On May 12 2011 07:41 nymfaw wrote: WoW probably has the lowest skillcap of all games in gaming history.. dont be mad
There are so many games out there that it's hard to name certains but i think RTS is #1
I have to agree RTS's have the highest skill cap definitely. But I disagree overwhelmingly that WoW has a low skill cap. I'd have to rate it above any FPS's but right below Starcraft. Anyone who has remotely PvP'd in WoW can tell you theres an unbelieveably huge difference between a lets say bad Rogue and a good Rogue, and that goes for all the classes. Sure some comps in 2v2/3v3/5v5 are easier than others but theres definitely a high skill cap for playing your class to perfection.
Edit: Talking about WoW when it was in it's prime. Not the carbear hug fest WotLK was.
When you say when WoW was in it's prime... What era are you actually thinking?
Don't give me WoW PvP has skill. Its PillarVPillar hump all day. Skill difference is measurable in all games when it's between players it's not a reason why it has a high skill cap.
It's nowhere near the well balanced FPS e-sports games, but neither is it lacking a skill requirement. Some people claim it's a nobrainer, but I suppose that's some weird variation of childish bitterness towards commercial success and/or the game that killed their school success
I'll just saying speaking from experiance in one of the top guilds worldwide that WoW has a HUGE skill-cap in raiding and it will show when you try to compete with other players. There are an insanely high amount of things that you need to do and be good at in order to compete for a top 10 or top 3 worldwide spot on DPS/HPS charts. Being a tank has an incredibly high skill-cap that 99.99% of players just do not understand. There is a huge difference between taking a hit and being a good tank, and I don't mean TPS, that's just standard.
Sure if you want to argue that you can "kill" a boss then w/e that's like saying you can build workers and marines in SC2/BW and know a few build orders. If you want to compete at a high level, you need to bring it and bring it freaking hard. It's not nearly as easy to compete for top positions in the world as you would think. There is far more to it than "raiding 24/7" which is why there is a huge skill-gap between a top 50 guild and a top 20 guild and the top 3 make everyone below them look like newbs.
On May 12 2011 12:01 Talack wrote: I'll just saying speaking from experiance in one of the top guilds worldwide that WoW has a HUGE skill-cap in raiding and it will show when you try to compete with other players. There are an insanely high amount of things that you need to do and be good at in order to compete for a top 10 or top 3 worldwide spot on DPS/HPS charts. Being a tank has an incredibly high skill-cap that 99.99% of players just do not understand. There is a huge difference between taking a hit and being a good tank, and I don't mean TPS, that's just standard.
It's all scripted boss events, I can kind of see how you could argue pvp would take skill but lets stick to your statement. There are randomness but... its still a pve encounter. There's really not that much skill in dps... mods now a days monitor everything. Know a rotation, dont keyboard turn, have awareness, and monitor internal cds to maximize dps... i mean... what other points is there?
As far as broodwar, its not that its luck based, the top player has 70 percent win rate because it is by far the most structured esport of all time.
I can't believe EvE Online isn't mentioned for MMO games.
The learning curve is insane and the skillcap is very high when you look at coordination and a shitload of metaskills it takes to effectively lead a fleet to victory.
I was leading the TL corp on EvE for more than one year and was one of the major FCs in a solid alliance and I have to say... shit gets pretty insane in terms of social skills, quick thinking and correctly calling out orders. Not to mention all the pre-planning needed for successfull ops, all the e-drama, theorycrafting and diplomatics to get you and your guys to roll face.
Also the whole "You're leading X amount of people and it's YOUR job to make them win or lose" is a load of pressure. I loved it but it's pretty damn time intensive. (X=from 2 up to 1000+)
On May 12 2011 11:37 Demand2k wrote: I'd go with Quake. Broodwar is the RTS with the highest skillcap, but it's still extremely luck based, which is showcased by a DOMINANT player losing nearly 30% of his games.
... what? The reason dominant players lose in BW is not because the game is "extremely luck based". It's just because skill gap between pro players is so small.
Massive amounts of boredom and/or frustration != skill. Skill is about the difference between the best player in the game and a reasonably competent player. The less chance the reasonably competent player has of winning, the more skillful a game is. This is why soccer is more skillful than poker.
WoW PvP deserves more credit than most people here will give it, but it's still not near the top and I'd rate it below CS, which is medium-high as far as FPSes go. There's a lot of specific timings and situational awareness that go into WoW, but there's also a lot of luck and sometimes you're just going to lose (especially in 2s.) I was a pretty mediocre arena rogue during the Stunherald era and I didn't have much trouble getting Glad. At the level when you're competing for a LAN spot, obviously it's much higher but so is every game.
