opposing player/team, the player/team that implements the optimal strategy wins. 3. When implemented by both players/teams, the game either results in a draw or is completely determined by luck.
Examples include SCV Wars where both players have only 1 SCV (the optimal stratgy is attack) or Tic-tac-toe.
So skill is reduced, when the game has an optimal strategy, i.e. the skill ceiling is below what is achievable by humans, i.e. people cant do anything more to improve their play, because the game requires low skill.
On August 18 2014 20:31 Sbrubbles wrote: The idea that removing mechanics doesn't change overall "skill" in competitive games so long as attention can be shifted to other areas of the game and so long as that extra attetion can still differentiate "more skilled" from "less skilled" players is not an unreasonable one, but the problem is that it is conceivable that "decreasing marginal returns" may set in on the leftover areas of the game, so the potential to differentiate players ends up lower even if the theoretical skill ceiling is impossible to reach. Assuming there is a random element to the game (and there always is in games with imperfect information).
Overall, though, the OP is getting way more flak than deserved, then again indirectly arguing against time-honored mechanics is bound to leave some people butthurt.
We get it. Your argument is: removing or adding mechanics does not alter the skill level, because one is almost always able to improve oneself with the remaining mechanics. OK, that is overly simple, but obviously true.
The problem is you can't apply that to anything that provides different options of play to all the players.
On August 18 2014 20:46 Spaylz wrote: We get it. Your argument is: removing or adding mechanics does not alter the skill level, because one is almost always able to improve oneself with the remaining mechanics. OK, that is overly simple, but obviously true.
The problem is you can't apply that to anything that provides different options of play to all the players.
And lets be clear, thats not an argument to remove the system or that it is bad. Of course players will find other things to do with their APM. That didn't require the OP to make up some dumb ass dumb rule about Dumbing Down Games.
On August 18 2014 20:09 Spaylz wrote: Yeah.... I looked at the thread, and I was about to quote that.
Such a statement attached to a game where some heroes and strategies clearly counter one another is rather... insane.
If you can't pick heroes and play a strategy to get a 100% win or draw rate (or reduce the game to be 100% based on luck), then you don't have an optimal strategy and there is more you can do to improve your play. Like picking the correct heroes or engaging better in teamfights. So no, you haven't reached the theoretical skill ceiling.
The argument that the only way to prove a skill ceiling can be reached is to have 100% win rate is just play stupid, and beyond flawed. 100% win rates are nearly impossible to reach in the most simple of competitive games.
Exactly. It's not possible to achieve 100% winrate, because there is always someone better than you. Add to that any slump or extremely good shape a player might be in, luck, flukes, and so on...
There are far too many variables, and finding an "optimal strategy" is merely theory that almost always never holds in practice. You can theorize all you want about the perfect Dota 2 or HotS setup, in the end, if the other players are better than you, they will still win.
On August 18 2014 20:22 Spaylz wrote: I don't see you addressing anything. I see you repeating the same stuff over and over while other people come up with many different answers to your, again, very biased views.
The only real point you've made is that the skill ceiling cannot be reached by any human, and that there is always room for improvement. That pretty much applies to everything, hence the constant, never-ending progress of the human race both in terms of technology and quality of life. But all games have the same skill? That is in no way true. Does that mean a CS:GO pro player should be able to go pro on SC2 as well? Does that mean Bobby Fischer would rock everyone in Dota 2, or to speak your language: in HotS?
Again, tic-tac-toe and checkers give both players access to the same possibilities, the same units, and so on. There are no differences in terms of options available, only decision-making matters. This does not, cannot, and will never apply to games like Dota 2 or HotS, because there are too many variables. Some heroes lose against others, and vice versa. And, again, even in those bad situation of a poor hero match-up, some people do manage to win. Because they are better. I don't know how many times I can repeat myself.
You're not proving anything. Everybody tells you so. Do you pay attention to what is happenig at all?
Lastly, you've stopped answering in the HotS thread, after the many posts addressing your... point of view.
You haven't read the OP properly. If all games require the same amount of skill, it does not mean that SC2 players can go pro in CS:GO, because they require different skills, SC2 requires skills in macro, CS:GO requires skill in aiming.
If changes were made to SC2 so that it becomes CS:GO or multiple unit selection were removed, then the skills required will shift, but the overall skill required will stay the same.
This is already stated in the OP:
Humans can only do a finite number of things at one time. So, for example, removing pointless gimmicks and restrictions in MOBAs frees players to focus on other real skills, like strategizing around merc camps and map objectives, landing skillshots, and winning team fights. Therefore, instead of doing less and lowering the achievable skill ceiling, the achievable skill ceiling doesn't change, it's still bounded by the finite amount of things humans can do just as before, but it shifts where skill is needed.
[...]
Example 1: Adding auto-aim to CS:GO (removing complexity) Aiming is a huge part of CS:GO, it's one of the most important skills in the game. Does adding auto-aim dumb down the game, reduce skill or kill depth? No. The game will still require just as much skill as it does now. Instead of being about aiming, auto-aim would shift the game to be about positioning, strategy, flashing and firing with maximum lethality (minimizing recoil). The team with more skill in avoiding situations where they will be killed by the opponent's auto-aim by being at the right place at the right time would win. The skill of correct positioning would be absolutely critical. So playing CS:GO with auto-aim would require the same amount of skill it requires now, it just emphasizes different types of skills, like positioning.
You say there's too many variables in Dota 2 and HotS for there to be an optimal strategy. Then how can removing, for example, items from HotS reduce skill when there's still "too many variables" that people cannot master? It doesn't, and so you've debunked yourself.
Also, picking the right heroes would be part of the optimal strategy, if there is one.
On August 18 2014 20:31 ahswtini wrote: The problem is, his entire argument is based on the flawed logic that all games require equal skill to play, as long as those games have an unattainable skill ceiling.
On August 18 2014 20:22 Spaylz wrote: I don't see you addressing anything. I see you repeating the same stuff over and over while other people come up with many different answers to your, again, very biased views.
The only real point you've made is that the skill ceiling cannot be reached by any human, and that there is always room for improvement. That pretty much applies to everything, hence the constant, never-ending progress of the human race both in terms of technology and quality of life. But all games have the same skill? That is in no way true. Does that mean a CS:GO pro player should be able to go pro on SC2 as well? Does that mean Bobby Fischer would rock everyone in Dota 2, or to speak your language: in HotS?
Again, tic-tac-toe and checkers give both players access to the same possibilities, the same units, and so on. There are no differences in terms of options available, only decision-making matters. This does not, cannot, and will never apply to games like Dota 2 or HotS, because there are too many variables. Some heroes lose against others, and vice versa. And, again, even in those bad situation of a poor hero match-up, some people do manage to win. Because they are better. I don't know how many times I can repeat myself.
You're not proving anything. Everybody tells you so. Do you pay attention to what is happenig at all?
Lastly, you've stopped answering in the HotS thread, after the many posts addressing your... point of view.
You haven't read the OP properly. If all games require the same amount of skill, it does not mean that SC2 players can go pro at SC2, because they require different skills, SC2 requires skills in macro, CS:GO requires skill in preisions.
If changes were made to SC2 to that it becomes CS:GO or changes to remove multiple unit selection, then the skills required will shift, but all overall skill required will stay the same.
Humans can only do a finite number of things at one time. So, for example, removing pointless gimmicks and restrictions in MOBAs frees players to focus on other real skills, like strategizing around merc camps and map objectives, landing skillshots, and winning team fights. Therefore, instead of doing less and lowering the achievable skill ceiling, the achievable skill ceiling doesn't change, it's still bounded by the finite amount of things humans can do just as before, but it shifts where skill is needed.
[...]
Example 1: Adding auto-aim to CS:GO (removing complexity) Aiming is a huge part of CS:GO, it's one of the most important skills in the game. Does adding auto-aim dumb down the game, reduce skill or kill depth? No. The game will still require just as much skill as it does now. Instead of being about aiming, auto-aim would shift the game to be about positioning, strategy, flashing and firing with maximum lethality (minimizing recoil). The team with more skill in avoiding situations where they will be killed by the opponent's auto-aim by being at the right place at the right time would win. The skill of correct positioning would be absolutely critical. So playing CS:GO with auto-aim would require the same amount of skill it requires now, it just emphasizes different types of skills, like positioning.
You say there's too many variables in Dota 2 and HotS for there to be an optimal strategy. Then how can removing, for example, items from HotS reduce skill when there's still "too many variables" that people cannot master? It doesn't, and so you've debunked yourself.
Also, picking the right heroes would be part of the optimal strategy, if there is one.
You irritate me. When did I say removing mechanics lowered skill level? Seriously..
On August 18 2014 19:53 Plansix wrote: He stopped making this argument in the Heroes thread because people had to much evidence to cite of all of his flawed arguments.
Name one piece of evidence.
Umm... Looking at the thread in question is enough? You've disappeared for the last 3 pages or so, after people, including myself, answered your posts with arguments. I believe that constitutes written evidence, if not proof.
Also, what exactly is your point? Last hitting sucks? Because if so, then damn, that's a whole lot of wasted e-ink for nothing.
I was busy writing this thread. There was no argument debunking anything I wrote, because you can't cite a single one of these arguments.
On August 18 2014 19:53 Plansix wrote: He stopped making this argument in the Heroes thread because people had to much evidence to cite of all of his flawed arguments.
Name one piece of evidence.
Umm... Looking at the thread in question is enough? You've disappeared for the last 3 pages or so, after people, including myself, answered your posts with arguments. I believe that constitutes written evidence, if not proof.
Also, what exactly is your point? Last hitting sucks? Because if so, then damn, that's a whole lot of wasted e-ink for nothing.
I was busy writing this thread. There was no argument debunking anything I wrote, because you can't cite a single one of these arguments.
On August 18 2014 20:31 Sbrubbles wrote: The idea that removing mechanics doesn't change overall "skill" in competitive games so long as attention can be shifted to other areas of the game and so long as that extra attetion can still differentiate "more skilled" from "less skilled" players is not an unreasonable one, but the problem is that it is conceivable that "decreasing marginal returns" may set in on the leftover areas of the game, so the potential to differentiate players ends up lower even if the theoretical skill ceiling is impossible to reach.
This. His logic, if you strip it down to its most simplistic form, works.
Let's say you have 5 skill points that you can invest into four different mechanics, called A, B, C and D. And let's say all those mechanics have individual ceilings of 10. In one scenario you invest your points as follows: A: 1 B: 2 C: 1 D: 2
Now let's remove mechanic D, we can now spend those 2 points on something else. Fine. You still have spent all your skill points and have not gotten anywhere close to the skill ceiling of the game.
So why aren't games stripped down so that there are only two skills for players to have to master? If you do it right, people will still never reach the skill ceiling. Why not just have pure worker micro in Starcraft? Let the AI build and command your units? Your game can be all about maximising worker efficiency.
Yes, now even you admit that I'm right: as long as there's still some non-RNG mechanic to differentiate people, then the amount of skill required to play the game hasn't changed (although what skills are needed may have shifted).
Why aren't game stripped down to nothing but workers? Well, firstly, they can be without reducing skill, if the designer wanted, as you've now even admitted, and as I've stated in the OP:
Example 4: Removing everything from SC2 except workers (removing complexity) SC2 is a complicated game, and requires skill to play. Perhaps one way of dumbing it down is to remove everything except SCVs. The game would then be SCV Wars. But such a game also requires the same amount of skill as SC2 currently. Instead of being about macroing and microing armies, it would be about microing 6 SCVs, when to focus fire, and when to pull away the SCV that is being focused by your opponent. Blizzard could make a ladder for SCV Wars, and the people in Diamond league of the SCV Wars ladder will still be destroyed by those in Masters league, because the game requires the same amount of skill, just in different areas. If there were SCV Wars esports touraments, your chance of beating those winners at a game of SCV Wars would be as astronomically small as your chance of beating Zest in SC2, because the equivalent of Zest in SCV Wars will have godlike SCV micro as if psychically control by his mind.
But why aren't games stripped down to this level? This question is also answered in the OP, if you would actually read:
A corollary of the Law of Dumbing Down Games is that, in a competitive game, any argument that removing a mechanic, such as last hitting or items, that does not change the game to satisfy the above 3 condition's, would dumb down the game or make the game require less skill is automatically invalid and wrong. A further corollary is that mechanics should not be chosen to increase or reduce skill required, because virtually every mechanic will have no effect on skill required. Instead mechanics should be chosen based on whether they are fun, interesting to watch, and fits with the design goals of the game. For this reason, a much greater emphasis on team fights as can be found in HotS is the objectively correct way to design a MOBA, and last hitting in MOBAs is as pointless and unnecessary as the following mechanic: Your hero is granted +1 basic attack permanently under the following conditions: "If you hit a minion with 2 basic attacks where the time between the two attacks is between 1.4 to 1.6 seconds, then a pop-up appears with a simple arithmetic problem, like '4x13=?', and if you type in the correct answer within 2 seconds,you are awarded +1 basic attack permanently".
Just because a theoretical skill cap is immutable because only a computer could theoretically reach it does not mean that every complex game mechanic doesn't require some sort of skill a human is capable of achieving. DotA 2, LoL, and HotS all have theoretically infinite skill caps for both decision making and mechanical gameplay, but DotA 2 is still a harder game to play at a competent level than the other 2, simply because of its ridiculous amount of extra complexity, odd game speed, and fucking Invoker.
I agree that DotA 2 is poorly designed and over-complex, and that Valve missed a golden opportunity to fix design flaws and game speed (for all it's faults, see HoN for what DotA would be like with a good game speed/turn speed) when they ported it. Alas, it's in the past now.
One of the best examples I can elucidate is a WoW DPS rotation. It takes more "skill" to manage a rotation that has 2 DoTs, 3 CDs, and 4 cast time abilities that must be cast in a certain order than it does to manage a rotation of Colossus Smash and spam Slam, otherwise, Spam Mortal Strike and Overpower (simplified Warrior rotation), especially on a raid fight that requires movement ont he caster's part. Simply having more things to do requires more attention to execute. Same goes for MOBAs. The mere fact that you have to worry about pulling/stacking while keeping your lane safe, keeping vision up, worrying about wards, etc. on top of being more mechanically demanding to land skillshots and avoid the enemy's simply due to the poor turn speed makes it more complex than LoL, where a support has to think about vision for ganks, harassing the other lane, and possibly roaming for another gank.
Then again, I'd argue that LoL is more fun simply because it focuses less on map control and housekeeping the jungle and more on directly fighting your opponent, which IMO is the fun part. HotS refines that point even better. You seem to be arguing against the strawman that "complexity = fun" when I don't think anybody made that actual argument.
On August 18 2014 20:46 Spaylz wrote: We get it. Your argument is: removing or adding mechanics does not alter the skill level, because one is almost always able to improve oneself with the remaining mechanics. OK, that is overly simple, but obviously true.
The problem is you can't apply that to anything that provides different options of play to all the players.
Yes, you can. A game is a game, regardless of whether there is a choice at the start of the game. For the purpose's of this argument, which even you now admit that I'm right on, how's that choice different from any other choice within the game, like buying items? It's not. The choice of heroes is a strategic choice, part of the optimal strategy, if there is one. If there's not, then you've finally admitted, there's more skills you (or any human) can learn to improve your play, like picking the correct hero, so the skill required to play the game hasn't reduced.
On August 18 2014 19:27 Grumbels wrote: His argument is not real support for anything, it's only broadly applicable to negate obviously stupid ideas on game design.
Yes, you're correct that it should be obvious. But it's not obvious to Dota 2 fanboys.
What's his endgame? There has to be more to it than this purely abstract argument. Is it entirely about his dislike of last hitting or something?
Also, p.u. fails to recognize that automaton bots aren't that great as an argument because it doesn't take into account the stereotype of sc2 as having only one fight per game that lasts only five seconds. Frequently the outcome is predetermined according to composition, and not every race has marines that allow them to micro like this to begin with. In this scenario there is still an infinite skill ceiling, but it's a rather pointless observation as anyone can tell there is something really wrong with the ability of players to express their skill in this game. (Not saying sc2 is like this)
The outcome of a fight in SC2 can partly be determined by composition, but having the right composition is itself a skill. Something may be wrong with SC2 that it's mostly decided by 1 big deathball fight, but that doesn't make it require less skill, just not the type of skill you think it should be based off. But you seem to have realized this.
This is a video game discussion forum, not philosophy debate class. The people in this thread have vested interests in the outcome as they are in some ways part of the decision making process that eventually leads to the adoption or removal of various mechanics into the game.
And honestly, the people disagreeing with you very quickly managed to focus on your real agenda (various HotS design questions) and not the ostensible topic of this thread, and if you had wanted to avoid this you chose the wrong tone because every you write gives the appearance of it being part of a larger polemic argument.
Implicit in many discussions is that while all skills are equal, some are more equal than others; and at any rate are more desirable to have in the game. I don't think it's the case that any game with an infinite skill ceiling will support competitive gaming, much less the even stricter demands of "e-sports", so there is a lot more to be said on the topic than blithely stating the discussion has been resolved thanks to your initial argument.
I mean, what do you want? Do you want everyone to admit that removing mechanics does not by definition remove competitive potential? Even if the context of the discussion is the removal of certain specific mechanics?
On August 18 2014 20:31 Sbrubbles wrote: The idea that removing mechanics doesn't change overall "skill" in competitive games so long as attention can be shifted to other areas of the game and so long as that extra attetion can still differentiate "more skilled" from "less skilled" players is not an unreasonable one, but the problem is that it is conceivable that "decreasing marginal returns" may set in on the leftover areas of the game, so the potential to differentiate players ends up lower even if the theoretical skill ceiling is impossible to reach. Assuming there is a random element to the game (and there always is in games with imperfect information).
Overall, though, the OP is getting way more flak than deserved, then again indirectly arguing against time-honored mechanics is bound to leave some people butthurt.
so basically you do agree that removing mechanics makes it so that the game rewards less skill? because after all, being humans, we constantly make mistakes in our play. If basketball was only about throwing penalty shots, then yes there would be someone that we could call the best in the world. He might be able to throw in 98,88% of the shots whereas the second best would score 98,86% of the time. And the 10000th best player would score 98% of the time. It's a game where no one would ever reach the skill ceiling i.e. 100% success. So what? There would be simply nothing impressive about the best player in the world, he's just another guy who can throw in about 98% of his shots. There would never be someone to look up to, there would never be a consistent champion, skill would not be rewarded. A guy that has only 96% success rate could easily beat the best player in the world if the best player failed even one throw. Say his concentration slips for a fraction of a second and he misses, and that's that, he just lost to some no name garbage player. A game as volatile as that is what I would call a low skill game, but obviously you argue it takes just as skill based as regular basketball. It's more or less about semantics, what do people actually mean when they say "high skill game".
On August 18 2014 20:51 Spaylz wrote: You keep ignoring personal skill level. How is that not a factor? Is it unfathomable that one player might be better than another?
If personal skill matters, then how has the game being dumbed down or requires less skill?
If a game is dumbed down, then everyone who plays optimally should be on equal skill level, because the game is so dumbed down and requires so little skill that people play perfectly with the optimal strategy.and so always draws.
On August 18 2014 20:54 Spaylz wrote: Exactly. It's not possible to achieve 100% winrate, because there is always someone better than you. Add to that any slump or extremely good shape a player might be in, luck, flukes, and so on...
