What does this thread \skillcap even mean? It is impossible for humans to reach a 'skill cap' in any game that is even remotely complicated. All shooters basically instantly qualify for having "unlimited" skillcap, as being 'skillcapped' on a shooter means you instantly headshot anyone who ever enters your screen, which obviously is impossible for a human being to do. You will always be able to get faster and better aim\movement. Same with Strategy games like BW/Wc3/any other Strategy game with similarities like this also have a skillcap that no human will ever be able to reach. You will always be able to react faster and multitask better. Even arguably simpler games like wow have a skillcap no human is ever going to reach, reaching the skillcap means you will ALWAYS know what the right decision is, and be able to execute it properly 100% of the time. Even the very best players of wow make mistakes and miss judge things all the time. It is not as hard mechanically as some of the other games, but still to be skillcapped at wow, would for example include knowing every single ability of every single class and excactly how hard it is able to hit depending on the percieved gear of your opponent and being able to play accordingly, being able to track every single cooldown used in the game excactly, etc. Things no human is ever going to be able to do, so even at WoW, you can always get better.
Only time one can ever reach a skillcap is when there is extremely simple guidelines and 1 optimal way to play (such as Tic Tac Toe.) Take card games for example. Some of them are pretty easy to figure out, Blackjack for example has a skillcap you can reach reasonably easily (assuming card counting is impossible in the environment, as card counting ends up being somewhat of a harder skill to 'cap') Add a variable like betting against other players, such as in poker, and the skilllcap suddenly becomes basically unlimited\unreachable.
So what do we/this thread mean by skillcap then, a tough learning curve? Making games like Dwarf Fortress, or some of those modded mario games where you die 123040324 times and just learn 1 level a lot 'harder' than sc:bw, even though you can eventually learn to play this games close to perfect.
Or is the skillcap you are refering too how hard it is to reach the top? Which depends a lot more on your competition than on how hard the actual game is. It could mean how much of a difference skill makes, but games like Poker, or sc/sc2 have large "skillcaps" (or are percieved to have it at least) Yet a person in the top 5% will be able to knock out the Flash and the Jaedongs Seeing winrates above 65% in sc is rare, sure there are outlier examples like flash and jaedong, but over small samples and even still its far from 100%. In certain games/forms of competition Top tier players will more or less never lose to players who are 'substantially' worse.
Tl:dr : my 2cents to this thread of mental masturbation.
On May 12 2011 07:35 sebsejr wrote: Alright, so i am very curious to see what u guys think, what is the highest skillcap, mainly looking at SC2 and WoW (games that i've played a lot), but if u want u can consider other games aswell.
Also maybe consider stuff like, which game takes the most effort to be pro at? What game do you learn the quickest?
Peace
Highest learning curve is probably something like Dwarf Fortress, however highest skillcap would be something like Chess. BW/Quake/CS 1.6 all display a high skillcap mostly limited by humans physical reflexes and handspeed. Games that take effort to be pro at? Chess? BW? Dwarf Fortress?
What games do you learn the quickest?, well your OP answered them, WoW and SC2, I guess we could throw Pong and Pacman in there for jokes sake...
As someone who was in the top .05% of WoW Arenas on the best pvp BG I can say that everyone saying WoW doesn't take skill at high level is completely wrong.
Although Guildwars is the best MMO for PVP by far, R14 here.
On May 12 2011 22:13 dangots0ul wrote: Chess = Computers can beat humans
SC = Computers cant beat me
What does this say about possible moves? And what it means for skill cap?
HMMMMMM
Comparing the effort that has been put into the SC/SC2 AI and in Chess computers is fail.
Indeed... I could actually see an AI in sc2 eventually being developed that could beat top sc2 players. With automaton 2000 micro and a set of strategies for dealing with the standard match up, it could happen. That being said not many have extensively played with the ai. Most of those projects only ended up being done in beta since people couldn't play with other players.
Personally, I can watch anyone that's at the absolute top of what they're doing and be like "holy shit, this is freaking amazing". I don't think determining a skill cap for something is necessarily possible, unless you see more than one person plateau at an absolute top level with no improvement or evolution of play.
On May 13 2011 00:12 G_Wen wrote: Tetris, for the simple reason that you must be playing as fast as you can possibly go. And thus the skill cap ALWAYS lies with you.
Disagree, a big part is random and the blocks have a maximum speed and thus capping the skill for a game thats 99% speed.
On May 12 2011 08:25 shawster wrote: skill is very vague. the skillcap can never be reached in a game that is player vs player because there is always a way to win. there is always a way to one up an opponent if the game is meant to be balanced.
i think you should rename this mechanical/technical skill cap, not skillcap.