As for PvE, it's really not that difficult. There's some teamwork that goes into it, but you can still carry idiots whether it's 40, 25 or 10. A lot of it is preparation, trial and error and time spent, and I don't consider those skills. For the most part, it's just dealing with the pressure of performing at the exact time you need to, but the technical aspects are very, very easy. That's part of why encounters get monumentally easy once you're used to them (besides the gear.) No matter how many times you duel Cooller, he's going to be insane. Not true for Gothik/4HM/Vashj/Kael/etc. I was in Overrated in Vanilla/BC so my credentials are a bunch of US Horde firsts.
I played CS in CAL-i, and imo it's definitely behind Q3 for skill. It's hard to grade teamwork because it's extremely easy and happens naturally for some groups, while others have to work at it. But the little intricacies you have to keep in your head for CS don't come close to what you need in Q3/QL. As much as Q3/QL is a fast paced technical action game, it's also a thinking man's game. CS doesn't require quite as much thinking, and while it takes very good aim and awareness, not quite as much as Quake.
From what I know of 3S and SSBM and having gotten my ass kicked in both of them, I'd have to say they're high up on the list with BW and Q3. The reaction times for SSBM are absurd.
Have to agree with Jibba about WoW. PvP deserves somewhat more credit, but it's not too hard. PvE is just cakewalk if you manage to get atleast gladiator.
Honestly I feel that people who have never played DotA or other AoS type games such as LoL or HoN would find it pretty hard to appreciate the skills involved. Perhaps the huge APM's or other mechanical skill are not required, but in the end it still rewards having a good amount of skill in regards to positioning, timing, as well as intelligence.
Games such as SCBW and Q3 do require the most skill and practice to be gosu at though.
Can't remember the exact name of the movement mod for some reason,( i called it promod, lol) but it was the most popular Q3 movement system for competitive play. And trust me, it is truly ridiculous how difficult it is to control. This guy makes it look easy, but the first time you play the game, you'll run, then jump forward, and be like, "OMG WTF, why am I moving SOOOO SLOW?" Then you practice for 2 weeks, and you can finally actually gain speed at all while jumping. 6 months later, you can finally hit the incredibly common B2R jump ~99% of the time. 8 years later, and if you've been practicing really hard, you can move like this.
Oh, yeah. And then you have to be able to aim/track/predict a target moving at ridiculous speeds, time 3 or more items very precisely, and also read your opponents mind.
Rts Scbw of course Fps Cs1.6 Sudden attack Solo fps Quake series
Moba games are quite fun. There is skill to the games, but not as much as the top rts or fps games. I mean. I can smoke a cigarette while dominating LoL. I can only puff on one when I die in sudden attack. I just waste them when I play sc2 . LoL has kind of been my flavor of the month. Really fun game.
I had someone argue with me that WoW took more skill then a top tier fps game on my YouTube. His basis was Cod:Bo .
Massive amounts of boredom and/or frustration != skill. Skill is about the difference between the best player in the game and a reasonably competent player. The less chance the reasonably competent player has of winning, the more skillful a game is. This is why soccer is more skillful than poker.
I agreed up untill that point. While soccer of course has skill-based tasks such as tactical reasoning, spatial sense and kicking accuracy, traits such as kicking hard and running fast are not about skill at all, but rather physical conditioning. And that's where I'd put my arbitrary barrier of what's considered "skill" and what isn't - it should be based on cerebral and cognitive abilities rather than physical exercises. The reason I differensiate between physical tasks and mental / cognitive abilities is that while physical performance can "easilly" be drastically improved from the untrained state, mental and cognitive abilities are much harder to improve upon, if doable at all. This means that the best way to improve tasks requiring mental or cognitive "skill" is to improve your technique at that focused task, while any activity relying largely on physical conditioning can be largely improved and affected simply focusing on improving ones body while at the same time paying lesser attention to any learnable aspects of the activity. Also, at extremes, a competitor with vastly superior physical conditioning will win simply because his body is better for that activity, a gap that no matter of technical skill can gap - would you consider the heavyweight boxer beating a featherweight boxer in a slug-fest no-dodge fight a more "skilled" boxer, or simply winning due to his physical supeiority?