There are far too many variables, and finding an "optimal strategy" is merely theory that almost always never holds in practice. You can theorize all you want about the perfect Dota 2 or HotS setup, in the end, if the other players are better than you, they will still win.
If a 100% win/draw rate is impossible because people can always demonstrate more skill and differentiate their skill, even when a mechanic like items is removed, then how has the skill required to play the game reduced? It hasn't. You've debunked yourself again.
On August 18 2014 20:52 Plansix wrote: The argument that the only way to prove a skill ceiling can be reached is to have 100% win rate is just play stupid, and beyond flawed. 100% win rates are nearly impossible to reach in the most simple of competitive games.
It's not flawed. If people can't reach a 100% win OR draw rate in a non-random game, then there are more skillful things that people can do to improve their play and differentiate their skill, so the skill level required to play the game hasn't reduced.
It's possible to have a 100% win or draw rate: E.g. checkers, tic-tac-toe, SCV Wars with 1 SCV each.
So you say that if you change all the skillshots into player targeted skills in LoL player skill level to play the game on decent level will remain the same?
On August 18 2014 20:22 Spaylz wrote: I don't see you addressing anything. I see you repeating the same stuff over and over while other people come up with many different answers to your, again, very biased views.
The only real point you've made is that the skill ceiling cannot be reached by any human, and that there is always room for improvement. That pretty much applies to everything, hence the constant, never-ending progress of the human race both in terms of technology and quality of life. But all games have the same skill? That is in no way true. Does that mean a CS:GO pro player should be able to go pro on SC2 as well? Does that mean Bobby Fischer would rock everyone in Dota 2, or to speak your language: in HotS?
Again, tic-tac-toe and checkers give both players access to the same possibilities, the same units, and so on. There are no differences in terms of options available, only decision-making matters. This does not, cannot, and will never apply to games like Dota 2 or HotS, because there are too many variables. Some heroes lose against others, and vice versa. And, again, even in those bad situation of a poor hero match-up, some people do manage to win. Because they are better. I don't know how many times I can repeat myself.
You're not proving anything. Everybody tells you so. Do you pay attention to what is happenig at all?
Lastly, you've stopped answering in the HotS thread, after the many posts addressing your... point of view.
You haven't read the OP properly. If all games require the same amount of skill, it does not mean that SC2 players can go pro at SC2, because they require different skills, SC2 requires skills in macro, CS:GO requires skill in preisions.
If changes were made to SC2 to that it becomes CS:GO or changes to remove multiple unit selection, then the skills required will shift, but all overall skill required will stay the same.
This is stated in the OP:
Humans can only do a finite number of things at one time. So, for example, removing pointless gimmicks and restrictions in MOBAs frees players to focus on other real skills, like strategizing around merc camps and map objectives, landing skillshots, and winning team fights. Therefore, instead of doing less and lowering the achievable skill ceiling, the achievable skill ceiling doesn't change, it's still bounded by the finite amount of things humans can do just as before, but it shifts where skill is needed.
[...]
Example 1: Adding auto-aim to CS:GO (removing complexity) Aiming is a huge part of CS:GO, it's one of the most important skills in the game. Does adding auto-aim dumb down the game, reduce skill or kill depth? No. The game will still require just as much skill as it does now. Instead of being about aiming, auto-aim would shift the game to be about positioning, strategy, flashing and firing with maximum lethality (minimizing recoil). The team with more skill in avoiding situations where they will be killed by the opponent's auto-aim by being at the right place at the right time would win. The skill of correct positioning would be absolutely critical. So playing CS:GO with auto-aim would require the same amount of skill it requires now, it just emphasizes different types of skills, like positioning.
You say there's too many variables in Dota 2 and HotS for there to be an optimal strategy. Then how can removing, for example, items from HotS reduce skill when there's still "too many variables" that people cannot master? It doesn't, and so you've debunked yourself.
Also, picking the right heroes would be part of the optimal strategy, if there is one.
You irritate me. When did I say removing mechanics lowered skill level? Seriously..
So you admit, as my argument in the OP shows, that removing mechanics like last hitting and items from MOBAs doesn't lower skill level?
On August 18 2014 20:22 Spaylz wrote: I don't see you addressing anything. I see you repeating the same stuff over and over while other people come up with many different answers to your, again, very biased views.
The only real point you've made is that the skill ceiling cannot be reached by any human, and that there is always room for improvement. That pretty much applies to everything, hence the constant, never-ending progress of the human race both in terms of technology and quality of life. But all games have the same skill? That is in no way true. Does that mean a CS:GO pro player should be able to go pro on SC2 as well? Does that mean Bobby Fischer would rock everyone in Dota 2, or to speak your language: in HotS?
Again, tic-tac-toe and checkers give both players access to the same possibilities, the same units, and so on. There are no differences in terms of options available, only decision-making matters. This does not, cannot, and will never apply to games like Dota 2 or HotS, because there are too many variables. Some heroes lose against others, and vice versa. And, again, even in those bad situation of a poor hero match-up, some people do manage to win. Because they are better. I don't know how many times I can repeat myself.
You're not proving anything. Everybody tells you so. Do you pay attention to what is happenig at all?
Lastly, you've stopped answering in the HotS thread, after the many posts addressing your... point of view.
You haven't read the OP properly. If all games require the same amount of skill, it does not mean that SC2 players can go pro at SC2, because they require different skills, SC2 requires skills in macro, CS:GO requires skill in preisions.
If changes were made to SC2 to that it becomes CS:GO or changes to remove multiple unit selection, then the skills required will shift, but all overall skill required will stay the same.
This is stated in the OP:
Humans can only do a finite number of things at one time. So, for example, removing pointless gimmicks and restrictions in MOBAs frees players to focus on other real skills, like strategizing around merc camps and map objectives, landing skillshots, and winning team fights. Therefore, instead of doing less and lowering the achievable skill ceiling, the achievable skill ceiling doesn't change, it's still bounded by the finite amount of things humans can do just as before, but it shifts where skill is needed.
[...]
Example 1: Adding auto-aim to CS:GO (removing complexity) Aiming is a huge part of CS:GO, it's one of the most important skills in the game. Does adding auto-aim dumb down the game, reduce skill or kill depth? No. The game will still require just as much skill as it does now. Instead of being about aiming, auto-aim would shift the game to be about positioning, strategy, flashing and firing with maximum lethality (minimizing recoil). The team with more skill in avoiding situations where they will be killed by the opponent's auto-aim by being at the right place at the right time would win. The skill of correct positioning would be absolutely critical. So playing CS:GO with auto-aim would require the same amount of skill it requires now, it just emphasizes different types of skills, like positioning.
You say there's too many variables in Dota 2 and HotS for there to be an optimal strategy. Then how can removing, for example, items from HotS reduce skill when there's still "too many variables" that people cannot master? It doesn't, and so you've debunked yourself.
Also, picking the right heroes would be part of the optimal strategy, if there is one.
You irritate me. When did I say removing mechanics lowered skill level? Seriously..
So you admit, as my argument in the OP shows, that removing mechanics like last hitting and items from MOBAs doesn't lower skill level?
it lowers the skill CEILING, OBVIOUSLY. even you should understand this.
Lol, so you made a thread, now 7 pages full of nonsense, just to prove your point that HotS is not inferior game to the others in the genre ? That is so funny...
On August 18 2014 19:53 Plansix wrote: He stopped making this argument in the Heroes thread because people had to much evidence to cite of all of his flawed arguments.
Name one piece of evidence.
Umm... Looking at the thread in question is enough? You've disappeared for the last 3 pages or so, after people, including myself, answered your posts with arguments. I believe that constitutes written evidence, if not proof.
Also, what exactly is your point? Last hitting sucks? Because if so, then damn, that's a whole lot of wasted e-ink for nothing.
I was busy writing this thread. There was no argument debunking anything I wrote, because you can't cite a single one of these arguments.
1. Comebacks almost never happened based on 3 things: personal experience, TI4 where many teams quit before the end of the game, because a comeback wasn't possible, and game mechanics encourage snowballing which by design reduces the chance of comebacks. Also, I argued that games are decided at around ~20 minutes but drag out to 50 minutes, you counter by saying games are decided at the 0 minutes mark. OK, I accept that because it supports my argument even further.
2. You've got the causation ass-backwards. Browder is the game director of HotS. Therefore, if he believes in having items, denying, games decided after ~20 minutes but drag out to 50 minutes, he would have made the game like that and said things to defend that, but he doesn't. Because, he, like me, understands that you're wrong.
3. Debunked by this thread. You write "In HotS, you'll lose because you ignored map objectives. You'll lose because you ignored creep camps. You'll lose because you botched a fight, or got caught." Translation: you'll lose because you're less skilled than the opponent and haven't hit the highest possible skill. You'll lose because there's more skillful things you could do to win, but you're not skill enough to do it, i.e. the highest achievable skill my humans is still below the theoretical skill ceiling so that the game is no easier, you lose just as often as Dota 2 so the skill required is the same.
4. What changes? Are you saying that HotS will have an optimal strategy (that includes picking the right heroes), once we learn more about it when it's out of Alpha? If so then you've contradicted your "too many variables" argument here, which proved my point that the skill hasn't reduced because there's more things people can do to improve their skill and wins.
On August 18 2014 21:13 deth2munkies wrote: Just because a theoretical skill cap is immutable because only a computer could theoretically reach it does not mean that every complex game mechanic doesn't require some sort of skill a human is capable of achieving. DotA 2, LoL, and HotS all have theoretically infinite skill caps for both decision making and mechanical gameplay, but DotA 2 is still a harder game to play at a competent level than the other 2, simply because of its ridiculous amount of extra complexity, odd game speed, and fucking Invoker.
I agree that DotA 2 is poorly designed and over-complex, and that Valve missed a golden opportunity to fix design flaws and game speed (for all it's faults, see HoN for what DotA would be like with a good game speed/turn speed) when they ported it. Alas, it's in the past now.
One of the best examples I can elucidate is a WoW DPS rotation. It takes more "skill" to manage a rotation that has 2 DoTs, 3 CDs, and 4 cast time abilities that must be cast in a certain order than it does to manage a rotation of Colossus Smash and spam Slam, otherwise, Spam Mortal Strike and Overpower (simplified Warrior rotation), especially on a raid fight that requires movement ont he caster's part. Simply having more things to do requires more attention to execute. Same goes for MOBAs. The mere fact that you have to worry about pulling/stacking while keeping your lane safe, keeping vision up, worrying about wards, etc. on top of being more mechanically demanding to land skillshots and avoid the enemy's simply due to the poor turn speed makes it more complex than LoL, where a support has to think about vision for ganks, harassing the other lane, and possibly roaming for another gank.
Then again, I'd argue that LoL is more fun simply because it focuses less on map control and housekeeping the jungle and more on directly fighting your opponent, which IMO is the fun part. HotS refines that point even better. You seem to be arguing against the strawman that "complexity = fun" when I don't think anybody made that actual argument.
Your WoW example falls outside of the scope of this discussion, because doing a rotation isn't a competitive game. But if we consider competitive raiding, e.g. world/server first race, it applies and dumbing down rotation doesn't reduce skill as explained in the OP.
If everyone's rotation is reduced to mashing 1 button, then raids are easier for you, but it's also easier for your opponents, these 2 forces cancel out, and thus the competition of racing for world first doesn't require any less skill. It's just as hard as before, but it's merely shifted from mechanical skills to the skill of minimizing clear time and increasing efficiency.
The same is true of Dota 2 vs HotS, the skilled required is the same because you don't win more in HotS than in Dota 2 so HotS is no easier. There's always more you can do, in both games to improve your play and wins. You conflated the fact that HotS requires less mechanical and memory skills in using Invoker or denying, with requiring less skill overall. If you take that away, it becomes easier for your opponent to play, and players will shift to other skills to differentiate themselves, like winning team fights. No one can reach the theoretical skill ceiling in HotS so the overall skill required hasn't reduced.
Another example, if adding auto-aim to CS:GO which also doesn't reduce overall skill, as explained in the OP.
The argument is simple, if removing Mechanics do not simpifly a game. Therefore I will use PU logic and determine that teamfighting and following browder-approved objectives around are NOT skills, neither is the ability to press QWER, nor is map awareness.
By his definition none of this should change the "skill level of the game"
To paralleluniverse, the only thing that truly determines skill in a game like HotS is the ability to buy heroes others dont have.
On August 18 2014 19:53 Plansix wrote: He stopped making this argument in the Heroes thread because people had to much evidence to cite of all of his flawed arguments.
Name one piece of evidence.
Umm... Looking at the thread in question is enough? You've disappeared for the last 3 pages or so, after people, including myself, answered your posts with arguments. I believe that constitutes written evidence, if not proof.
Also, what exactly is your point? Last hitting sucks? Because if so, then damn, that's a whole lot of wasted e-ink for nothing.
I was busy writing this thread. There was no argument debunking anything I wrote, because you can't cite a single one of these arguments.
1. Comebacks almost never happened based on 3 things: personal experience, TI4 where many teams quit before the end of the game, because a comeback wasn't possible, and game mechanics encourage snowballing which by design reduces the chance of comebacks. Also, I argued that games are decided at around ~20 minutes but drag out to 50 minutes, you counter by saying games are decided at the 0 minutes mark. OK, I accept that because it supports my argument even further.
Your limited understanding of Dota is showing. May of the games that ended early were due to the draft and teams drafting specific line ups to end the game quickly or drafting to “greedy” and losing the game outright. And both of those are dependent on execution and do not reflect every single dota match played at TI. There were plenty of back and forth games, but one sides stomps happen in any high level play, regardless of medium.
But this sort of response is expected from a HotS fanboy and apologist.
Removing one mechanic so you can do more of the other mechanics does not automatically maintain the same skill ceiling, which is the basis of your entire argument.
On August 18 2014 22:02 Kupon3ss wrote: The argument is simple, if removing Mechanics do not simpifly a game. Therefore I will use PU logic and determine that teamfighting and following browder-approved objectives around are NOT skills, neither is the ability to press QWER, nor is map awareness.
By his definition none of this should change the "skill level of the game"
To paralleluniverse, the only thing that truly determines skill in a game like HotS is the ability to buy heroes others dont have.
THAT IS TRUE SKILL
Fucking ground breaking. The highest level of game play - Skill level: Wallet.
On August 18 2014 19:27 Grumbels wrote: His argument is not real support for anything, it's only broadly applicable to negate obviously stupid ideas on game design.
Yes, you're correct that it should be obvious. But it's not obvious to Dota 2 fanboys.
What's his endgame? There has to be more to it than this purely abstract argument. Is it entirely about his dislike of last hitting or something?
Also, p.u. fails to recognize that automaton bots aren't that great as an argument because it doesn't take into account the stereotype of sc2 as having only one fight per game that lasts only five seconds. Frequently the outcome is predetermined according to composition, and not every race has marines that allow them to micro like this to begin with. In this scenario there is still an infinite skill ceiling, but it's a rather pointless observation as anyone can tell there is something really wrong with the ability of players to express their skill in this game. (Not saying sc2 is like this)
The outcome of a fight in SC2 can partly be determined by composition, but having the right composition is itself a skill. Something may be wrong with SC2 that it's mostly decided by 1 big deathball fight, but that doesn't make it require less skill, just not the type of skill you think it should be based off. But you seem to have realized this.
This is a video game discussion forum, not philosophy debate class. The people in this thread have vested interests in the outcome as they are in some ways part of the decision making process that eventually leads to the adoption or removal of various mechanics into the game.
And honestly, the people disagreeing with you very quickly managed to focus on your real agenda (various HotS design questions) and not the ostensible topic of this thread, and if you had wanted to avoid this you chose the wrong tone because every you write gives the appearance of it being part of a larger polemic argument.
Implicit in many discussions is that while all skills are equal, some are more equal than others; and at any rate are more desirable to have in the game. I don't think it's the case that any game with an infinite skill ceiling will support competitive gaming, much less the even stricter demands of "e-sports", so there is a lot more to be said on the topic than blithely stating the discussion has been resolved thanks to your initial argument.
I mean, what do you want? Do you want everyone to admit that removing mechanics does not by definition remove competitive potential? Even if the context of the discussion is the removal of certain specific mechanics?
You write "any rate are more desirable to have in the game". Yes. Exactly. I made the same point: "mechanics should not be chosen to increase or reduce skill required, because virtually every mechanic will have no effect on skill required. Instead mechanics should be chosen based on whether they are fun, interesting to watch, and fits with the design goals of the game."
If only the Dota 2 fanboys can get over the false claim that removing mechanics reduces skill (which this thread is specifically written to debunk), we could move on to this more interesting argument like what mechanics are desirable to have, and the world would be a better place.
On August 18 2014 19:53 Plansix wrote: He stopped making this argument in the Heroes thread because people had to much evidence to cite of all of his flawed arguments.
Name one piece of evidence.
Umm... Looking at the thread in question is enough? You've disappeared for the last 3 pages or so, after people, including myself, answered your posts with arguments. I believe that constitutes written evidence, if not proof.
Also, what exactly is your point? Last hitting sucks? Because if so, then damn, that's a whole lot of wasted e-ink for nothing.
I was busy writing this thread. There was no argument debunking anything I wrote, because you can't cite a single one of these arguments.
1. Comebacks almost never happened based on 3 things: personal experience, TI4 where many teams quit before the end of the game, because a comeback wasn't possible, and game mechanics encourage snowballing which by design reduces the chance of comebacks. Also, I argued that games are decided at around ~20 minutes but drag out to 50 minutes, you counter by saying games are decided at the 0 minutes mark. OK, I accept that because it supports my argument even further.
Your limited understanding of Dota is showing. May of the games that ended early were due to the draft and teams drafting specific line ups to end the game quickly or drafting to “greedy” and losing the game outright. And both of those are dependent on execution and do not reflect every single dota match played at TI. There were plenty of back and forth games, but one sides stomps happen in any high level play, regardless of medium.
But this sort of response is expected from a HotS fanboy and apologist.
He's cherrypicking certain games where teams got outdrafted and outexecuted.
I can cherrypick pretty much any mouz game, where they crush the early game, and then lose because they fall apart at mid-late game.
On August 17 2014 13:04 paralleluniversewrote: A corollary of the Law of Dumbing Down Games is that, in a competitive game, any argument that removing a mechanic, such as last hitting or items, that does not change the game to satisfy the above 3 condition's, would dumb down the game or make the game require less skill is automatically invalid and wrong. A further corollary is that mechanics should not be chosen to increase or reduce skill required, because virtually every mechanic will have no effect on skill required. Instead mechanics should be chosen based on whether they are fun, interesting to watch, and fits with the design goals of the game. For this reason, a much greater emphasis on team fights as can be found in HotS is the objectively correct way to design a MOBA, and last hitting in MOBAs is as pointless and unnecessary as the following mechanic: Your hero is granted +1 basic attack permanently under the following conditions: "If you hit a minion with 2 basic attacks where the time between the two attacks is between 1.4 to 1.6 seconds, then a pop-up appears with a simple arithmetic problem, like '4x13=?', and if you type in the correct answer within 2 seconds,you are awarded +1 basic attack permanently".
If HOTS is truly the superior MOBA then viewer numbers should explode and exceed Dota2 and LoL by far once it reaches beta/nears it's release, since it will be more interesting to watch. Don't you think?