On May 12 2011 22:43 Liquid`Drone wrote: I think to define skillcap you basically gotta do something like "how many layers of dominance are there?" like for example bw. prior to the release of sc2, I was very good at bw. yet there were hundreds of koreans who could beat me 10-0. (dominating me) I'm not sure you had any players that could beat me 10-0 that would be beaten 10-0 by anyone else, but I think flash or jd mightve made it fairly close. so you can probably argue that I had two layers of dominance over me, at the very least one and a half layer.
below me however, there were a lot more layers. I could beat someone 10-0, he could beat someone 10-0, that one could beat someone 10-0, that one could beat someone 10-0, that one could beat someone 10-0.. and now we're at something like D+ iccup. there are at least 5-6 more layers before you get to "has played a grand total of 50 sc games in his life". WoW doesn't come close here - there aren't 12+ giant steps of skill to overcome separating the best players and a newbie.
but some shooters like quake do come close. I was pretty good at quakeworld back in like 97 or whatever. but there you also had like, multiple layers of dominance. I can buy that a game like ssmb is also really high up - the one time I tried to play it I was wayyy out of my element, and street fighter is also pretty high. I can't see any game where there are as many layers of complete dominance as in bw though.
Great post. As a Quake player, i can definitely see this. And I'd say there were probably ~10 "levels" of player in Quake. I could stomp the average player pretty hard. But I'd get wrecked by guys....who I'd watch get wrecked by guys.... that players like rapha/DaHang would completely trash 20 - -2. So demoralizing, tbh. Just when you think you're good, you see "X" player who just completely trashed you, and you think highly of, play some low tier "pro" like, say, DtK, and get rolled 10 - -1. -_-.
On May 13 2011 00:12 G_Wen wrote: Tetris, for the simple reason that you must be playing as fast as you can possibly go. And thus the skill cap ALWAYS lies with you.
Disagree, a big part is random and the blocks have a maximum speed and thus capping the skill for a game thats 99% speed.
Especially when it's possible that the random will just kill you (by dropping enough Z-shaped blocks in a row on a blank start that you lose).
On May 13 2011 00:12 G_Wen wrote: Tetris, for the simple reason that you must be playing as fast as you can possibly go. And thus the skill cap ALWAYS lies with you.
Disagree, a big part is random and the blocks have a maximum speed and thus capping the skill for a game thats 99% speed.
Especially when it's possible that the random will just kill you (by dropping enough Z-shaped blocks in a row on a blank start that you lose).
Actually, it's not possible that the random will kill you.
Pieces are given in bags of 7, containing each unique piece in a random order. It isn't possible to get the same piece more than twice in a row (unless you count your "Hold" piece, making it 3).
Tetris skill comes from speed + planning. It being a relatively simple game, and incredibly easy to learn, I wouldn't put the skill ceiling for it that high compared to other games with more depth such as sc:bw.
Quakeworld is pretty much the toughest of the series due to the armor system, lack of hitscan weapons, and redundant weapons (A nailgun and a super nailgun?). Quake 3 may be more streamlined and simplified but I think it's for a good purpose.
On May 13 2011 01:41 Marimokkori wrote: Actually, it's not possible that the random will kill you.
Pieces are given in bags of 7, containing each unique piece in a random order. It isn't possible to get the same piece more than twice in a row (unless you count your "Hold" piece, making it 3).
Tetris skill comes from speed + planning. It being a relatively simple game, and incredibly easy to learn, I wouldn't put the skill ceiling for it that high compared to other games with more depth such as sc:bw.
It depends on the version of Tetris. Gameboy/NES/Tengen Tetris did not have the bag system.
Tetris has evolved so much since its original form and there are so many terms for all the different mechanics, but the general public can't really tell the difference.
On May 12 2011 16:40 Zlasher wrote: Oh and for those who don't think fighting games can compete with games like BW or Dota in terms of depth, watch this
Then think of it as a hundred fucking times harder to execute and play on a level at 3rd striek, without smart inputs or shortcuts. And Air doesn't even exlpain frame data in that guide.
Just watched this whole vid... omg I feel so shit at SSF4 now.. gah. Quake/UT obviously have high skill ceilings, theres times I'd go in a public server and would be topping the map easy... and then someone would join and my K/D would just crash through the floor as I couldn't stop the guy.. and that's just some random pub server scrub. CS the same, sometimes you'd play a clan match and think.. you know those pro guys aren't so good, then the next game you'd get wiped without taking a round.. and your vent/ts would be deathly silent.
EPT