Anyhow, about ADOM and Dwarf Fortress - these games have horrible documentation, unintuitive graphics and gameplay and complex controls, which makes it hard to learn. That does not make them hard to master, though, and as thus is not a skill-based task at all. Skill is about mastering a task, not about learning the basics, and the basics of these two is the hard part.
It's Brood War hands down. All of the best non-korean players in the world would get repeatedly and easily stomped by korean b-teamers who nobody's ever heard of because they, in turn, are nowhere close to as good as even the worst players who actually appear in proleague matches.
Only going to touch on DotA because I played it competitively...
It takes very little skill to become a "decent" player, think diamond level.
It takes a lot of time/effort/practice to get to masters, and even then you are probably only a really good player in an In House League
It is ridiculously hard to become a well known player by a standard of NA/EU not mentioning China. Think top 50 of GM just to be considered a "Top" player in NA/EU scene of DotA which is arguably way behind in skill to China.
On May 12 2011 12:44 Jibba wrote:I played CS in CAL-i, and imo it's definitely behind Q3 for skill. It's hard to grade teamwork because it's extremely easy and happens naturally for some groups, while others have to work at it. But the little intricacies you have to keep in your head for CS don't come close to what you need in Q3/QL. As much as Q3/QL is a fast paced technical action game, it's also a thinking man's game. CS doesn't require quite as much thinking, and while it takes very good aim and awareness, not quite as much as Quake.
That's well said. I was just an O/IM scrub, but I adored CS; I think the main reason it gets mentioned in all of these skill threads is how watered down the thumb jockey-achievement heavy FPS' are and a lot of them cut their teeth on it. The tactical layer in CS is so phenomenal, but the game itself is so much slower than traditional deathmatch fare; really all the positional stuff just allowed unskilled turn-based gamers like me to contribute with well placed flashes and nades and the occasional coordinated sprays.
I remember Fatality's short run with iFate when he pulled dkt away from sewing mousepads before he went back to games where his pure skill could net him victory.
On May 12 2011 12:44 Jibba wrote:I played CS in CAL-i, and imo it's definitely behind Q3 for skill. It's hard to grade teamwork because it's extremely easy and happens naturally for some groups, while others have to work at it. But the little intricacies you have to keep in your head for CS don't come close to what you need in Q3/QL. As much as Q3/QL is a fast paced technical action game, it's also a thinking man's game. CS doesn't require quite as much thinking, and while it takes very good aim and awareness, not quite as much as Quake.
That's well said. I was just an O/IM scrub, but I adored CS; I think the main reason it gets mentioned in all of these skill threads is how watered down the thumb jockey-achievement heavy FPS' are and a lot of them cut their teeth on it. The tactical layer in CS is so phenomenal, but the game itself is so much slower than traditional deathmatch fare; really all the positional stuff just allowed unskilled turn-based gamers like me to contribute with well placed flashes and nades and the occasional coordinated sprays.
I remember Fatality's short run with iFate when he pulled dkt away from sewing mousepads before he went back to games where his pure skill could net him victory.
I'll always treasure this memory though:
It's kinda sad how many people missed out on the best FPS ever
Way way ahead of it's time and totally unintentional
CS vids are so boring in comparison. But I guess it doesn't take months to learn the basics like in tribes.
On May 12 2011 13:09 Candide wrote: Only going to touch on DotA because I played it competitively...
It takes very little skill to become a "decent" player, think diamond level.
It takes a lot of time/effort/practice to get to masters, and even then you are probably only a really good player in an In House League
It is ridiculously hard to become a well known player by a standard of NA/EU not mentioning China. Think top 50 of GM just to be considered a "Top" player in NA/EU scene of DotA which is arguably way behind in skill to China.
i agree somewhat. i think that natural talent has alot more to do with dota then anything else though. some people have it in them and some don't, that's just what it seems like.
i think people should check out ssbm. it's so complicated, it's too complicated. you have defensive techniques like DI crouch canceling etc, amazing movement capabilities with wavelandings/wavedash and there are 100 possibilities out of everything you do. there are pretty much no set combos. you combo as your opponent changes which direction he decides to DI. then theres the ledge game. did i mention how technical it is? it blows my mind that people have played ssbm for 10+ years and they haven't come close to mastering 50% of fox's arsenal and they can only use like 30% of his moves consistently.
Mainly looking at WoW and SC2, there's no question. SC2 takes far more skill than WoW does, as WoW is based on global cooldowns there will be limited amounts of stuff to do, where as in SC2 it's impossible to be doing everything you need to do, as effective as possible.
EPT
. LoL has kind of been my flavor of the month. Really fun game. 