But I really admire your fanaticism. One random internet kid states Dota2 requires more skill than Hots and you go on a crusade spanning endless days just to prove him wrong. A for effort. Because let's face it, this thread is nothing more than bashing on the lasthitting mechanic in Dota2/LoL.
On August 18 2014 19:27 Grumbels wrote: His argument is not real support for anything, it's only broadly applicable to negate obviously stupid ideas on game design.
Yes, you're correct that it should be obvious. But it's not obvious to Dota 2 fanboys.
What's his endgame? There has to be more to it than this purely abstract argument. Is it entirely about his dislike of last hitting or something?
Also, p.u. fails to recognize that automaton bots aren't that great as an argument because it doesn't take into account the stereotype of sc2 as having only one fight per game that lasts only five seconds. Frequently the outcome is predetermined according to composition, and not every race has marines that allow them to micro like this to begin with. In this scenario there is still an infinite skill ceiling, but it's a rather pointless observation as anyone can tell there is something really wrong with the ability of players to express their skill in this game. (Not saying sc2 is like this)
The outcome of a fight in SC2 can partly be determined by composition, but having the right composition is itself a skill. Something may be wrong with SC2 that it's mostly decided by 1 big deathball fight, but that doesn't make it require less skill, just not the type of skill you think it should be based off. But you seem to have realized this.
This is a video game discussion forum, not philosophy debate class. The people in this thread have vested interests in the outcome as they are in some ways part of the decision making process that eventually leads to the adoption or removal of various mechanics into the game.
And honestly, the people disagreeing with you very quickly managed to focus on your real agenda (various HotS design questions) and not the ostensible topic of this thread, and if you had wanted to avoid this you chose the wrong tone because every you write gives the appearance of it being part of a larger polemic argument.
Implicit in many discussions is that while all skills are equal, some are more equal than others; and at any rate are more desirable to have in the game. I don't think it's the case that any game with an infinite skill ceiling will support competitive gaming, much less the even stricter demands of "e-sports", so there is a lot more to be said on the topic than blithely stating the discussion has been resolved thanks to your initial argument.
I mean, what do you want? Do you want everyone to admit that removing mechanics does not by definition remove competitive potential? Even if the context of the discussion is the removal of certain specific mechanics?
You write "any rate are more desirable to have in the game". Yes. Exactly. I made the same point: "mechanics should not be chosen to increase or reduce skill required, because virtually every mechanic will have no effect on skill required. Instead mechanics should be chosen based on whether they are fun, interesting to watch, and fits with the design goals of the game."
If only the Dota 2 fanboys can get over the false claim that removing mechanics reduces skill (which this thread is specifically written to debunk), we could move on to this more interesting argument like what mechanics are desirable to have, and the world would be a better place.
But they can't accept this fact.
You realizing that most people are arguing with you because you were an ass-hat in the dota thread a while ago and wrote some bullshit blog about how Dota 2 was a busted game. It has very little to do with the shitbox argument you are making. Your are like some moving car crash for us to watch and amuse ourselves with, not much else.
The fanboy is strong with this one. Luckily, most Dota players don't really mind HotS and find it amusing for 15-20 minutes of fun.
On August 18 2014 22:04 ahswtini wrote: Removing one mechanic so you can do more of the other mechanics does not automatically maintain the same skill ceiling, which is the basis of your entire argument.
yeah like his cs with aimbot example. same skill as without aimbot, for sure, rofl.
On August 18 2014 20:22 Spaylz wrote: I don't see you addressing anything. I see you repeating the same stuff over and over while other people come up with many different answers to your, again, very biased views.
The only real point you've made is that the skill ceiling cannot be reached by any human, and that there is always room for improvement. That pretty much applies to everything, hence the constant, never-ending progress of the human race both in terms of technology and quality of life. But all games have the same skill? That is in no way true. Does that mean a CS:GO pro player should be able to go pro on SC2 as well? Does that mean Bobby Fischer would rock everyone in Dota 2, or to speak your language: in HotS?
Again, tic-tac-toe and checkers give both players access to the same possibilities, the same units, and so on. There are no differences in terms of options available, only decision-making matters. This does not, cannot, and will never apply to games like Dota 2 or HotS, because there are too many variables. Some heroes lose against others, and vice versa. And, again, even in those bad situation of a poor hero match-up, some people do manage to win. Because they are better. I don't know how many times I can repeat myself.
You're not proving anything. Everybody tells you so. Do you pay attention to what is happenig at all?
Lastly, you've stopped answering in the HotS thread, after the many posts addressing your... point of view.
You haven't read the OP properly. If all games require the same amount of skill, it does not mean that SC2 players can go pro at SC2, because they require different skills, SC2 requires skills in macro, CS:GO requires skill in preisions.
If changes were made to SC2 to that it becomes CS:GO or changes to remove multiple unit selection, then the skills required will shift, but all overall skill required will stay the same.
This is stated in the OP:
Humans can only do a finite number of things at one time. So, for example, removing pointless gimmicks and restrictions in MOBAs frees players to focus on other real skills, like strategizing around merc camps and map objectives, landing skillshots, and winning team fights. Therefore, instead of doing less and lowering the achievable skill ceiling, the achievable skill ceiling doesn't change, it's still bounded by the finite amount of things humans can do just as before, but it shifts where skill is needed.
[...]
Example 1: Adding auto-aim to CS:GO (removing complexity) Aiming is a huge part of CS:GO, it's one of the most important skills in the game. Does adding auto-aim dumb down the game, reduce skill or kill depth? No. The game will still require just as much skill as it does now. Instead of being about aiming, auto-aim would shift the game to be about positioning, strategy, flashing and firing with maximum lethality (minimizing recoil). The team with more skill in avoiding situations where they will be killed by the opponent's auto-aim by being at the right place at the right time would win. The skill of correct positioning would be absolutely critical. So playing CS:GO with auto-aim would require the same amount of skill it requires now, it just emphasizes different types of skills, like positioning.
You say there's too many variables in Dota 2 and HotS for there to be an optimal strategy. Then how can removing, for example, items from HotS reduce skill when there's still "too many variables" that people cannot master? It doesn't, and so you've debunked yourself.
Also, picking the right heroes would be part of the optimal strategy, if there is one.
You irritate me. When did I say removing mechanics lowered skill level? Seriously..
So you admit, as my argument in the OP shows, that removing mechanics like last hitting and items from MOBAs doesn't lower skill level?
OK. I'm going to be very, very clear here to make sure you understand my opinion.
First of all, I never said removing mechanics lowered the skill ceiling (note that I don't even think that's an actual thing, but whatever). You keep answering me, saying "so you admit I'm right, the skill isn't reduced?" when I never spoke of reducing skills. I spoke of complexity, strategy, and so on.
Secondly, no, you haven't convinced me of anything. Basically, all you've said is that one can always improve themself, thus meaning the "skill ceiling" of any game is unreachable and that as long as there is room for improvement, then the point holds. This is stating the obvious, and I never disagreed with that. What I always argued against was your stupid, stupid vendetta against Dota 2, and your irrational praise of HotS. Please read this.
Furthermore, I have not "debunked" myself one bit. I've been stating many different points, among them explaining how and why Dota 2 and HotS are different but not necessarily superior to one another. I have yet to go back on that, and nothing I said disproves it. Also, personal skill level does enter into play. You can add or remove as many mechanics as you like, people are going to approach and handle them differently, and some will be better than others. Such is life: someone will always be better than you, no matter what we speak of. We could be talking about cooking eggs for all I care, and someone, somewhere will be able to make tastier eggs than you.
Now, about your last post...
1. I said some games are decided by the drafting. It is possible to be outpicked in Dota 2, and frankly it happens quite often. How can there be any snowballing if your opponent's team is designed to counter yours? (Again, even with a setup that counters that of your opponent, it is possible to lose by being outplayed) I also said Dota 2 had flaws, and that the rare games that are decided 20 minutes in are part of that, but are nowhere near as frequent as you picture them to be. Just as I am sure that HotS has its own flaws, and that bad situations will also arise from them. Unless you believe HotS is flawless?
2. That makes no sense whatsoever. Are you even reading yourself? He is the game director, and he is arguing for the game's design. Again, this is marketing, why on earth would he argue for the design of the other games? I mean, come on, you don't even address what I said here. You're just saying complete random sentences that don't answer what I said in the slightest. His point is that he saw Dota 2, saw its flaws and the unpleasant moments that arose from them, and aimed to create a game that solved that. In doing so, he simplified many aspects of the game, thus creating flaws which in the opinion of others might be a deal breaker. One of those flaws being: HotS will never achieve the level of strategy Dota 2 has in CM/CD modes, and that is completely fine. It is the other side of the coin that comes with simplifying aspects. It makes things simpler. Note that I said simpler, not easier, so don't go saying I'm arguing there is a skill reduction. Simple does not equal easy. There is no argument to be made about what game is the better one, it is all a matter of personal preference (yet another concept which seems to elude you).
3. I think you need to understand what "skill" means. At this point, I really feel like I'm debating the wind. That paragraph of yours basically says what I said: some people are better than others. By defaut, we humans have done nothing than to improve ourselves over the past couple of thousand years, and I'm sure it will keep going that way. What is the point of debating that? We might as well talk about the weather. It's not even a matter of "reaching the skill ceiling", it's just a matter of getting better. I don't even know what you're arguing anymore. I for one did not say less skill was required, I said the reasons for losing were different. Word for word.
Really, you're beating a dead horse, seeing as I never said HotS required less skill than Dota 2. I simply said it focused on different aspects and offers a different experience.
Anyway... To sum it up: debating whether or not there is a maximum skill which can be achieved is, ultimately, pointless. Even if there were, not everybody would be able to reach it, because everybody's talent is different. That is the essence of skill: someone will always be able to pull off moves that another one cannot. Sometimes, people are unable to improve. Sometimes, they cannot get better because they have reached their limits, and not some sort of ultimate theoretical limit every human being can reach. Your assumption is based on the fact that all men are equal. Well, they are not. Welcome to the real world.
And for the record, I absolutely love HotS. I simply see no need to act like a fanatic over it, and proceed to turn myself into a self-proclaimed scholar looking to bring down the other games with made-up, pointless "laws".
On August 17 2014 13:04 paralleluniversewrote: A corollary of the Law of Dumbing Down Games is that, in a competitive game, any argument that removing a mechanic, such as last hitting or items, that does not change the game to satisfy the above 3 condition's, would dumb down the game or make the game require less skill is automatically invalid and wrong. A further corollary is that mechanics should not be chosen to increase or reduce skill required, because virtually every mechanic will have no effect on skill required. Instead mechanics should be chosen based on whether they are fun, interesting to watch, and fits with the design goals of the game. For this reason, a much greater emphasis on team fights as can be found in HotS is the objectively correct way to design a MOBA, and last hitting in MOBAs is as pointless and unnecessary as the following mechanic: Your hero is granted +1 basic attack permanently under the following conditions: "If you hit a minion with 2 basic attacks where the time between the two attacks is between 1.4 to 1.6 seconds, then a pop-up appears with a simple arithmetic problem, like '4x13=?', and if you type in the correct answer within 2 seconds,you are awarded +1 basic attack permanently".
If HOTS is truly the superior MOBA then viewer numbers should explode and exceed Dota2 and LoL by far once it reaches beta/nears it's release, since it will be more interesting to watch. Don't you think?
But I really admire your fanaticism. One random internet kid states Dota2 requires more skill than Hots and you go on a crusade spanning endless days just to prove him wrong. A for effort. Because let's face it, this thread is nothing more than bashing on the lasthitting mechanic in Dota2/LoL.
HotS is actually the SuperiorSuperiorMOBA, there already exists a SuperiorMOBA that takes out some of the anti-fun mechanics of InferiorMOBA
On August 18 2014 20:31 Sbrubbles wrote: The idea that removing mechanics doesn't change overall "skill" in competitive games so long as attention can be shifted to other areas of the game and so long as that extra attetion can still differentiate "more skilled" from "less skilled" players is not an unreasonable one, but the problem is that it is conceivable that "decreasing marginal returns" may set in on the leftover areas of the game, so the potential to differentiate players ends up lower even if the theoretical skill ceiling is impossible to reach. Assuming there is a random element to the game (and there always is in games with imperfect information).
Overall, though, the OP is getting way more flak than deserved, then again indirectly arguing against time-honored mechanics is bound to leave some people butthurt.
so basically you do agree that removing mechanics makes it so that the game rewards less skill? because after all, being humans, we constantly make mistakes in our play. If basketball was only about throwing penalty shots, then yes there would be someone that we could call the best in the world. He might be able to throw in 98,88% of the shots whereas the second best would score 98,86% of the time. And the 10000th best player would score 98% of the time. It's a game where no one would ever reach the skill ceiling i.e. 100% success. So what? There would be simply nothing impressive about the best player in the world, he's just another guy who can throw in about 98% of his shots. There would never be someone to look up to, there would never be a consistent champion, skill would not be rewarded. A guy that has only 96% success rate could easily beat the best player in the world if the best player failed even one throw. Say his concentration slips for a fraction of a second and he misses, and that's that, he just lost to some no name garbage player. A game as volatile as that is what I would call a low skill game, but obviously you argue it takes just as skill based as regular basketball. It's more or less about semantics, what do people actually mean when they say "high skill game".
No. The opposite is true. You can remove all the mechanics in the world, but as long as the theoretical skill ceiling remains above what humans can achieve, the skill required hasn't changed, because there's more things humans can do, play better, get more skills, etc., to win more.
In your basketball vs penalty shot example, as I explained in the OP, both games require the same amount of skill, if the theoretical skill ceiling is above what humans can achieve. The change in your example just shifts the skills required rather than the amount of skill required which is unchanged. Basketball requires skill in getting the ball into the hoop, penalty shot requires the skill of throwing the ball in the hoop and the skill of not failing.
As I said "mechanics should not be chosen to increase or reduce skill required, because virtually every mechanic will have no effect on skill required. Instead mechanics should be chosen based on whether they are fun, interesting to watch, and fits with the design goals of the game."
On August 17 2014 13:04 paralleluniversewrote: A corollary of the Law of Dumbing Down Games is that, in a competitive game, any argument that removing a mechanic, such as last hitting or items, that does not change the game to satisfy the above 3 condition's, would dumb down the game or make the game require less skill is automatically invalid and wrong. A further corollary is that mechanics should not be chosen to increase or reduce skill required, because virtually every mechanic will have no effect on skill required. Instead mechanics should be chosen based on whether they are fun, interesting to watch, and fits with the design goals of the game. For this reason, a much greater emphasis on team fights as can be found in HotS is the objectively correct way to design a MOBA, and last hitting in MOBAs is as pointless and unnecessary as the following mechanic: Your hero is granted +1 basic attack permanently under the following conditions: "If you hit a minion with 2 basic attacks where the time between the two attacks is between 1.4 to 1.6 seconds, then a pop-up appears with a simple arithmetic problem, like '4x13=?', and if you type in the correct answer within 2 seconds,you are awarded +1 basic attack permanently".
If HOTS is truly the superior MOBA then viewer numbers should explode and exceed Dota2 and LoL by far once it reaches beta/nears it's release, since it will be more interesting to watch. Don't you think?
But I really admire your fanaticism. One random internet kid states Dota2 requires more skill than Hots and you go on a crusade spanning endless days just to prove him wrong. A for effort. Because let's face it, this thread is nothing more than bashing on the lasthitting mechanic in Dota2/LoL.
HotS is actually the SuperiorSuperiorMOBA, there already exists a SuperiorMOBA that takes out some of the anti-fun mechanics of InferiorMOBA
Plus they have SuperiorMoba approved meta to make it easier for people to figure out how to play the game. SuperiorSuperiorMOBA goes to the next level and builds the team for you by picking heroes based on their role to be on your team. It is the Blizzard enforced Meta.
On August 18 2014 22:04 ahswtini wrote: Removing one mechanic so you can do more of the other mechanics does not automatically maintain the same skill ceiling, which is the basis of your entire argument.
No, my argument has nothing to do with if the theoretical skill ceiling is maintained. Removing a mechanic can reduce the skill ceiling a hundredfold, but the skill required to play the game will still be the same as long as the theoretical skill ceiling is above what humans can achieve. Because then there is no optimal strategy, and everyone can always improve their play and improve their skill, in order to win more.
On August 18 2014 22:04 ahswtini wrote: Removing one mechanic so you can do more of the other mechanics does not automatically maintain the same skill ceiling, which is the basis of your entire argument.
No, my argument has nothing to do with if the theoretical skill ceiling is maintained. Removing a mechanic can reduce the skill ceiling a hundredfold, but the skill required to play the game will still be the same as long as the theoretical skill ceiling is above what humans can achieve. Because then there is no optimal strategy, and everyone can always improve their play and improve their skill. in order to PAY to win more.
On August 18 2014 20:31 Sbrubbles wrote: The idea that removing mechanics doesn't change overall "skill" in competitive games so long as attention can be shifted to other areas of the game and so long as that extra attetion can still differentiate "more skilled" from "less skilled" players is not an unreasonable one, but the problem is that it is conceivable that "decreasing marginal returns" may set in on the leftover areas of the game, so the potential to differentiate players ends up lower even if the theoretical skill ceiling is impossible to reach. Assuming there is a random element to the game (and there always is in games with imperfect information).
Overall, though, the OP is getting way more flak than deserved, then again indirectly arguing against time-honored mechanics is bound to leave some people butthurt.
so basically you do agree that removing mechanics makes it so that the game rewards less skill? because after all, being humans, we constantly make mistakes in our play. If basketball was only about throwing penalty shots, then yes there would be someone that we could call the best in the world. He might be able to throw in 98,88% of the shots whereas the second best would score 98,86% of the time. And the 10000th best player would score 98% of the time. It's a game where no one would ever reach the skill ceiling i.e. 100% success. So what? There would be simply nothing impressive about the best player in the world, he's just another guy who can throw in about 98% of his shots. There would never be someone to look up to, there would never be a consistent champion, skill would not be rewarded. A guy that has only 96% success rate could easily beat the best player in the world if the best player failed even one throw. Say his concentration slips for a fraction of a second and he misses, and that's that, he just lost to some no name garbage player. A game as volatile as that is what I would call a low skill game, but obviously you argue it takes just as skill based as regular basketball. It's more or less about semantics, what do people actually mean when they say "high skill game".
No. The opposite is true. You can remove all the mechanics in the world, but as long as the theoretical skill ceiling remains above what humans can achieve, the skill required hasn't changed, because there's more things humans can do, play better, get more skills, etc., to win more.
In your basketball vs penalty shot example, as I explained in the OP, both games require the same amount of skill, if the theoretical skill ceiling is above what humans can achieve. The change in your example just shifts the skills required rather than the amount of skill required which is unchanged. Basketball requires skill in getting the ball into the hoop, penalty shot requires the skill of throwing the ball in the hoop and the skill of not failing.
As I said "mechanics should not be chosen to increase or reduce skill required, because virtually every mechanic will have no effect on skill required. Instead mechanics should be chosen based on whether they are fun, interesting to watch, and fits with the design goals of the game."
you work for riot, don't you? no other company makes statements like this and believes they are true.
also how basketball (where penalty shooting is ONE of MANY skills to have) can have the same skill ceiling as penalty shooting (without the rest) is beyond my understanding.
On August 18 2014 22:04 ahswtini wrote: Removing one mechanic so you can do more of the other mechanics does not automatically maintain the same skill ceiling, which is the basis of your entire argument.
yeah like his cs with aimbot example. same skill as without aimbot, for sure, rofl.
Yes, the same amount of skill as before. Acting incredulous is not an argument. It makes it easier for you to aim, but it also makes it easier for your opponent, so you're not going to win more. It shifts to skill from aiming to positioning. If it's so much easier why can't you always win?
Example 1: Adding auto-aim to CS:GO (removing complexity) Aiming is a huge part of CS:GO, it's one of the most important skills in the game. Does adding auto-aim dumb down the game, reduce skill or kill depth? No. The game will still require just as much skill as it does now. Instead of being about aiming, auto-aim would shift the game to be about positioning, strategy, flashing and firing with maximum lethality (minimizing recoil). The team with more skill in avoiding situations where they will be killed by the opponent's auto-aim by being at the right place at the right time would win. The skill of correct positioning would be absolutely critical. So playing CS:GO with auto-aim would require the same amount of skill it requires now, it just emphasizes different types of skills, like positioning.
On August 18 2014 22:04 ahswtini wrote: Removing one mechanic so you can do more of the other mechanics does not automatically maintain the same skill ceiling, which is the basis of your entire argument.
No, my argument has nothing to do with if the theoretical skill ceiling is maintained. Removing a mechanic can reduce the skill ceiling a hundredfold, but the skill required to play the game will still be the same as long as the theoretical skill ceiling is above what humans can achieve. Because then there is no optimal strategy, and everyone can always improve their play and improve their skill. in order to win more.
So in essence, Dota2 is the more skillful game. Just because no human is able to achieve that skill level doesn't change the fact it exists. That's literally what you are saying.
Wait, I missed that. He said that playing a full game of basket ball has the same skill ceiling as making penalty shots? Are you kidding me? Lets take the most important skill involved, running all the time, vs standing and just leave it at that. One involves a team, the other does not. One involves an opposing team, the other does not. One of those is clearly harder than the other.
I love how his argument boils down to - if the playing field is equal, its equal, therefore all things are equal. If you take this argument to its conclusion, winning at rock paper scissors requires as much skill as winning at dota as winning at chess as winning at dating.
On August 18 2014 20:31 Sbrubbles wrote: The idea that removing mechanics doesn't change overall "skill" in competitive games so long as attention can be shifted to other areas of the game and so long as that extra attetion can still differentiate "more skilled" from "less skilled" players is not an unreasonable one, but the problem is that it is conceivable that "decreasing marginal returns" may set in on the leftover areas of the game, so the potential to differentiate players ends up lower even if the theoretical skill ceiling is impossible to reach. Assuming there is a random element to the game (and there always is in games with imperfect information).
Overall, though, the OP is getting way more flak than deserved, then again indirectly arguing against time-honored mechanics is bound to leave some people butthurt.
so basically you do agree that removing mechanics makes it so that the game rewards less skill? because after all, being humans, we constantly make mistakes in our play. If basketball was only about throwing penalty shots, then yes there would be someone that we could call the best in the world. He might be able to throw in 98,88% of the shots whereas the second best would score 98,86% of the time. And the 10000th best player would score 98% of the time. It's a game where no one would ever reach the skill ceiling i.e. 100% success. So what? There would be simply nothing impressive about the best player in the world, he's just another guy who can throw in about 98% of his shots. There would never be someone to look up to, there would never be a consistent champion, skill would not be rewarded. A guy that has only 96% success rate could easily beat the best player in the world if the best player failed even one throw. Say his concentration slips for a fraction of a second and he misses, and that's that, he just lost to some no name garbage player. A game as volatile as that is what I would call a low skill game, but obviously you argue it takes just as skill based as regular basketball. It's more or less about semantics, what do people actually mean when they say "high skill game".
No. The opposite is true. You can remove all the mechanics in the world, but as long as the theoretical skill ceiling remains above what humans can achieve, the skill required hasn't changed, because there's more things humans can do, play better, get more skills, etc., to win more.
In your basketball vs penalty shot example, as I explained in the OP, both games require the same amount of skill, if the theoretical skill ceiling is above what humans can achieve. The change in your example just shifts the skills required rather than the amount of skill required which is unchanged. Basketball requires skill in getting the ball into the hoop, penalty shot requires the skill of throwing the ball in the hoop and the skill of not failing.
As I said "mechanics should not be chosen to increase or reduce skill required, because virtually every mechanic will have no effect on skill required. Instead mechanics should be chosen based on whether they are fun, interesting to watch, and fits with the design goals of the game."
On August 18 2014 22:04 ahswtini wrote: Removing one mechanic so you can do more of the other mechanics does not automatically maintain the same skill ceiling, which is the basis of your entire argument.
yeah like his cs with aimbot example. same skill as without aimbot, for sure, rofl.
Yes, the same amount of skill as before. Acting incredulous is not an argument. It makes it easier for you to aim, but it also makes it easier for your opponent, so you're not going to win more. It shifts to skill from aiming to positioning. If it's so much easier why can't you always win?
Example 1: Adding auto-aim to CS:GO (removing complexity) Aiming is a huge part of CS:GO, it's one of the most important skills in the game. Does adding auto-aim dumb down the game, reduce skill or kill depth? No. The game will still require just as much skill as it does now. Instead of being about aiming, auto-aim would shift the game to be about positioning, strategy, flashing and firing with maximum lethality (minimizing recoil). The team with more skill in avoiding situations where they will be killed by the opponent's auto-aim by being at the right place at the right time would win. The skill of correct positioning would be absolutely critical. So playing CS:GO with auto-aim would require the same amount of skill it requires now, it just emphasizes different types of skills, like positioning.
positioning was there before, don't you think? so if you remove a skill mechanic and add nothing what do you get? less required skill. it doesn't matter that you need to put more emphasize on an already existing mechanic.
you're logic just makes no fucking sense. same as your "winrate" argument that MAKES NO SENSE. every game you talk about has a matchmaking system that will take care of your "winrate".
edit: for this gem:
Example 1: Adding auto-aim to CS:GO (removing complexity) Aiming is a huge part of CS:GO, it's one of the most important skills in the game. Does adding auto-aim dumb down the game, reduce skill or kill depth? No. The game will still require just as much skill as it does now. Instead of being about aiming, auto-aim would shift the game to be about positioning, strategy, flashing and firing with maximum lethality (minimizing recoil). The team with more skill in avoiding situations where they will be killed by the opponent's auto-aim by being at the right place at the right time would win. The skill of correct positioning would be absolutely critical. So playing CS:GO with auto-aim would require the same amount of skill it requires now, it just emphasizes different types of skills, like positioning.
the game is already about positioning, strategy, flashing and firing with maximum lethality (minimizing recoil), so WHAT ARE YOU EVEN TALKING ABOUT. btw, the game is about AIMING, too and if you remove it something is clearly MISIING.
On August 18 2014 22:04 ahswtini wrote: Removing one mechanic so you can do more of the other mechanics does not automatically maintain the same skill ceiling, which is the basis of your entire argument.
No, my argument has nothing to do with if the theoretical skill ceiling is maintained. Removing a mechanic can reduce the skill ceiling a hundredfold, but the skill required to play the game will still be the same as long as the theoretical skill ceiling is above what humans can achieve. Because then there is no optimal strategy, and everyone can always improve their play and improve their skill. in order to win more.
Well played, your agument is impossible to disprove. There is no way of quantifying this theoretical universal skill ceiling. You may as well be arguing about the existence of God. There is no magical ultimate umbrella skill ceiling that all of humanity share. Your theory is that everyone is capable of the same potential in every mechanic. Therefore removing all but one mechanic is fine, as long as that one mechanic has a skill ceiling higher than the humanity ultimate skill ceiling. That's flawed. People are different and their abilities are gated in different ways. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. By reducing the number of things players have to be competent at, you are closing the gap between the good and bad players.
On August 18 2014 20:31 Sbrubbles wrote: The idea that removing mechanics doesn't change overall "skill" in competitive games so long as attention can be shifted to other areas of the game and so long as that extra attetion can still differentiate "more skilled" from "less skilled" players is not an unreasonable one, but the problem is that it is conceivable that "decreasing marginal returns" may set in on the leftover areas of the game, so the potential to differentiate players ends up lower even if the theoretical skill ceiling is impossible to reach.
This. His logic, if you strip it down to its most simplistic form, works.
Let's say you have 5 skill points that you can invest into four different mechanics, called A, B, C and D. And let's say all those mechanics have individual ceilings of 10. In one scenario you invest your points as follows: A: 1 B: 2 C: 1 D: 2
Now let's remove mechanic D, we can now spend those 2 points on something else. Fine. You still have spent all your skill points and have not gotten anywhere close to the skill ceiling of the game.
So why aren't games stripped down so that there are only two skills for players to have to master? If you do it right, people will still never reach the skill ceiling. Why not just have pure worker micro in Starcraft? Let the AI build and command your units? Your game can be all about maximising worker efficiency.
How to make a simple model of this type of game is difficult because "skill" is difficult (conceptually impossible? I'm not 100% sure) to measure. But we both did it, so let me roll with it . Warning: grain of salt required before proceding:
Let's build a game in which the player is given "skill points" (SP) which he must distribute between game areas A, B, C and D. Each area gives him "game points" (GP) as a function of the number of SP invested in it, and the player with more GP at the end wins. Furthermore, there's area E of the game that gives random extra GP to each player.
Let's assume that each game area function gives more GP the more SP is invested into it, so that A, B, C and D are all increasing in SP. Now, let's suppose two different scenarios:
1) Each game area function gives the same GP proportional to the number of SP invested into it and that, if GP is equal, players would rather spend their SP equally between game areas.
2) Each game area function has decreasing marginal returns, so each SP extra gives less GP than the previous one.
Each player will naturally want to maximize his GP in order to win, so optimally in scenario 1 he will spend his SP equally between A, B, C and D and in scenario 2 he spend his points in a way that equals the marginal GPs of functions A, B, C and D.
The player's probability to win depends on how big the random area E is in relation to A, B, C and D, so we can write it down as P(player 1 beats 2) = P(A1+B1+C1+D1+E1 > A2+B2+C2+D2+E2), A1 being how many GP player 1 gains from the SP he spent in A. If the game's "random" aspect is way bigger than the rest, it becomes P(E1>E2), a coin flip, and if the game's "random" aspect isn't there, then it becomes P(A1+B1+C1+D1 > A2+B2+C2+D2), which is not actually a probability, it's a certainty: the more skilled player always wins (ideal world).
Now, the point of this thought exercise is to show that in scenario 1, if you remove D, neither player's "chance to win" changes, because he can redistribute his SP in a way that A1*+B1*+C1*=A1+B1+C1+D1 (A1* being how many GP player 1 gains from the SP he spent in A with D having been removed). In scenario 2, though, if you remove D, then A1*+B1*+C1*<A1+B1+C1+D1, because of decreasing marginal returns, which increases the relative importance of E, making it less likely the more skilled player will win. The question then becomes: which scenario applies better to the discussion at hand?
On August 18 2014 22:04 ahswtini wrote: Removing one mechanic so you can do more of the other mechanics does not automatically maintain the same skill ceiling, which is the basis of your entire argument.
yeah like his cs with aimbot example. same skill as without aimbot, for sure, rofl.
Yes, the same amount of skill as before. Acting incredulous is not an argument. It makes it easier for you to aim, but it also makes it easier for your opponent, so you're not going to win more. It shifts to skill from aiming to positioning. If it's so much easier why can't you always win?
Example 1: Adding auto-aim to CS:GO (removing complexity) Aiming is a huge part of CS:GO, it's one of the most important skills in the game. Does adding auto-aim dumb down the game, reduce skill or kill depth? No. The game will still require just as much skill as it does now. Instead of being about aiming, auto-aim would shift the game to be about positioning, strategy, flashing and firing with maximum lethality (minimizing recoil). The team with more skill in avoiding situations where they will be killed by the opponent's auto-aim by being at the right place at the right time would win. The skill of correct positioning would be absolutely critical. So playing CS:GO with auto-aim would require the same amount of skill it requires now, it just emphasizes different types of skills, like positioning.
positioning was there before, don't you think? so if you remove a skill mechanic and add nothing what do you get? less required skill. it doesn't matter that you need to put more emphasize on an already existing mechanic.
Dude it means you can think about MORE positioning. Obviously players' abilities to position perfectly is being gated by the unnecessary mechanic of having to aim.
On August 18 2014 22:44 Reaps wrote: Forgive me as I haven't read all 8 pages, but how the hell does giving an fps like CS:GO autoaim not reduce skill??
On August 18 2014 20:22 Spaylz wrote: I don't see you addressing anything. I see you repeating the same stuff over and over while other people come up with many different answers to your, again, very biased views.
The only real point you've made is that the skill ceiling cannot be reached by any human, and that there is always room for improvement. That pretty much applies to everything, hence the constant, never-ending progress of the human race both in terms of technology and quality of life. But all games have the same skill? That is in no way true. Does that mean a CS:GO pro player should be able to go pro on SC2 as well? Does that mean Bobby Fischer would rock everyone in Dota 2, or to speak your language: in HotS?
Again, tic-tac-toe and checkers give both players access to the same possibilities, the same units, and so on. There are no differences in terms of options available, only decision-making matters. This does not, cannot, and will never apply to games like Dota 2 or HotS, because there are too many variables. Some heroes lose against others, and vice versa. And, again, even in those bad situation of a poor hero match-up, some people do manage to win. Because they are better. I don't know how many times I can repeat myself.
You're not proving anything. Everybody tells you so. Do you pay attention to what is happenig at all?
Lastly, you've stopped answering in the HotS thread, after the many posts addressing your... point of view.
You haven't read the OP properly. If all games require the same amount of skill, it does not mean that SC2 players can go pro at SC2, because they require different skills, SC2 requires skills in macro, CS:GO requires skill in preisions.
If changes were made to SC2 to that it becomes CS:GO or changes to remove multiple unit selection, then the skills required will shift, but all overall skill required will stay the same.
This is stated in the OP:
Humans can only do a finite number of things at one time. So, for example, removing pointless gimmicks and restrictions in MOBAs frees players to focus on other real skills, like strategizing around merc camps and map objectives, landing skillshots, and winning team fights. Therefore, instead of doing less and lowering the achievable skill ceiling, the achievable skill ceiling doesn't change, it's still bounded by the finite amount of things humans can do just as before, but it shifts where skill is needed.
[...]
Example 1: Adding auto-aim to CS:GO (removing complexity) Aiming is a huge part of CS:GO, it's one of the most important skills in the game. Does adding auto-aim dumb down the game, reduce skill or kill depth? No. The game will still require just as much skill as it does now. Instead of being about aiming, auto-aim would shift the game to be about positioning, strategy, flashing and firing with maximum lethality (minimizing recoil). The team with more skill in avoiding situations where they will be killed by the opponent's auto-aim by being at the right place at the right time would win. The skill of correct positioning would be absolutely critical. So playing CS:GO with auto-aim would require the same amount of skill it requires now, it just emphasizes different types of skills, like positioning.
You say there's too many variables in Dota 2 and HotS for there to be an optimal strategy. Then how can removing, for example, items from HotS reduce skill when there's still "too many variables" that people cannot master? It doesn't, and so you've debunked yourself.
Also, picking the right heroes would be part of the optimal strategy, if there is one.
You irritate me. When did I say removing mechanics lowered skill level? Seriously..
So you admit, as my argument in the OP shows, that removing mechanics like last hitting and items from MOBAs doesn't lower skill level?
OK. I'm going to be very, very clear here to make sure you understand my opinion.
First of all, I never said removing mechanics lowered the skill ceiling (note that I don't even think that's an actual thing, but whatever). You keep answering me, saying "so you admit I'm right, the skill isn't reduced?" when I never spoke of reducing skills. I spoke of complexity, strategy, and so on.
Secondly, no, you haven't convinced me of anything. Basically, all you've said is that one can always improve themself, thus meaning the "skill ceiling" of any game is unreachable and that as long as there is room for improvement, then the point holds. This is stating the obvious, and I never disagreed with that. What I always argued against was your stupid, stupid vendetta against Dota 2, and your irrational praise of HotS. Please read this.
Furthermore, I have not "debunked" myself one bit. I've been stating many different points, among them explaining how and why Dota 2 and HotS are different but not necessarily superior to one another. I have yet to go back on that, and nothing I said disproves it. Also, personal skill level does enter into play. You can add or remove as many mechanics as you like, people are going to approach and handle them differently, and some will be better than others. Such is life: someone will always be better than you, no matter what we speak of. We could be talking about cooking eggs for all I care, and someone, somewhere will be able to make tastier eggs than you.
Now, about your last post...
1. I said some games are decided by the drafting. It is possible to be outpicked in Dota 2, and frankly it happens quite often. How can there be any snowballing if your opponent's team is designed to counter yours? (Again, even with a setup that counters that of your opponent, it is possible to lose by being outplayed) I also said Dota 2 had flaws, and that the rare games that are decided 20 minutes in are part of that, but are nowhere near as frequent as you picture them to be. Just as I am sure that HotS has its own flaws, and that bad situations will also arise from them. Unless you believe HotS is flawless?
2. That makes no sense whatsoever. Are you even reading yourself? He is the game director, and he is arguing for the game's design. Again, this is marketing, why on earth would he argue for the design of the other games? I mean, come on, you don't even address what I said here. You're just saying complete random sentences that don't answer what I said in the slightest. His point is that he saw Dota 2, saw its flaws and the unpleasant moments that arose from them, and aimed to create a game that solved that. In doing so, he simplified many aspects of the game, thus creating flaws which in the opinion of others might be a deal breaker. One of those flaws being: HotS will never achieve the level of strategy Dota 2 has in CM/CD modes, and that is completely fine. It is the other side of the coin that comes with simplifying aspects. It makes things simpler. Note that I said simpler, not easier, so don't go saying I'm arguing there is a skill reduction. Simple does not equal easy. There is no argument to be made about what game is the better one, it is all a matter of personal preference (yet another concept which seems to elude you).
3. I think you need to understand what "skill" means. At this point, I really feel like I'm debating the wind. That paragraph of yours basically says what I said: some people are better than others. By defaut, we humans have done nothing than to improve ourselves over the past couple of thousand years, and I'm sure it will keep going that way. What is the point of debating that? We might as well talk about the weather. It's not even a matter of "reaching the skill ceiling", it's just a matter of getting better. I don't even know what you're arguing anymore. I for one did not say less skill was required, I said the reasons for losing were different. Word for word.
Really, you're beating a dead horse, seeing as I never said HotS required less skill than Dota 2. I simply said it focused on different aspects and offers a different experience.
Anyway... To sum it up: debating whether or not there is a maximum skill which can be achieved is, ultimately, pointless. Even if there were, not everybody would be able to reach it, because everybody's talent is different. That is the essence of skill: someone will always be able to pull off moves that another one cannot. Sometimes, people are unable to improve. Sometimes, they cannot get better because they have reached their limits, and not some sort of ultimate theoretical limit every human being can reach. Your assumption is based on the fact that all men are equal. Well, they are not. Welcome to the real world.
And for the record, I absolutely love HotS. I simply see no need to act like a fanatic over it, and proceed to turn myself into a self-proclaimed scholar looking to bring down the other games with made-up, pointless "laws".
Stop with the lie that you never said HotS requires less skill. You did. Here's proof:
On August 16 2014 02:30 Spaylz wrote: Also, nobody said the strategy and skill factor of HotS was low. People said it was lower than in Dota 2 and LoL, which is true. Essential mechanics like last hitting and denying are removed, experience is shared on the whole map, etc.
You claim that I've ignored personal skill, but I have not ignored personal skill, because the very fact people can have different levels of personal skill at the game and that no one has hit the theoretical skill ceiling proves that removing mechanics does not reduce the skill required to play the game, as there is always more skillful things to do to improve your play in order to win more.
You write: "Also, personal skill level does enter into play. You can add or remove as many mechanics as you like, people are going to approach and handle them differently, and some will be better than others." But if removing mechanics, like HotS has, lowers the skill required to play the game, then this situation would not be possible, because that means some people cannot possibly do anything more to improve their play as they've found an optimal strategy to play the game, because as long as everyone can do something more to improve their play, to increase their wins, then the skill required to play the game hasn't been reduced since everyone can do more to play better. Therefore, the fact that you admit that this situation is possible, implies that skill has not been reduced.
I'm not "debating whether or not there is a maximum skill which can be achieved". I showed that as long as the theoretical skill cap is above what is achievable by humans, the skill required to play the game has not reduced, because there's more skill that people can learn in order to win more.
Again, you've got the causation of Browder's statement backwards. You say it's marketing. Well, why doesn't he make a game with denying and items and market that instead? He doesn't make such a game because he agrees with me and he agrees that you're wrong.
Your post is based off the lie that "I never said HotS required less skill than Dota 2". As I proved, you did. Stop lying.
On August 18 2014 22:44 Reaps wrote: Forgive me as I haven't read all 8 pages, but how the hell does giving an fps like CS:GO autoaim not reduce skill??
???
Because if both sides have it, they you will be freed up to pay attention to other things, like positioning and cover…. Because you weren’t paying attention to those to begin with.
On August 18 2014 20:31 Sbrubbles wrote: The idea that removing mechanics doesn't change overall "skill" in competitive games so long as attention can be shifted to other areas of the game and so long as that extra attetion can still differentiate "more skilled" from "less skilled" players is not an unreasonable one, but the problem is that it is conceivable that "decreasing marginal returns" may set in on the leftover areas of the game, so the potential to differentiate players ends up lower even if the theoretical skill ceiling is impossible to reach.
This. His logic, if you strip it down to its most simplistic form, works.
Let's say you have 5 skill points that you can invest into four different mechanics, called A, B, C and D. And let's say all those mechanics have individual ceilings of 10. In one scenario you invest your points as follows: A: 1 B: 2 C: 1 D: 2
Now let's remove mechanic D, we can now spend those 2 points on something else. Fine. You still have spent all your skill points and have not gotten anywhere close to the skill ceiling of the game.
So why aren't games stripped down so that there are only two skills for players to have to master? If you do it right, people will still never reach the skill ceiling. Why not just have pure worker micro in Starcraft? Let the AI build and command your units? Your game can be all about maximising worker efficiency.
How to make a simple model of this type of game is difficult because "skill" is difficult (conceptually impossible? I'm not 100% sure) to measure. But we both did it, so let me roll with it . Warning: grain of salt required before proceding:
Let's build a game in which the player is given "skill points" (SP) which he must distribute between game areas A, B, C and D. Each area gives him "game points" (GP) as a function of the number of SP invested in it, and the player with more GP at the end wins. Furthermore, there's area E of the game that gives random extra GP to each player.
Let's assume that each game area function gives more GP the more SP is invested into it, so that A, B, C and D are all increasing in SP. Now, let's suppose two different scenarios:
1) Each game area function gives the same GP proportional to the number of SP invested into it and that, if GP is equal, players would rather spend their SP equally between game areas.
2) Each game area function has decreasing marginal returns, so each SP extra gives less GP than the previous one.
Each player will naturally want to maximize his GP in order to win, so optimally in scenario 1 he will spend his SP equally between A, B, C and D and in scenario 2 he spend his points in a way that equals the marginal GPs of functions A, B, C and D.
The player's probability to win depends on how big the random area E is in relation to A, B, C and D, so we can write it down as P(player 1 beats 2) = P(A1+B1+C1+D1+E1 > A2+B2+C2+D2+E2), A1 being how many GP player 1 gains from the SP he spent in A. If the game's "random" aspect is way bigger than the rest, it becomes P(E1>E2), a coin flip, and if the game's "random" aspect isn't there, then it becomes P(A1+B1+C1+D1 > A2+B2+C2+D2), which is not actually a probability, it's a certainty: the more skilled player always wins (ideal world).
Now, the point of this thought exercise is to show that in scenario 1, if you remove D, neither player's "chance to win" changes, because he can redistribute his SP in a way that A1*+B1*+C1*=A1+B1+C1+D1 (A1* being how many GP player 1 gains from the SP he spent in A with D having been removed). In scenario 2, though, if you remove D, then A1*+B1*+C1*<A1+B1+C1+D1, because of decreasing marginal returns, which increases the relative importance of E, making it less likely the more skilled player will win. The question then becomes: which scenario applies better to the discussion at hand?
The first scenario makes the crucial assumption that each area gives you the same GP return for the SP invested. Not a fair assumption, all mechanics will rarely have the exact same game impact. Second scenario is solid - increasing micromanagement gives you diminishing returns. Let's say you don't need to last hit, so you focus more on positioning around objectives. You were already positioning around objectives to begin with, and if you're a pro, you should already have reached a high level of competency at positioning. So what extra proficiency can you actually get? Again, it's impossible to quantify this stuff, because there's no absolute way to measure skill. And in this same way, it's impossible to disprove OP's theory.
Adding and removing meaningless gimmick paragraphs do not change the overall bullshit ceiling and this is consistent with the Law of Conciseness of Bullshit. Then why do you spend so many seemingly complex paragraphs trying to explain the complexity and nuances of your Bullshit when removing the paragraphs obviously wouldn't dumb it down at all.
lmao i love you
you put autoaim in csgo then dont call it cs go
hey why not also make it turn based?
And then why dont you add dice rolls?
would still be a great game with a high still ceiling
But then it would be a completely different game.
A pc has a mouse and a keyboard which makes it unusually adapted at the skill of precise and rapid aiming of a cursor. That is an immense skillcap ability that is a joy to watch.
You entire strawman of an argument creates strawmen as it goes, sure you may have a slight point, but then stating any tautological nonsense has a point it just has no application. Comparing 2 game with diffrent skills as if they are the same game is silly.
dota without lots of items isnt dota. csgo without aiming isnt csgo. rts games with no buildings are not rts game (or certainly not the base building genre that you started with - there are many non base building rts out there)
At the end of the say you are saying a) humans have a skill cap b) some games have a skillcap higher than what humans can attain
you are then suggesting that because fo this the games *should* ie moral imperative to be at this level But who gives a shit about skillcap really?
When someone says you are ruining a game with a change that lowers the skillcap they are saying that skill is an integral part of the game, so you are comparing a completley different game to a game that was already perfectly fine. Thats why it is also strawman.
In that very quote, I said HotS removed certain aspects (like drafting, more complex strategy, etc.) to add other things. Meaning it removes the skill involved in those particular aspects, since the aspects themselves are gone. Or is that too complicated to grasp? Unless perhaps you think that if HotS removes drafting and picking, it somehow retains the same level of skill involved in those parts of Dota 2 or LoL?
Second, your "theoretical skill ceiling" doesn't exist. As someone else said, it's the same thing as arguing the existence of God, and nobody wants to debate faith. This is what we're dealing with.
Again, you're ignoring half of my argument. There is no such thing as a "skill ceiling", everyone has different capacities. There is no ultimate point that ALL human beings can reach. Give it a rest.
Lastly, I doubt Browder gives a flying fuck about your opinion. The world does not revolve around you, and no matter how much of a Blizzard fan you are, the company does not revolve around you either. Blizzard is doing their own take on the dota-like genre, and obviously, since there are so many clones about, they need to do something different to stick out and achieve successs. Because they're not dumbasses. The rest is simple marketing: he is promoting his product.
On August 18 2014 22:04 ahswtini wrote: Removing one mechanic so you can do more of the other mechanics does not automatically maintain the same skill ceiling, which is the basis of your entire argument.
No, my argument has nothing to do with if the theoretical skill ceiling is maintained. Removing a mechanic can reduce the skill ceiling a hundredfold, but the skill required to play the game will still be the same as long as the theoretical skill ceiling is above what humans can achieve. Because then there is no optimal strategy, and everyone can always improve their play and improve their skill. in order to win more.
So in essence, Dota2 is the more skillful game. Just because no human is able to achieve that skill level doesn't change the fact it exists. That's literally what you are saying.
What the theoretical skill ceiling is doesn't matter if no human can achieve it. So no, Dota 2 is not the more skillful game than HotS, because people can't win more in Dota 2 than in HotS, as in both games no human can reach the theoretical skill ceiling, meaning that everyone can always use more skill to win more.
Last hitting as a skill is pretty simple to get good at. Laning on the other hand, is not, because there are a lot of factors to play around. Last hitting exists to force you to lane, and therefore forces you to engage in a direct battle of skills with the enemy. Why not just have a load of teamfights if you want to test PvP skills? Because the mechanics of a laning fight are different to those of a teamfight.
On August 18 2014 22:04 ahswtini wrote: Removing one mechanic so you can do more of the other mechanics does not automatically maintain the same skill ceiling, which is the basis of your entire argument.
No, my argument has nothing to do with if the theoretical skill ceiling is maintained. Removing a mechanic can reduce the skill ceiling a hundredfold, but the skill required to play the game will still be the same as long as the theoretical skill ceiling is above what humans can achieve. Because then there is no optimal strategy, and everyone can always improve their play and improve their skill. in order to win more.
So in essence, Dota2 is the more skillful game. Just because no human is able to achieve that skill level doesn't change the fact it exists. That's literally what you are saying.
What the theoretical skill ceiling is doesn't matter if no human can achieve it. So no, Dota 2 is not the more skillful game than HotS, because people can't win more in Dota 2 than in HotS, as in both games no human can reach the theoretical skill ceiling, meaning that everyone can always use more skill to win more.
You disproved your theory. Because both sides are played by humans and both are interacting with the game, winrates are meaning less when determining how hard the game is to play. You can't count winrates as evidence of anything in this argument.
On August 18 2014 20:22 Spaylz wrote: I don't see you addressing anything. I see you repeating the same stuff over and over while other people come up with many different answers to your, again, very biased views.
The only real point you've made is that the skill ceiling cannot be reached by any human, and that there is always room for improvement. That pretty much applies to everything, hence the constant, never-ending progress of the human race both in terms of technology and quality of life. But all games have the same skill? That is in no way true. Does that mean a CS:GO pro player should be able to go pro on SC2 as well? Does that mean Bobby Fischer would rock everyone in Dota 2, or to speak your language: in HotS?
Again, tic-tac-toe and checkers give both players access to the same possibilities, the same units, and so on. There are no differences in terms of options available, only decision-making matters. This does not, cannot, and will never apply to games like Dota 2 or HotS, because there are too many variables. Some heroes lose against others, and vice versa. And, again, even in those bad situation of a poor hero match-up, some people do manage to win. Because they are better. I don't know how many times I can repeat myself.
You're not proving anything. Everybody tells you so. Do you pay attention to what is happenig at all?
Lastly, you've stopped answering in the HotS thread, after the many posts addressing your... point of view.
You haven't read the OP properly. If all games require the same amount of skill, it does not mean that SC2 players can go pro at SC2, because they require different skills, SC2 requires skills in macro, CS:GO requires skill in preisions.
If changes were made to SC2 to that it becomes CS:GO or changes to remove multiple unit selection, then the skills required will shift, but all overall skill required will stay the same.
This is stated in the OP:
Humans can only do a finite number of things at one time. So, for example, removing pointless gimmicks and restrictions in MOBAs frees players to focus on other real skills, like strategizing around merc camps and map objectives, landing skillshots, and winning team fights. Therefore, instead of doing less and lowering the achievable skill ceiling, the achievable skill ceiling doesn't change, it's still bounded by the finite amount of things humans can do just as before, but it shifts where skill is needed.
[...]
Example 1: Adding auto-aim to CS:GO (removing complexity) Aiming is a huge part of CS:GO, it's one of the most important skills in the game. Does adding auto-aim dumb down the game, reduce skill or kill depth? No. The game will still require just as much skill as it does now. Instead of being about aiming, auto-aim would shift the game to be about positioning, strategy, flashing and firing with maximum lethality (minimizing recoil). The team with more skill in avoiding situations where they will be killed by the opponent's auto-aim by being at the right place at the right time would win. The skill of correct positioning would be absolutely critical. So playing CS:GO with auto-aim would require the same amount of skill it requires now, it just emphasizes different types of skills, like positioning.
You say there's too many variables in Dota 2 and HotS for there to be an optimal strategy. Then how can removing, for example, items from HotS reduce skill when there's still "too many variables" that people cannot master? It doesn't, and so you've debunked yourself.
Also, picking the right heroes would be part of the optimal strategy, if there is one.
You irritate me. When did I say removing mechanics lowered skill level? Seriously..
So you admit, as my argument in the OP shows, that removing mechanics like last hitting and items from MOBAs doesn't lower skill level?
OK. I'm going to be very, very clear here to make sure you understand my opinion.
First of all, I never said removing mechanics lowered the skill ceiling (note that I don't even think that's an actual thing, but whatever). You keep answering me, saying "so you admit I'm right, the skill isn't reduced?" when I never spoke of reducing skills. I spoke of complexity, strategy, and so on.
Secondly, no, you haven't convinced me of anything. Basically, all you've said is that one can always improve themself, thus meaning the "skill ceiling" of any game is unreachable and that as long as there is room for improvement, then the point holds. This is stating the obvious, and I never disagreed with that. What I always argued against was your stupid, stupid vendetta against Dota 2, and your irrational praise of HotS. Please read this.
Furthermore, I have not "debunked" myself one bit. I've been stating many different points, among them explaining how and why Dota 2 and HotS are different but not necessarily superior to one another. I have yet to go back on that, and nothing I said disproves it. Also, personal skill level does enter into play. You can add or remove as many mechanics as you like, people are going to approach and handle them differently, and some will be better than others. Such is life: someone will always be better than you, no matter what we speak of. We could be talking about cooking eggs for all I care, and someone, somewhere will be able to make tastier eggs than you.
Now, about your last post...
1. I said some games are decided by the drafting. It is possible to be outpicked in Dota 2, and frankly it happens quite often. How can there be any snowballing if your opponent's team is designed to counter yours? (Again, even with a setup that counters that of your opponent, it is possible to lose by being outplayed) I also said Dota 2 had flaws, and that the rare games that are decided 20 minutes in are part of that, but are nowhere near as frequent as you picture them to be. Just as I am sure that HotS has its own flaws, and that bad situations will also arise from them. Unless you believe HotS is flawless?
2. That makes no sense whatsoever. Are you even reading yourself? He is the game director, and he is arguing for the game's design. Again, this is marketing, why on earth would he argue for the design of the other games? I mean, come on, you don't even address what I said here. You're just saying complete random sentences that don't answer what I said in the slightest. His point is that he saw Dota 2, saw its flaws and the unpleasant moments that arose from them, and aimed to create a game that solved that. In doing so, he simplified many aspects of the game, thus creating flaws which in the opinion of others might be a deal breaker. One of those flaws being: HotS will never achieve the level of strategy Dota 2 has in CM/CD modes, and that is completely fine. It is the other side of the coin that comes with simplifying aspects. It makes things simpler. Note that I said simpler, not easier, so don't go saying I'm arguing there is a skill reduction. Simple does not equal easy. There is no argument to be made about what game is the better one, it is all a matter of personal preference (yet another concept which seems to elude you).
3. I think you need to understand what "skill" means. At this point, I really feel like I'm debating the wind. That paragraph of yours basically says what I said: some people are better than others. By defaut, we humans have done nothing than to improve ourselves over the past couple of thousand years, and I'm sure it will keep going that way. What is the point of debating that? We might as well talk about the weather. It's not even a matter of "reaching the skill ceiling", it's just a matter of getting better. I don't even know what you're arguing anymore. I for one did not say less skill was required, I said the reasons for losing were different. Word for word.
Really, you're beating a dead horse, seeing as I never said HotS required less skill than Dota 2. I simply said it focused on different aspects and offers a different experience.
Anyway... To sum it up: debating whether or not there is a maximum skill which can be achieved is, ultimately, pointless. Even if there were, not everybody would be able to reach it, because everybody's talent is different. That is the essence of skill: someone will always be able to pull off moves that another one cannot. Sometimes, people are unable to improve. Sometimes, they cannot get better because they have reached their limits, and not some sort of ultimate theoretical limit every human being can reach. Your assumption is based on the fact that all men are equal. Well, they are not. Welcome to the real world.
And for the record, I absolutely love HotS. I simply see no need to act like a fanatic over it, and proceed to turn myself into a self-proclaimed scholar looking to bring down the other games with made-up, pointless "laws".
Stop with the lie that you never said HotS requires less skill. You did. Here's proof:
On August 16 2014 02:30 Spaylz wrote: Also, nobody said the strategy and skill factor of HotS was low. People said it was lower than in Dota 2 and LoL, which is true. Essential mechanics like last hitting and denying are removed, experience is shared on the whole map, etc.
You claim that I've ignored personal skill, but I have not ignored personal skill, because the very fact people can have different levels of personal skill at the game and that no one has hit the theoretical skill ceiling proves that removing mechanics does not reduce the skill required to play the game, as there is always more skillful things to do to improve your play in order to win more.
You write: "Also, personal skill level does enter into play. You can add or remove as many mechanics as you like, people are going to approach and handle them differently, and some will be better than others." But if removing mechanics, like HotS has, lowers the skill required to play the game, then this situation would not be possible, because that means some people cannot possibly do anything more to improve their play as they've found an optimal strategy to play the game, because as long as everyone can do something more to improve their play, to increase their wins, then the skill required to play the game hasn't been reduced since everyone can do more to play better. Therefore, the fact that you admit that this situation is possible, implies that skill has not been reduced.
I'm not "debating whether or not there is a maximum skill which can be achieved". I showed that as long as the theoretical skill cap is above what is achievable by humans, the skill required to play the game has not reduced, because there's more skill that people can learn in order to win more.
Again, you've got the causation of Browder's statement backwards. You say it's marketing. Well, why doesn't he make a game with denying and items and market that instead? He doesn't make such a game because he agrees with me and he agrees that you're wrong.
Your post is based off the lie that "I never said HotS required less skill than Dota 2". As I proved, you did. Stop lying.
Why doesn't Dustin Browder make a game which essentially copies Dota2/LoL? Are you really asking that question? Because they don't want to fucking compete with the already biggest games out there. Hots caters to a slightly different fanbase, which is more about fast paced gameplay, more about teamfight and coordination and less about mechanical skill.
"Well, if Half-Life 2 is the best game in the world, why doesn't everyone release his own Half-Life 2." You have no fucking clue.
On August 18 2014 22:04 ahswtini wrote: Removing one mechanic so you can do more of the other mechanics does not automatically maintain the same skill ceiling, which is the basis of your entire argument.
No, my argument has nothing to do with if the theoretical skill ceiling is maintained. Removing a mechanic can reduce the skill ceiling a hundredfold, but the skill required to play the game will still be the same as long as the theoretical skill ceiling is above what humans can achieve. Because then there is no optimal strategy, and everyone can always improve their play and improve their skill. in order to win more.
So in essence, Dota2 is the more skillful game. Just because no human is able to achieve that skill level doesn't change the fact it exists. That's literally what you are saying.
What the theoretical skill ceiling is doesn't matter if no human can achieve it. So no, Dota 2 is not the more skillful game than HotS, because people can't win more in Dota 2 than in HotS, as in both games no human can reach the theoretical skill ceiling, meaning that everyone can always use more skill to win more.
You only quantify skill by what is humanly possible. I quantify skill by what is possible. If a robot beats a human in chess, he is more skilled. If a panda has a higher winrate in Dota 2 than any human, he would be more skilled (according to your winrate theory). The more mechanics you add the harder it becomes to master. That's just the way it works. It doesn't matter if anyone is ever able to master the game. In theory mastering five mechanics will always be harder than mastering only three. Therefor you'd be a more skilled player should you be able to master all five. You have to achknowledge that.
Yeah, I mean, right now it's more looking like you just created your own religion.
All hail the Great Skill Ceiling, He who shall never be reached.
All of your responses gravitate around that "skill ceiling", even though there is no way to prove or disprove it. It's a total fallacy, and it's not an argument. It's something you believe in.
I think OP just got so traumatised by the overpowered ursa and riki that he made this theory as a coping mechanism to kid himself that Dota is badly designed and those extra traumatic things that he had to do in Dota were completely unnecessary and that he is still very skilled at mobas.
On August 18 2014 23:03 ahswtini wrote: I think OP just got so traumatised by the overpowered ursa and riki that he made this theory as a coping mechanism to kid himself that Dota is badly designed and those extra traumatic things that he had to do in Dota were completely unnecessary and that he is still very skilled at mobas.
He works through the trauma by creating terrible graphs that hold no meaning and then showing them to people saying “Do you see!?!?!? DO YOU SEE!?!?!?!”
We will never understand his pain and suffering and can only hope to gleen a little meaning from the graphs without purpose. It’s a metaphor for life.
On August 18 2014 22:24 Plansix wrote: Wait, I missed that. He said that playing a full game of basket ball has the same skill ceiling as making penalty shots? Are you kidding me? Lets take the most important skill involved, running all the time, vs standing and just leave it at that. One involves a team, the other does not. One involves an opposing team, the other does not. One of those is clearly harder than the other.
I love how his argument boils down to - if the playing field is equal, its equal, therefore all things are equal. If you take this argument to its conclusion, winning at rock paper scissors requires as much skill as winning at dota as winning at chess as winning at dating.
On August 18 2014 20:31 Sbrubbles wrote: The idea that removing mechanics doesn't change overall "skill" in competitive games so long as attention can be shifted to other areas of the game and so long as that extra attetion can still differentiate "more skilled" from "less skilled" players is not an unreasonable one, but the problem is that it is conceivable that "decreasing marginal returns" may set in on the leftover areas of the game, so the potential to differentiate players ends up lower even if the theoretical skill ceiling is impossible to reach. Assuming there is a random element to the game (and there always is in games with imperfect information).
Overall, though, the OP is getting way more flak than deserved, then again indirectly arguing against time-honored mechanics is bound to leave some people butthurt.
so basically you do agree that removing mechanics makes it so that the game rewards less skill? because after all, being humans, we constantly make mistakes in our play. If basketball was only about throwing penalty shots, then yes there would be someone that we could call the best in the world. He might be able to throw in 98,88% of the shots whereas the second best would score 98,86% of the time. And the 10000th best player would score 98% of the time. It's a game where no one would ever reach the skill ceiling i.e. 100% success. So what? There would be simply nothing impressive about the best player in the world, he's just another guy who can throw in about 98% of his shots. There would never be someone to look up to, there would never be a consistent champion, skill would not be rewarded. A guy that has only 96% success rate could easily beat the best player in the world if the best player failed even one throw. Say his concentration slips for a fraction of a second and he misses, and that's that, he just lost to some no name garbage player. A game as volatile as that is what I would call a low skill game, but obviously you argue it takes just as skill based as regular basketball. It's more or less about semantics, what do people actually mean when they say "high skill game".
No. The opposite is true. You can remove all the mechanics in the world, but as long as the theoretical skill ceiling remains above what humans can achieve, the skill required hasn't changed, because there's more things humans can do, play better, get more skills, etc., to win more.
In your basketball vs penalty shot example, as I explained in the OP, both games require the same amount of skill, if the theoretical skill ceiling is above what humans can achieve. The change in your example just shifts the skills required rather than the amount of skill required which is unchanged. Basketball requires skill in getting the ball into the hoop, penalty shot requires the skill of throwing the ball in the hoop and the skill of not failing.
As I said "mechanics should not be chosen to increase or reduce skill required, because virtually every mechanic will have no effect on skill required. Instead mechanics should be chosen based on whether they are fun, interesting to watch, and fits with the design goals of the game."
you work for riot, don't you? no other company makes statements like this and believes they are true.
also how basketball (where penalty shooting is ONE of MANY skills to have) can have the same skill ceiling as penalty shooting (without the rest) is beyond my understanding.
Two wrong people that wouldn't be wrong if only they had read and understood the OP.
The penalty shot game here is taken to be a competitive game. I said "in your basketball vs penalty shot example, as I explained in the OP, both games require the same amount of skill, if the theoretical skill ceiling is above what humans can achieve." So this means that it would only apply IF that condition holds, e.g if the penalty shot game is to shoot penalty shots until someone has more successes and if humans can't always shoot it in 100% of the time (otherwise the Law of Dumbing Down Games says the skill has been reduced).
Suppose that condition holds (i.e. 100% success is not humanly possible). I didn't say that they have the same skill ceiling. As I've been saying for the last 10 pages, the SKILL CEILING DOESN'T MATTER AS LONG AS IT'S ABOVE WHAT A HUMAN CAN ACHIEVE. I said they both require the same amount of skill, but different types of skill.
If that holds, then the penalty shot game requires equal amount of skill, but different skill as basketball. But you ask how can that be if penalty shots is a subset of the skills is needed in basketball? I explained this in the OP:
Humans can only do a finite number of things at one time. So, for example, removing pointless gimmicks and restrictions in MOBAs frees players to focus on other real skills, like strategizing around merc camps and map objectives, landing skillshots, and winning team fights. Therefore, instead of doing less and lowering the achievable skill ceiling, the achievable skill ceiling doesn't change, it's still bounded by the finite amount of things humans can do just as before, but it shifts where skill is needed.
The same way that adding auto-aim to CS:GO won't change the amount of skill it requires, but just shifts the skills required from aiming to positioning.
Look, we understand your having a rough time and need to work through this. The “law of dumbing down games” is just a masked cry for help and I now see the true pain and suffering you are feeling.
On August 18 2014 23:01 MrTortoise wrote: also optimal strategy?
wtf is that?
you think you can solve games now do you? 7 roach rush hur hur
the whole design goal of these games is that there is no 1 optiomal strategy.
Here, an optimal strategy is a strategy satisfying the following 3 conditions: 1. The optimal strategy is implementable by players/teams. 2. When implemented by one player/team, but not the opposing player/team, the player/team that implements the optimal strategy wins. 3. When implemented by both players/teams, the game either results in a draw or is completely determined by luck.
If there's no optimal strategy then how is it possible that the overall amount of skill required to play the game (not a particular skill like mechanical skill, but the overall amount of skill) has reduced?
It's not, because as long as everyone can do something more to improve their play, to increase their wins, then the skill required to play the game hasn't been reduced, because everyone can do more to play better. Thus, what it means to reduce the skill to play a competitive game, must be a situation where some people cannot possibly do anything more to improve their play as they've found an optimal strategy to play the game.
There are optimal strategies for checkers and tic-tac-toe.
On August 18 2014 20:22 Spaylz wrote: I don't see you addressing anything. I see you repeating the same stuff over and over while other people come up with many different answers to your, again, very biased views.
The only real point you've made is that the skill ceiling cannot be reached by any human, and that there is always room for improvement. That pretty much applies to everything, hence the constant, never-ending progress of the human race both in terms of technology and quality of life. But all games have the same skill? That is in no way true. Does that mean a CS:GO pro player should be able to go pro on SC2 as well? Does that mean Bobby Fischer would rock everyone in Dota 2, or to speak your language: in HotS?
Again, tic-tac-toe and checkers give both players access to the same possibilities, the same units, and so on. There are no differences in terms of options available, only decision-making matters. This does not, cannot, and will never apply to games like Dota 2 or HotS, because there are too many variables. Some heroes lose against others, and vice versa. And, again, even in those bad situation of a poor hero match-up, some people do manage to win. Because they are better. I don't know how many times I can repeat myself.
You're not proving anything. Everybody tells you so. Do you pay attention to what is happenig at all?
Lastly, you've stopped answering in the HotS thread, after the many posts addressing your... point of view.
You haven't read the OP properly. If all games require the same amount of skill, it does not mean that SC2 players can go pro at SC2, because they require different skills, SC2 requires skills in macro, CS:GO requires skill in preisions.
If changes were made to SC2 to that it becomes CS:GO or changes to remove multiple unit selection, then the skills required will shift, but all overall skill required will stay the same.
This is stated in the OP:
Humans can only do a finite number of things at one time. So, for example, removing pointless gimmicks and restrictions in MOBAs frees players to focus on other real skills, like strategizing around merc camps and map objectives, landing skillshots, and winning team fights. Therefore, instead of doing less and lowering the achievable skill ceiling, the achievable skill ceiling doesn't change, it's still bounded by the finite amount of things humans can do just as before, but it shifts where skill is needed.
[...]
Example 1: Adding auto-aim to CS:GO (removing complexity) Aiming is a huge part of CS:GO, it's one of the most important skills in the game. Does adding auto-aim dumb down the game, reduce skill or kill depth? No. The game will still require just as much skill as it does now. Instead of being about aiming, auto-aim would shift the game to be about positioning, strategy, flashing and firing with maximum lethality (minimizing recoil). The team with more skill in avoiding situations where they will be killed by the opponent's auto-aim by being at the right place at the right time would win. The skill of correct positioning would be absolutely critical. So playing CS:GO with auto-aim would require the same amount of skill it requires now, it just emphasizes different types of skills, like positioning.
You say there's too many variables in Dota 2 and HotS for there to be an optimal strategy. Then how can removing, for example, items from HotS reduce skill when there's still "too many variables" that people cannot master? It doesn't, and so you've debunked yourself.
Also, picking the right heroes would be part of the optimal strategy, if there is one.
You irritate me. When did I say removing mechanics lowered skill level? Seriously..
So you admit, as my argument in the OP shows, that removing mechanics like last hitting and items from MOBAs doesn't lower skill level?
OK. I'm going to be very, very clear here to make sure you understand my opinion.
First of all, I never said removing mechanics lowered the skill ceiling (note that I don't even think that's an actual thing, but whatever). You keep answering me, saying "so you admit I'm right, the skill isn't reduced?" when I never spoke of reducing skills. I spoke of complexity, strategy, and so on.
Secondly, no, you haven't convinced me of anything. Basically, all you've said is that one can always improve themself, thus meaning the "skill ceiling" of any game is unreachable and that as long as there is room for improvement, then the point holds. This is stating the obvious, and I never disagreed with that. What I always argued against was your stupid, stupid vendetta against Dota 2, and your irrational praise of HotS. Please read this.
Furthermore, I have not "debunked" myself one bit. I've been stating many different points, among them explaining how and why Dota 2 and HotS are different but not necessarily superior to one another. I have yet to go back on that, and nothing I said disproves it. Also, personal skill level does enter into play. You can add or remove as many mechanics as you like, people are going to approach and handle them differently, and some will be better than others. Such is life: someone will always be better than you, no matter what we speak of. We could be talking about cooking eggs for all I care, and someone, somewhere will be able to make tastier eggs than you.
Now, about your last post...
1. I said some games are decided by the drafting. It is possible to be outpicked in Dota 2, and frankly it happens quite often. How can there be any snowballing if your opponent's team is designed to counter yours? (Again, even with a setup that counters that of your opponent, it is possible to lose by being outplayed) I also said Dota 2 had flaws, and that the rare games that are decided 20 minutes in are part of that, but are nowhere near as frequent as you picture them to be. Just as I am sure that HotS has its own flaws, and that bad situations will also arise from them. Unless you believe HotS is flawless?
2. That makes no sense whatsoever. Are you even reading yourself? He is the game director, and he is arguing for the game's design. Again, this is marketing, why on earth would he argue for the design of the other games? I mean, come on, you don't even address what I said here. You're just saying complete random sentences that don't answer what I said in the slightest. His point is that he saw Dota 2, saw its flaws and the unpleasant moments that arose from them, and aimed to create a game that solved that. In doing so, he simplified many aspects of the game, thus creating flaws which in the opinion of others might be a deal breaker. One of those flaws being: HotS will never achieve the level of strategy Dota 2 has in CM/CD modes, and that is completely fine. It is the other side of the coin that comes with simplifying aspects. It makes things simpler. Note that I said simpler, not easier, so don't go saying I'm arguing there is a skill reduction. Simple does not equal easy. There is no argument to be made about what game is the better one, it is all a matter of personal preference (yet another concept which seems to elude you).
3. I think you need to understand what "skill" means. At this point, I really feel like I'm debating the wind. That paragraph of yours basically says what I said: some people are better than others. By defaut, we humans have done nothing than to improve ourselves over the past couple of thousand years, and I'm sure it will keep going that way. What is the point of debating that? We might as well talk about the weather. It's not even a matter of "reaching the skill ceiling", it's just a matter of getting better. I don't even know what you're arguing anymore. I for one did not say less skill was required, I said the reasons for losing were different. Word for word.
Really, you're beating a dead horse, seeing as I never said HotS required less skill than Dota 2. I simply said it focused on different aspects and offers a different experience.
Anyway... To sum it up: debating whether or not there is a maximum skill which can be achieved is, ultimately, pointless. Even if there were, not everybody would be able to reach it, because everybody's talent is different. That is the essence of skill: someone will always be able to pull off moves that another one cannot. Sometimes, people are unable to improve. Sometimes, they cannot get better because they have reached their limits, and not some sort of ultimate theoretical limit every human being can reach. Your assumption is based on the fact that all men are equal. Well, they are not. Welcome to the real world.
And for the record, I absolutely love HotS. I simply see no need to act like a fanatic over it, and proceed to turn myself into a self-proclaimed scholar looking to bring down the other games with made-up, pointless "laws".
Stop with the lie that you never said HotS requires less skill. You did. Here's proof:
On August 16 2014 02:30 Spaylz wrote: Also, nobody said the strategy and skill factor of HotS was low. People said it was lower than in Dota 2 and LoL, which is true. Essential mechanics like last hitting and denying are removed, experience is shared on the whole map, etc.
You claim that I've ignored personal skill, but I have not ignored personal skill, because the very fact people can have different levels of personal skill at the game and that no one has hit the theoretical skill ceiling proves that removing mechanics does not reduce the skill required to play the game, as there is always more skillful things to do to improve your play in order to win more.
You write: "Also, personal skill level does enter into play. You can add or remove as many mechanics as you like, people are going to approach and handle them differently, and some will be better than others." But if removing mechanics, like HotS has, lowers the skill required to play the game, then this situation would not be possible, because that means some people cannot possibly do anything more to improve their play as they've found an optimal strategy to play the game, because as long as everyone can do something more to improve their play, to increase their wins, then the skill required to play the game hasn't been reduced since everyone can do more to play better. Therefore, the fact that you admit that this situation is possible, implies that skill has not been reduced.
I'm not "debating whether or not there is a maximum skill which can be achieved". I showed that as long as the theoretical skill cap is above what is achievable by humans, the skill required to play the game has not reduced, because there's more skill that people can learn in order to win more.
Again, you've got the causation of Browder's statement backwards. You say it's marketing. Well, why doesn't he make a game with denying and items and market that instead? He doesn't make such a game because he agrees with me and he agrees that you're wrong.
Your post is based off the lie that "I never said HotS required less skill than Dota 2". As I proved, you did. Stop lying.
Why doesn't Dustin Browder make a game which essentially copies Dota2/LoL? Are you really asking that question? Because they don't want to fucking compete with the already biggest games out there. Hots caters to a slightly different fanbase, which is more about fast paced gameplay, more about teamfight and coordination and less about mechanical skill.
"Well, if Half-Life 2 is the best game in the world, why doesn't everyone release his own Half-Life 2." You have no fucking clue.
On August 18 2014 22:04 ahswtini wrote: Removing one mechanic so you can do more of the other mechanics does not automatically maintain the same skill ceiling, which is the basis of your entire argument.
No, my argument has nothing to do with if the theoretical skill ceiling is maintained. Removing a mechanic can reduce the skill ceiling a hundredfold, but the skill required to play the game will still be the same as long as the theoretical skill ceiling is above what humans can achieve. Because then there is no optimal strategy, and everyone can always improve their play and improve their skill. in order to win more.
So in essence, Dota2 is the more skillful game. Just because no human is able to achieve that skill level doesn't change the fact it exists. That's literally what you are saying.
What the theoretical skill ceiling is doesn't matter if no human can achieve it. So no, Dota 2 is not the more skillful game than HotS, because people can't win more in Dota 2 than in HotS, as in both games no human can reach the theoretical skill ceiling, meaning that everyone can always use more skill to win more.
You only quantify skill by what is humanly possible. I quantify skill by what is possible. If a robot beats a human in chess, he is more skilled. If a panda has a higher winrate in Dota 2 than any human, he would be more skilled (according to your winrate theory). The more mechanics you add the harder it becomes to master. That's just the way it works. It doesn't matter if anyone is ever able to master the game. In theory mastering five mechanics will always be harder than mastering only three. Therefor you'd be a more skilled player should you be able to master all five. You have to achknowledge that.
That hasn't stopped the hundreds of other MOBAs from copying the same mechanics. So, no, Browder could have copied those mechanics that's in every other MOBA and still have uniqueness in other ways.
No, skill is not about mastering mechanics: it's about winning. If a complex mechanic is removed and you win less, you haven't become more skillful, you've become worse because you've failed to adapt to the shift in the types of skills required now. That's why the amount of skill required to play the game doesn't change regardless of what mechanics is added or removed as long as people can't reach the theoretical skill ceiling.
On August 18 2014 20:22 Spaylz wrote: I don't see you addressing anything. I see you repeating the same stuff over and over while other people come up with many different answers to your, again, very biased views.
The only real point you've made is that the skill ceiling cannot be reached by any human, and that there is always room for improvement. That pretty much applies to everything, hence the constant, never-ending progress of the human race both in terms of technology and quality of life. But all games have the same skill? That is in no way true. Does that mean a CS:GO pro player should be able to go pro on SC2 as well? Does that mean Bobby Fischer would rock everyone in Dota 2, or to speak your language: in HotS?
Again, tic-tac-toe and checkers give both players access to the same possibilities, the same units, and so on. There are no differences in terms of options available, only decision-making matters. This does not, cannot, and will never apply to games like Dota 2 or HotS, because there are too many variables. Some heroes lose against others, and vice versa. And, again, even in those bad situation of a poor hero match-up, some people do manage to win. Because they are better. I don't know how many times I can repeat myself.
You're not proving anything. Everybody tells you so. Do you pay attention to what is happenig at all?
Lastly, you've stopped answering in the HotS thread, after the many posts addressing your... point of view.
You haven't read the OP properly. If all games require the same amount of skill, it does not mean that SC2 players can go pro at SC2, because they require different skills, SC2 requires skills in macro, CS:GO requires skill in preisions.
If changes were made to SC2 to that it becomes CS:GO or changes to remove multiple unit selection, then the skills required will shift, but all overall skill required will stay the same.
This is stated in the OP:
Humans can only do a finite number of things at one time. So, for example, removing pointless gimmicks and restrictions in MOBAs frees players to focus on other real skills, like strategizing around merc camps and map objectives, landing skillshots, and winning team fights. Therefore, instead of doing less and lowering the achievable skill ceiling, the achievable skill ceiling doesn't change, it's still bounded by the finite amount of things humans can do just as before, but it shifts where skill is needed.
[...]
Example 1: Adding auto-aim to CS:GO (removing complexity) Aiming is a huge part of CS:GO, it's one of the most important skills in the game. Does adding auto-aim dumb down the game, reduce skill or kill depth? No. The game will still require just as much skill as it does now. Instead of being about aiming, auto-aim would shift the game to be about positioning, strategy, flashing and firing with maximum lethality (minimizing recoil). The team with more skill in avoiding situations where they will be killed by the opponent's auto-aim by being at the right place at the right time would win. The skill of correct positioning would be absolutely critical. So playing CS:GO with auto-aim would require the same amount of skill it requires now, it just emphasizes different types of skills, like positioning.
You say there's too many variables in Dota 2 and HotS for there to be an optimal strategy. Then how can removing, for example, items from HotS reduce skill when there's still "too many variables" that people cannot master? It doesn't, and so you've debunked yourself.
Also, picking the right heroes would be part of the optimal strategy, if there is one.
You irritate me. When did I say removing mechanics lowered skill level? Seriously..
So you admit, as my argument in the OP shows, that removing mechanics like last hitting and items from MOBAs doesn't lower skill level?
OK. I'm going to be very, very clear here to make sure you understand my opinion.
First of all, I never said removing mechanics lowered the skill ceiling (note that I don't even think that's an actual thing, but whatever). You keep answering me, saying "so you admit I'm right, the skill isn't reduced?" when I never spoke of reducing skills. I spoke of complexity, strategy, and so on.
Secondly, no, you haven't convinced me of anything. Basically, all you've said is that one can always improve themself, thus meaning the "skill ceiling" of any game is unreachable and that as long as there is room for improvement, then the point holds. This is stating the obvious, and I never disagreed with that. What I always argued against was your stupid, stupid vendetta against Dota 2, and your irrational praise of HotS. Please read this.
Furthermore, I have not "debunked" myself one bit. I've been stating many different points, among them explaining how and why Dota 2 and HotS are different but not necessarily superior to one another. I have yet to go back on that, and nothing I said disproves it. Also, personal skill level does enter into play. You can add or remove as many mechanics as you like, people are going to approach and handle them differently, and some will be better than others. Such is life: someone will always be better than you, no matter what we speak of. We could be talking about cooking eggs for all I care, and someone, somewhere will be able to make tastier eggs than you.
Now, about your last post...
1. I said some games are decided by the drafting. It is possible to be outpicked in Dota 2, and frankly it happens quite often. How can there be any snowballing if your opponent's team is designed to counter yours? (Again, even with a setup that counters that of your opponent, it is possible to lose by being outplayed) I also said Dota 2 had flaws, and that the rare games that are decided 20 minutes in are part of that, but are nowhere near as frequent as you picture them to be. Just as I am sure that HotS has its own flaws, and that bad situations will also arise from them. Unless you believe HotS is flawless?
2. That makes no sense whatsoever. Are you even reading yourself? He is the game director, and he is arguing for the game's design. Again, this is marketing, why on earth would he argue for the design of the other games? I mean, come on, you don't even address what I said here. You're just saying complete random sentences that don't answer what I said in the slightest. His point is that he saw Dota 2, saw its flaws and the unpleasant moments that arose from them, and aimed to create a game that solved that. In doing so, he simplified many aspects of the game, thus creating flaws which in the opinion of others might be a deal breaker. One of those flaws being: HotS will never achieve the level of strategy Dota 2 has in CM/CD modes, and that is completely fine. It is the other side of the coin that comes with simplifying aspects. It makes things simpler. Note that I said simpler, not easier, so don't go saying I'm arguing there is a skill reduction. Simple does not equal easy. There is no argument to be made about what game is the better one, it is all a matter of personal preference (yet another concept which seems to elude you).
3. I think you need to understand what "skill" means. At this point, I really feel like I'm debating the wind. That paragraph of yours basically says what I said: some people are better than others. By defaut, we humans have done nothing than to improve ourselves over the past couple of thousand years, and I'm sure it will keep going that way. What is the point of debating that? We might as well talk about the weather. It's not even a matter of "reaching the skill ceiling", it's just a matter of getting better. I don't even know what you're arguing anymore. I for one did not say less skill was required, I said the reasons for losing were different. Word for word.
Really, you're beating a dead horse, seeing as I never said HotS required less skill than Dota 2. I simply said it focused on different aspects and offers a different experience.
Anyway... To sum it up: debating whether or not there is a maximum skill which can be achieved is, ultimately, pointless. Even if there were, not everybody would be able to reach it, because everybody's talent is different. That is the essence of skill: someone will always be able to pull off moves that another one cannot. Sometimes, people are unable to improve. Sometimes, they cannot get better because they have reached their limits, and not some sort of ultimate theoretical limit every human being can reach. Your assumption is based on the fact that all men are equal. Well, they are not. Welcome to the real world.
And for the record, I absolutely love HotS. I simply see no need to act like a fanatic over it, and proceed to turn myself into a self-proclaimed scholar looking to bring down the other games with made-up, pointless "laws".
Stop with the lie that you never said HotS requires less skill. You did. Here's proof:
On August 16 2014 02:30 Spaylz wrote: Also, nobody said the strategy and skill factor of HotS was low. People said it was lower than in Dota 2 and LoL, which is true. Essential mechanics like last hitting and denying are removed, experience is shared on the whole map, etc.
You claim that I've ignored personal skill, but I have not ignored personal skill, because the very fact people can have different levels of personal skill at the game and that no one has hit the theoretical skill ceiling proves that removing mechanics does not reduce the skill required to play the game, as there is always more skillful things to do to improve your play in order to win more.
You write: "Also, personal skill level does enter into play. You can add or remove as many mechanics as you like, people are going to approach and handle them differently, and some will be better than others." But if removing mechanics, like HotS has, lowers the skill required to play the game, then this situation would not be possible, because that means some people cannot possibly do anything more to improve their play as they've found an optimal strategy to play the game, because as long as everyone can do something more to improve their play, to increase their wins, then the skill required to play the game hasn't been reduced since everyone can do more to play better. Therefore, the fact that you admit that this situation is possible, implies that skill has not been reduced.
I'm not "debating whether or not there is a maximum skill which can be achieved". I showed that as long as the theoretical skill cap is above what is achievable by humans, the skill required to play the game has not reduced, because there's more skill that people can learn in order to win more.
Again, you've got the causation of Browder's statement backwards. You say it's marketing. Well, why doesn't he make a game with denying and items and market that instead? He doesn't make such a game because he agrees with me and he agrees that you're wrong.
Your post is based off the lie that "I never said HotS required less skill than Dota 2". As I proved, you did. Stop lying.
Why doesn't Dustin Browder make a game which essentially copies Dota2/LoL? Are you really asking that question? Because they don't want to fucking compete with the already biggest games out there. Hots caters to a slightly different fanbase, which is more about fast paced gameplay, more about teamfight and coordination and less about mechanical skill.
"Well, if Half-Life 2 is the best game in the world, why doesn't everyone release his own Half-Life 2." You have no fucking clue.
Edit:
On August 18 2014 22:53 paralleluniverse wrote:
On August 18 2014 22:24 hootsushi wrote:
On August 18 2014 22:19 paralleluniverse wrote:
On August 18 2014 22:04 ahswtini wrote: Removing one mechanic so you can do more of the other mechanics does not automatically maintain the same skill ceiling, which is the basis of your entire argument.
No, my argument has nothing to do with if the theoretical skill ceiling is maintained. Removing a mechanic can reduce the skill ceiling a hundredfold, but the skill required to play the game will still be the same as long as the theoretical skill ceiling is above what humans can achieve. Because then there is no optimal strategy, and everyone can always improve their play and improve their skill. in order to win more.
So in essence, Dota2 is the more skillful game. Just because no human is able to achieve that skill level doesn't change the fact it exists. That's literally what you are saying.
What the theoretical skill ceiling is doesn't matter if no human can achieve it. So no, Dota 2 is not the more skillful game than HotS, because people can't win more in Dota 2 than in HotS, as in both games no human can reach the theoretical skill ceiling, meaning that everyone can always use more skill to win more.
You only quantify skill by what is humanly possible. I quantify skill by what is possible. If a robot beats a human in chess, he is more skilled. If a panda has a higher winrate in Dota 2 than any human, he would be more skilled (according to your winrate theory). The more mechanics you add the harder it becomes to master. That's just the way it works. It doesn't matter if anyone is ever able to master the game. In theory mastering five mechanics will always be harder than mastering only three. Therefor you'd be a more skilled player should you be able to master all five. You have to achknowledge that.
That hasn't stopped the hundreds of other MOBAs from copying the same mechanics. So, no, Browder could have copied those mechanics that's in every other MOBA and still have uniqueness in other ways.
No, skill is not about mastering mechanics: it's about winning. If a complex mechanic is removed and you win less, you've haven't become more skillful, you've become worse because you've failed to adapt to the shift in the types of skills required now.
And how do you win if you can't use the mechanics? You can come up with the best strategy in the world, if you can't execute it then it's no good.
On August 18 2014 22:44 Reaps wrote: Forgive me as I haven't read all 8 pages, but how the hell does giving an fps like CS:GO autoaim not reduce skill??
???
Because it shifts the skill from aiming to positioning, and because there's no optimal strategy, meaning that there's always more things you can do to improve your skill and increase the amount of wins by being more skillful at positioning.
On August 18 2014 20:22 Spaylz wrote: I don't see you addressing anything. I see you repeating the same stuff over and over while other people come up with many different answers to your, again, very biased views.
The only real point you've made is that the skill ceiling cannot be reached by any human, and that there is always room for improvement. That pretty much applies to everything, hence the constant, never-ending progress of the human race both in terms of technology and quality of life. But all games have the same skill? That is in no way true. Does that mean a CS:GO pro player should be able to go pro on SC2 as well? Does that mean Bobby Fischer would rock everyone in Dota 2, or to speak your language: in HotS?
Again, tic-tac-toe and checkers give both players access to the same possibilities, the same units, and so on. There are no differences in terms of options available, only decision-making matters. This does not, cannot, and will never apply to games like Dota 2 or HotS, because there are too many variables. Some heroes lose against others, and vice versa. And, again, even in those bad situation of a poor hero match-up, some people do manage to win. Because they are better. I don't know how many times I can repeat myself.
You're not proving anything. Everybody tells you so. Do you pay attention to what is happenig at all?
Lastly, you've stopped answering in the HotS thread, after the many posts addressing your... point of view.
You haven't read the OP properly. If all games require the same amount of skill, it does not mean that SC2 players can go pro at SC2, because they require different skills, SC2 requires skills in macro, CS:GO requires skill in preisions.
If changes were made to SC2 to that it becomes CS:GO or changes to remove multiple unit selection, then the skills required will shift, but all overall skill required will stay the same.
This is stated in the OP:
Humans can only do a finite number of things at one time. So, for example, removing pointless gimmicks and restrictions in MOBAs frees players to focus on other real skills, like strategizing around merc camps and map objectives, landing skillshots, and winning team fights. Therefore, instead of doing less and lowering the achievable skill ceiling, the achievable skill ceiling doesn't change, it's still bounded by the finite amount of things humans can do just as before, but it shifts where skill is needed.
[...]
Example 1: Adding auto-aim to CS:GO (removing complexity) Aiming is a huge part of CS:GO, it's one of the most important skills in the game. Does adding auto-aim dumb down the game, reduce skill or kill depth? No. The game will still require just as much skill as it does now. Instead of being about aiming, auto-aim would shift the game to be about positioning, strategy, flashing and firing with maximum lethality (minimizing recoil). The team with more skill in avoiding situations where they will be killed by the opponent's auto-aim by being at the right place at the right time would win. The skill of correct positioning would be absolutely critical. So playing CS:GO with auto-aim would require the same amount of skill it requires now, it just emphasizes different types of skills, like positioning.
You say there's too many variables in Dota 2 and HotS for there to be an optimal strategy. Then how can removing, for example, items from HotS reduce skill when there's still "too many variables" that people cannot master? It doesn't, and so you've debunked yourself.
Also, picking the right heroes would be part of the optimal strategy, if there is one.
You irritate me. When did I say removing mechanics lowered skill level? Seriously..
So you admit, as my argument in the OP shows, that removing mechanics like last hitting and items from MOBAs doesn't lower skill level?
OK. I'm going to be very, very clear here to make sure you understand my opinion.
First of all, I never said removing mechanics lowered the skill ceiling (note that I don't even think that's an actual thing, but whatever). You keep answering me, saying "so you admit I'm right, the skill isn't reduced?" when I never spoke of reducing skills. I spoke of complexity, strategy, and so on.
Secondly, no, you haven't convinced me of anything. Basically, all you've said is that one can always improve themself, thus meaning the "skill ceiling" of any game is unreachable and that as long as there is room for improvement, then the point holds. This is stating the obvious, and I never disagreed with that. What I always argued against was your stupid, stupid vendetta against Dota 2, and your irrational praise of HotS. Please read this.
Furthermore, I have not "debunked" myself one bit. I've been stating many different points, among them explaining how and why Dota 2 and HotS are different but not necessarily superior to one another. I have yet to go back on that, and nothing I said disproves it. Also, personal skill level does enter into play. You can add or remove as many mechanics as you like, people are going to approach and handle them differently, and some will be better than others. Such is life: someone will always be better than you, no matter what we speak of. We could be talking about cooking eggs for all I care, and someone, somewhere will be able to make tastier eggs than you.
Now, about your last post...
1. I said some games are decided by the drafting. It is possible to be outpicked in Dota 2, and frankly it happens quite often. How can there be any snowballing if your opponent's team is designed to counter yours? (Again, even with a setup that counters that of your opponent, it is possible to lose by being outplayed) I also said Dota 2 had flaws, and that the rare games that are decided 20 minutes in are part of that, but are nowhere near as frequent as you picture them to be. Just as I am sure that HotS has its own flaws, and that bad situations will also arise from them. Unless you believe HotS is flawless?
2. That makes no sense whatsoever. Are you even reading yourself? He is the game director, and he is arguing for the game's design. Again, this is marketing, why on earth would he argue for the design of the other games? I mean, come on, you don't even address what I said here. You're just saying complete random sentences that don't answer what I said in the slightest. His point is that he saw Dota 2, saw its flaws and the unpleasant moments that arose from them, and aimed to create a game that solved that. In doing so, he simplified many aspects of the game, thus creating flaws which in the opinion of others might be a deal breaker. One of those flaws being: HotS will never achieve the level of strategy Dota 2 has in CM/CD modes, and that is completely fine. It is the other side of the coin that comes with simplifying aspects. It makes things simpler. Note that I said simpler, not easier, so don't go saying I'm arguing there is a skill reduction. Simple does not equal easy. There is no argument to be made about what game is the better one, it is all a matter of personal preference (yet another concept which seems to elude you).
3. I think you need to understand what "skill" means. At this point, I really feel like I'm debating the wind. That paragraph of yours basically says what I said: some people are better than others. By defaut, we humans have done nothing than to improve ourselves over the past couple of thousand years, and I'm sure it will keep going that way. What is the point of debating that? We might as well talk about the weather. It's not even a matter of "reaching the skill ceiling", it's just a matter of getting better. I don't even know what you're arguing anymore. I for one did not say less skill was required, I said the reasons for losing were different. Word for word.
Really, you're beating a dead horse, seeing as I never said HotS required less skill than Dota 2. I simply said it focused on different aspects and offers a different experience.
Anyway... To sum it up: debating whether or not there is a maximum skill which can be achieved is, ultimately, pointless. Even if there were, not everybody would be able to reach it, because everybody's talent is different. That is the essence of skill: someone will always be able to pull off moves that another one cannot. Sometimes, people are unable to improve. Sometimes, they cannot get better because they have reached their limits, and not some sort of ultimate theoretical limit every human being can reach. Your assumption is based on the fact that all men are equal. Well, they are not. Welcome to the real world.
And for the record, I absolutely love HotS. I simply see no need to act like a fanatic over it, and proceed to turn myself into a self-proclaimed scholar looking to bring down the other games with made-up, pointless "laws".
Stop with the lie that you never said HotS requires less skill. You did. Here's proof:
On August 16 2014 02:30 Spaylz wrote: Also, nobody said the strategy and skill factor of HotS was low. People said it was lower than in Dota 2 and LoL, which is true. Essential mechanics like last hitting and denying are removed, experience is shared on the whole map, etc.
You claim that I've ignored personal skill, but I have not ignored personal skill, because the very fact people can have different levels of personal skill at the game and that no one has hit the theoretical skill ceiling proves that removing mechanics does not reduce the skill required to play the game, as there is always more skillful things to do to improve your play in order to win more.
You write: "Also, personal skill level does enter into play. You can add or remove as many mechanics as you like, people are going to approach and handle them differently, and some will be better than others." But if removing mechanics, like HotS has, lowers the skill required to play the game, then this situation would not be possible, because that means some people cannot possibly do anything more to improve their play as they've found an optimal strategy to play the game, because as long as everyone can do something more to improve their play, to increase their wins, then the skill required to play the game hasn't been reduced since everyone can do more to play better. Therefore, the fact that you admit that this situation is possible, implies that skill has not been reduced.
I'm not "debating whether or not there is a maximum skill which can be achieved". I showed that as long as the theoretical skill cap is above what is achievable by humans, the skill required to play the game has not reduced, because there's more skill that people can learn in order to win more.
Again, you've got the causation of Browder's statement backwards. You say it's marketing. Well, why doesn't he make a game with denying and items and market that instead? He doesn't make such a game because he agrees with me and he agrees that you're wrong.
Your post is based off the lie that "I never said HotS required less skill than Dota 2". As I proved, you did. Stop lying.
Why doesn't Dustin Browder make a game which essentially copies Dota2/LoL? Are you really asking that question? Because they don't want to fucking compete with the already biggest games out there. Hots caters to a slightly different fanbase, which is more about fast paced gameplay, more about teamfight and coordination and less about mechanical skill.
"Well, if Half-Life 2 is the best game in the world, why doesn't everyone release his own Half-Life 2." You have no fucking clue.
Edit:
On August 18 2014 22:53 paralleluniverse wrote:
On August 18 2014 22:24 hootsushi wrote:
On August 18 2014 22:19 paralleluniverse wrote:
On August 18 2014 22:04 ahswtini wrote: Removing one mechanic so you can do more of the other mechanics does not automatically maintain the same skill ceiling, which is the basis of your entire argument.
No, my argument has nothing to do with if the theoretical skill ceiling is maintained. Removing a mechanic can reduce the skill ceiling a hundredfold, but the skill required to play the game will still be the same as long as the theoretical skill ceiling is above what humans can achieve. Because then there is no optimal strategy, and everyone can always improve their play and improve their skill. in order to win more.
So in essence, Dota2 is the more skillful game. Just because no human is able to achieve that skill level doesn't change the fact it exists. That's literally what you are saying.
What the theoretical skill ceiling is doesn't matter if no human can achieve it. So no, Dota 2 is not the more skillful game than HotS, because people can't win more in Dota 2 than in HotS, as in both games no human can reach the theoretical skill ceiling, meaning that everyone can always use more skill to win more.
You only quantify skill by what is humanly possible. I quantify skill by what is possible. If a robot beats a human in chess, he is more skilled. If a panda has a higher winrate in Dota 2 than any human, he would be more skilled (according to your winrate theory). The more mechanics you add the harder it becomes to master. That's just the way it works. It doesn't matter if anyone is ever able to master the game. In theory mastering five mechanics will always be harder than mastering only three. Therefor you'd be a more skilled player should you be able to master all five. You have to achknowledge that.
That hasn't stopped the hundreds of other MOBAs from copying the same mechanics. So, no, Browder could have copied those mechanics that's in every other MOBA and still have uniqueness in other ways.
No, skill is not about mastering mechanics: it's about winning. If a complex mechanic is removed and you win less, you've haven't become more skillful, you've become worse because you've failed to adapt to the shift in the types of skills required now.
And how do you win if you can't use the mechanics? You can come up with the best strategy in the world, if you can't execute it then it's no good.
Your logic really is flawed.
He is one of these people who doesn't think clicking accurately and quickly should yield better results and wants to justify it by saying he is employing the same amount of "effort" or "skill" in a game that does not require speed or accuracy.
No one discounts the talent required in chess, but people don't try to compare it to Settlers of Catan.
HotS requires less skill than Dota 2 in certain areas, notably drafting and strategy, since the game focuses less on it by voluntary design.
It could require more skill in teamplay and execution, since the game is pretty much permanent fighting, and generally punishes you for being alone. It's way too early to tell though, as the game is in alpha.
On August 18 2014 20:22 Spaylz wrote: I don't see you addressing anything. I see you repeating the same stuff over and over while other people come up with many different answers to your, again, very biased views.
The only real point you've made is that the skill ceiling cannot be reached by any human, and that there is always room for improvement. That pretty much applies to everything, hence the constant, never-ending progress of the human race both in terms of technology and quality of life. But all games have the same skill? That is in no way true. Does that mean a CS:GO pro player should be able to go pro on SC2 as well? Does that mean Bobby Fischer would rock everyone in Dota 2, or to speak your language: in HotS?
Again, tic-tac-toe and checkers give both players access to the same possibilities, the same units, and so on. There are no differences in terms of options available, only decision-making matters. This does not, cannot, and will never apply to games like Dota 2 or HotS, because there are too many variables. Some heroes lose against others, and vice versa. And, again, even in those bad situation of a poor hero match-up, some people do manage to win. Because they are better. I don't know how many times I can repeat myself.
You're not proving anything. Everybody tells you so. Do you pay attention to what is happenig at all?
Lastly, you've stopped answering in the HotS thread, after the many posts addressing your... point of view.
You haven't read the OP properly. If all games require the same amount of skill, it does not mean that SC2 players can go pro at SC2, because they require different skills, SC2 requires skills in macro, CS:GO requires skill in preisions.
If changes were made to SC2 to that it becomes CS:GO or changes to remove multiple unit selection, then the skills required will shift, but all overall skill required will stay the same.
This is stated in the OP:
Humans can only do a finite number of things at one time. So, for example, removing pointless gimmicks and restrictions in MOBAs frees players to focus on other real skills, like strategizing around merc camps and map objectives, landing skillshots, and winning team fights. Therefore, instead of doing less and lowering the achievable skill ceiling, the achievable skill ceiling doesn't change, it's still bounded by the finite amount of things humans can do just as before, but it shifts where skill is needed.
[...]
Example 1: Adding auto-aim to CS:GO (removing complexity) Aiming is a huge part of CS:GO, it's one of the most important skills in the game. Does adding auto-aim dumb down the game, reduce skill or kill depth? No. The game will still require just as much skill as it does now. Instead of being about aiming, auto-aim would shift the game to be about positioning, strategy, flashing and firing with maximum lethality (minimizing recoil). The team with more skill in avoiding situations where they will be killed by the opponent's auto-aim by being at the right place at the right time would win. The skill of correct positioning would be absolutely critical. So playing CS:GO with auto-aim would require the same amount of skill it requires now, it just emphasizes different types of skills, like positioning.
You say there's too many variables in Dota 2 and HotS for there to be an optimal strategy. Then how can removing, for example, items from HotS reduce skill when there's still "too many variables" that people cannot master? It doesn't, and so you've debunked yourself.
Also, picking the right heroes would be part of the optimal strategy, if there is one.
You irritate me. When did I say removing mechanics lowered skill level? Seriously..
So you admit, as my argument in the OP shows, that removing mechanics like last hitting and items from MOBAs doesn't lower skill level?
OK. I'm going to be very, very clear here to make sure you understand my opinion.
First of all, I never said removing mechanics lowered the skill ceiling (note that I don't even think that's an actual thing, but whatever). You keep answering me, saying "so you admit I'm right, the skill isn't reduced?" when I never spoke of reducing skills. I spoke of complexity, strategy, and so on.
Secondly, no, you haven't convinced me of anything. Basically, all you've said is that one can always improve themself, thus meaning the "skill ceiling" of any game is unreachable and that as long as there is room for improvement, then the point holds. This is stating the obvious, and I never disagreed with that. What I always argued against was your stupid, stupid vendetta against Dota 2, and your irrational praise of HotS. Please read this.
Furthermore, I have not "debunked" myself one bit. I've been stating many different points, among them explaining how and why Dota 2 and HotS are different but not necessarily superior to one another. I have yet to go back on that, and nothing I said disproves it. Also, personal skill level does enter into play. You can add or remove as many mechanics as you like, people are going to approach and handle them differently, and some will be better than others. Such is life: someone will always be better than you, no matter what we speak of. We could be talking about cooking eggs for all I care, and someone, somewhere will be able to make tastier eggs than you.
Now, about your last post...
1. I said some games are decided by the drafting. It is possible to be outpicked in Dota 2, and frankly it happens quite often. How can there be any snowballing if your opponent's team is designed to counter yours? (Again, even with a setup that counters that of your opponent, it is possible to lose by being outplayed) I also said Dota 2 had flaws, and that the rare games that are decided 20 minutes in are part of that, but are nowhere near as frequent as you picture them to be. Just as I am sure that HotS has its own flaws, and that bad situations will also arise from them. Unless you believe HotS is flawless?
2. That makes no sense whatsoever. Are you even reading yourself? He is the game director, and he is arguing for the game's design. Again, this is marketing, why on earth would he argue for the design of the other games? I mean, come on, you don't even address what I said here. You're just saying complete random sentences that don't answer what I said in the slightest. His point is that he saw Dota 2, saw its flaws and the unpleasant moments that arose from them, and aimed to create a game that solved that. In doing so, he simplified many aspects of the game, thus creating flaws which in the opinion of others might be a deal breaker. One of those flaws being: HotS will never achieve the level of strategy Dota 2 has in CM/CD modes, and that is completely fine. It is the other side of the coin that comes with simplifying aspects. It makes things simpler. Note that I said simpler, not easier, so don't go saying I'm arguing there is a skill reduction. Simple does not equal easy. There is no argument to be made about what game is the better one, it is all a matter of personal preference (yet another concept which seems to elude you).
3. I think you need to understand what "skill" means. At this point, I really feel like I'm debating the wind. That paragraph of yours basically says what I said: some people are better than others. By defaut, we humans have done nothing than to improve ourselves over the past couple of thousand years, and I'm sure it will keep going that way. What is the point of debating that? We might as well talk about the weather. It's not even a matter of "reaching the skill ceiling", it's just a matter of getting better. I don't even know what you're arguing anymore. I for one did not say less skill was required, I said the reasons for losing were different. Word for word.
Really, you're beating a dead horse, seeing as I never said HotS required less skill than Dota 2. I simply said it focused on different aspects and offers a different experience.
Anyway... To sum it up: debating whether or not there is a maximum skill which can be achieved is, ultimately, pointless. Even if there were, not everybody would be able to reach it, because everybody's talent is different. That is the essence of skill: someone will always be able to pull off moves that another one cannot. Sometimes, people are unable to improve. Sometimes, they cannot get better because they have reached their limits, and not some sort of ultimate theoretical limit every human being can reach. Your assumption is based on the fact that all men are equal. Well, they are not. Welcome to the real world.
And for the record, I absolutely love HotS. I simply see no need to act like a fanatic over it, and proceed to turn myself into a self-proclaimed scholar looking to bring down the other games with made-up, pointless "laws".
Stop with the lie that you never said HotS requires less skill. You did. Here's proof:
On August 16 2014 02:30 Spaylz wrote: Also, nobody said the strategy and skill factor of HotS was low. People said it was lower than in Dota 2 and LoL, which is true. Essential mechanics like last hitting and denying are removed, experience is shared on the whole map, etc.
You claim that I've ignored personal skill, but I have not ignored personal skill, because the very fact people can have different levels of personal skill at the game and that no one has hit the theoretical skill ceiling proves that removing mechanics does not reduce the skill required to play the game, as there is always more skillful things to do to improve your play in order to win more.
You write: "Also, personal skill level does enter into play. You can add or remove as many mechanics as you like, people are going to approach and handle them differently, and some will be better than others." But if removing mechanics, like HotS has, lowers the skill required to play the game, then this situation would not be possible, because that means some people cannot possibly do anything more to improve their play as they've found an optimal strategy to play the game, because as long as everyone can do something more to improve their play, to increase their wins, then the skill required to play the game hasn't been reduced since everyone can do more to play better. Therefore, the fact that you admit that this situation is possible, implies that skill has not been reduced.
I'm not "debating whether or not there is a maximum skill which can be achieved". I showed that as long as the theoretical skill cap is above what is achievable by humans, the skill required to play the game has not reduced, because there's more skill that people can learn in order to win more.
Again, you've got the causation of Browder's statement backwards. You say it's marketing. Well, why doesn't he make a game with denying and items and market that instead? He doesn't make such a game because he agrees with me and he agrees that you're wrong.
Your post is based off the lie that "I never said HotS required less skill than Dota 2". As I proved, you did. Stop lying.
Why doesn't Dustin Browder make a game which essentially copies Dota2/LoL? Are you really asking that question? Because they don't want to fucking compete with the already biggest games out there. Hots caters to a slightly different fanbase, which is more about fast paced gameplay, more about teamfight and coordination and less about mechanical skill.
"Well, if Half-Life 2 is the best game in the world, why doesn't everyone release his own Half-Life 2." You have no fucking clue.
Edit:
On August 18 2014 22:53 paralleluniverse wrote:
On August 18 2014 22:24 hootsushi wrote:
On August 18 2014 22:19 paralleluniverse wrote:
On August 18 2014 22:04 ahswtini wrote: Removing one mechanic so you can do more of the other mechanics does not automatically maintain the same skill ceiling, which is the basis of your entire argument.
No, my argument has nothing to do with if the theoretical skill ceiling is maintained. Removing a mechanic can reduce the skill ceiling a hundredfold, but the skill required to play the game will still be the same as long as the theoretical skill ceiling is above what humans can achieve. Because then there is no optimal strategy, and everyone can always improve their play and improve their skill. in order to win more.
So in essence, Dota2 is the more skillful game. Just because no human is able to achieve that skill level doesn't change the fact it exists. That's literally what you are saying.
What the theoretical skill ceiling is doesn't matter if no human can achieve it. So no, Dota 2 is not the more skillful game than HotS, because people can't win more in Dota 2 than in HotS, as in both games no human can reach the theoretical skill ceiling, meaning that everyone can always use more skill to win more.
You only quantify skill by what is humanly possible. I quantify skill by what is possible. If a robot beats a human in chess, he is more skilled. If a panda has a higher winrate in Dota 2 than any human, he would be more skilled (according to your winrate theory). The more mechanics you add the harder it becomes to master. That's just the way it works. It doesn't matter if anyone is ever able to master the game. In theory mastering five mechanics will always be harder than mastering only three. Therefor you'd be a more skilled player should you be able to master all five. You have to achknowledge that.
That hasn't stopped the hundreds of other MOBAs from copying the same mechanics. So, no, Browder could have copied those mechanics that's in every other MOBA and still have uniqueness in other ways.
No, skill is not about mastering mechanics: it's about winning. If a complex mechanic is removed and you win less, you haven't become more skillful, you've become worse because you've failed to adapt to the shift in the types of skills required now. That's why the amount of skill required to play the game doesn't change regardless of what mechanics is added or removed as long as people can't reach the theoretical skill ceiling.
And look how successful those other MOBAs are in comparison to the big ones. It's not about copying, it's about being successful. The chances of success are obviously higher if you are trying to distinguish yourself from the mass, since the market is already oversaturated by generic MOBAs.
So, skill can only be applied to abilities where competition is involved? What about people skills then? Do you compare your amount of facebook friends or what?
A skill is the learned ability to carry out a task with pre-determined results often within a given amount of time, energy, or both. In other words the abilities that one possesses.
Not: The abilities that one possesses when competing.
Also, if the Bucks won a game against the Heat, they are more skilled at basketball even though 100 out of 100 experts would say the Heat are the overall more skilled team?
If you don't agree with him, you are close-minded and a Dota fanboy. He knows everything. He has played hundreds of games of Dota. Here is his Dotabuff: http://www.dotabuff.com/players/83420932
Although everyone says he's wrong, he knows he is right, because he is the enlightened one. He is literally a borderline megalomaniac.
If you don't agree with him, you are close-minded and a Dota fanboy. He knows everything. He has played hundreds of games of Dota. Here is his Dotabuff: http://www.dotabuff.com/players/83420932
Although everyone says he's wrong, he knows he is right, because he is the enlightened one. He is literally a borderline megalomaniac.
It hasn't been received well, too many closed minded and inarticulate people, saying this is the way DotA is, don't ever change it regardless of the problems, giving no logical reason for their argument. Just no.
Clearly, anyone who disagrees with him is stupid/closed minded when he takes a giant dumb on their game of choice.
If you don't agree with him, you are close-minded and a Dota fanboy. He knows everything. He has played hundreds of games of Dota. Here is his Dotabuff: http://www.dotabuff.com/players/83420932
Although everyone says he's wrong, he knows he is right, because he is the enlightened one. He is literally a borderline megalomaniac.
I don't even know anymore. How oblivious can someone be. If you are the only one who thinks this is true and hundred people tell you you are wrong, then guess what there's a pretty big probability you are fucking wrong. And if you truly want to believe it is the absurdly low probability (like a 0,0001% chance) you are actually right, then be my fucking guest.
Just go on and dismiss everyone else as fanboy if he doesn't agree with you. That's a pretty good way of thinking. Will definitely help you in life. I'm done.
On August 18 2014 22:44 Reaps wrote: Forgive me as I haven't read all 8 pages, but how the hell does giving an fps like CS:GO autoaim not reduce skill??
On August 18 2014 22:53 Spaylz wrote: OK buddy, you need to stop taking drugs.
In that very quote, I said HotS removed certain aspects (like drafting, more complex strategy, etc.) to add other things. Meaning it removes the skill involved in those particular aspects, since the aspects themselves are gone. Or is that too complicated to grasp? Unless perhaps you think that if HotS removes drafting and picking, it somehow retains the same level of skill involved in those parts of Dota 2 or LoL?
Second, your "theoretical skill ceiling" doesn't exist. As someone else said, it's the same thing as arguing the existence of God, and nobody wants to debate faith. This is what we're dealing with.
Again, you're ignoring half of my argument. There is no such thing as a "skill ceiling", everyone has different capacities. There is no ultimate point that ALL human beings can reach. Give it a rest.
Lastly, I doubt Browder gives a flying fuck about your opinion. The world does not revolve around you, and no matter how much of a Blizzard fan you are, the company does not revolve around you either. Blizzard is doing their own take on the dota-like genre, and obviously, since there are so many clones about, they need to do something different to stick out and achieve successs. Because they're not dumbasses. The rest is simple marketing: he is promoting his product.
Stop being so dense.
Stop trying to rewrite history with your lies. You didn't say that skills associated with things like drafting or denying were reduced. You said that the skill required to play the game was lower.
Here's the quote:
Also, nobody said the strategy and skill factor of HotS was low. People said it was lower than in Dota 2 and LoL, which is true. Essential mechanics like last hitting and denying are removed, experience is shared on the whole map, etc.
You said that the skill required is lower than Dota 2. Then you try justify this by citing the removal of things like denying. Where did you say that the skill associated with denying was reduced? Nowhere. You made a statement about the skill required to play the game.
So stop the lies.
What, so now you admit that the skill required to play HotS is not lower than Dota 2?
And now you say that there's no such thing as a skill ceiling and that people have different skills. Well, nowhere in the OP do I refer to the actual skill ceiling, only what humans can achieve or "achievable skill ceiling". But if people have different skills and there's no skill ceiling, then how does that prove my argument wrong? It doesn't, because nowhere does my argument rely on a skill ceiling, it just relies on the fact that there's always more that people can do, to differentiate their skill, and to play better. You admit that people have different personal skills, then everyone can do something more to improve their play, to increase their wins, so that the skill required to play the game hasn't been reduced, because everyone can do more to play better and improve their personal skill. So the implication your people having different personal skill is that the game does not require less skill.
Also, this idea that there's no such thing as a skill ceiling is bogus. Checkers and tic-tac-toe are solved games, they have an optimal strategy and the skill ceiling is playing the optimal strategy. And the fact that no one can reach the skill ceiling of HotS and Dota 2, also proves my point that the games have an equal amount of skill.
Also, I've criticized Blizzard on thousands of times. It's got nothing to do with Blizzard or HotS, because my criticisms of Dota 2 are based on game mechanics, which pre-date the announcement of HotS and it's mechanics. You have again, failed dodged the question of why Browder didn't add items and denying, differentiate the game in other ways, like other MOBAs, and market that product? Because you have no answer.
What we have here is a liar trying to rewriting history despite the fact I the lies quoted and who can't admit that they're wrong.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/lPCiFU5.png)
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Kupon3ss/lPCiFU5.png)
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![[image loading]](http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lkeydxTjba1qa0uujo1_500.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/WCHp1EU.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/xRFJw8k.png)
![[image loading]](http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110612040724/dragonball/images/0/0e/PTW.jpg)
. Warning: grain of salt required before proceding:
