Highest skillcap

On May 12 2011 07:44 Eppa! wrote:
Some of the harder games that I know of are: CS 1.6, BW, SSBM, DotA all require huge amount of time to learn the basics of competitive play.

On May 12 2011 07:46 Manit0u wrote:
You're wrong...

Explanation:

+ Show Spoiler +
If you never tried it, you should. Just to see what "hardcore" really means.

On May 12 2011 07:50 BeMannerDuPenner wrote:


dont think cs and dota belong in there. ofcourse they are great competive games but bw and ssbm are in a different world when it comes to learning.

i ringed for cs teams in leagues with almost no knowledge. just had my decent aim from quake and did what they told me. same for dota playing it at a quite good level without ever caring just by having decent teammates.its fun when you get called out for amazing chen micro when you just control 5 units .

for ssbm i playd months to just somewhat get the basic movement down.moving around by spamming stuff where you have to hit a time window of like 1/20 of a second is cool ~. i really tried to improve and still sucked pretty much. and bw i playd for years and still could just get like c+/b- level.and compared to actual pros i was still terrible.


dont say cs/dota are easy but its way easier to get decent at them compared to the other 2.

On May 12 2011 07:47 sanya wrote:
daoc 8v8 at about ~rr10 level without adds if we're talking teamfights
broodwar otherwise probably

On May 12 2011 07:44 synapse wrote:
I'd say the most mechanically demanding game would be GunZ.

On May 12 2011 08:13 blackone wrote:
Skillcap is such a stupid word to use. The "skill cap" in WoW for example is reached by a raid that is able to kill every boss on their very first try. Nobody is or was ever even close to that. BroodWar pros keep getting better, because there is no point where skill is capped, there is always room for improvement in almost every game.

On May 12 2011 08:13 blackone wrote:
Skillcap is such a stupid word to use. The "skill cap" in WoW for example is reached by a raid that is able to kill every boss on their very first try. Nobody is or was ever even close to that. BroodWar pros keep getting better, because there is no point where skill is capped, there is always room for improvement in almost every game.

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 08:30 Nytefish wrote:


Well you could argue the skillcap in noughts and crosses is incredibly low. That's still player vs player and "balanced".

On May 12 2011 08:30 Nytefish wrote:


Well you could argue the skillcap in noughts and crosses is incredibly low. That's still player vs player and "balanced".

On May 12 2011 07:44 synapse wrote:
I'd say the most mechanically demanding game would be GunZ.

On May 12 2011 08:32 Kenpachi wrote:

nope. X has more ways and opportunities of winning.

On May 12 2011 08:41 Pufftrees wrote:
Fighter: Marvel vs Capcom 2
MMO: EvE Online
everything: SC: Broodwar (far above everything else)

WoW is a joke, how can people say it has a 'high' skill cap. The hardest part of being in a super elite raiding guild is finding one and scheduling, doesn't take a high skill cap to be the first on server to down content etc, you are kidding yourself if you think so. The Arena has been a joke for almost 2 years now, the reason their seems to be a high skill cap there is because.. well.. people who like high skill cap games are not playing WoW.

On May 12 2011 09:24 dave333 wrote:
Fighter: SSBM Really technically demanding, just to have basic mobility it requires some technically demanding stuff. Than add in having to actually fight, mindgames, combos, etc. it was really hard.

BW for obvious reasons.

COD!!! (lolol)

On May 12 2011 09:32 RoseTempest wrote:


Have to agree, as a former low-level pro player that would dominate casuals 1v3 and win local tournaments/have a fairly good knowledge of the metagame etc. I would go to large competitions, meet a big name in the qualifiers or ro64 and get 4stocked repeatedly. It would be at a point where I would be lucky to get them past 40%.

Melee has quite a quick learning curve, but the skill ceiling is virtually limitless.

On May 12 2011 07:47 sanya wrote:
daoc 8v8 at about ~rr10 level without adds if we're talking teamfights
broodwar otherwise probably

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

On May 12 2011 07:44 Eppa! wrote:
Some of the harder games that I know of are: CS 1.6, BW, SSBM, DotA all require huge amount of time to learn the basics of competitive play.

On May 12 2011 09:35 Seide wrote:

Oh god I forgot about Smash Bros. Yeaaaah that game is so heartbreaking, you practice and practice and think that you are in good shape, then you always meet someone who just rapes you so bad and makes you look like it's your first time playing the game.

You just want to crawl into a corner get into fetal position and cry.

On May 12 2011 09:55 Zooper31 wrote:


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.

On May 12 2011 11:27 Tsenister wrote:


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.

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.

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.

On May 12 2011 12:37 cLutZ wrote:
Dear people,

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.

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.

On May 12 2011 13:18 Quesa wrote:


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:

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.

On May 12 2011 13:21 dacthehork wrote:CS vids are so boring in comparison.

On May 12 2011 08:05 Seide wrote:
few things about WoW:
really low skill cap, unitll you get into the top .5-1% of raiding, then it is actually quite higher.

Thought this skillcap is usually a skillcap on how good your teamwork and reaction skills are, not at how good you are at playing your specific character.

Arena was more or less a joke, where playing certain comps and winning is a matter of performing an algorithm based on the comp you are playing.
It was hardly based on skills, as there are comps who can dominate and other comps who simply cannot beat certain other comps if said comp plays correctly. This has also been getting worse and worse the more Blizzard has tried to "balance" things. I think lately they have given up and decided if you have half a brain and play the right comps, you are deserving of a top rating. Honestly the closest WoW has ever been to balance in PvP was when they their original 13 rank system in Vanilla.

For raiding, it is actually extremely hard to find good people to play with for top guilds. Every single person you have that pays attention, keeps a cool head, and is very good at their class and math is a godsend. Often times, if a top dps left your guild, it could leave that spot vacant for months until you could find a comparable person, especially for guilds outside of the top10, but still in the top25.

It's a completely different game when you are in a top guild where you actually have to develop your own strategy to an encounter, not just copy a strategy a top guild did 3 weeks after a world first kill. The only time WoW actually takes skill to play in PvE, is the first month or so of new content, but this only applies to about maybe 300-500 people out of the whole WoW population(and I might be overestimating that as it is only the top10 guilds, and that is 250 main raiders + alternate raiders).

Top level WoW PvE is actually pretty interesting, I find it sad that it gets such a bad rep because only about 1000 people who play the game even can really perform at that level, and even less actually get exposed to what top level WoW is. Its like if a persons only impressions of BW is from watching a D/C level player play.

Its funny, I have played WoW on and off since release with guilds such as Blood Legion and Gentlemen's Club as an average player/officer in those guilds. Quit after we cleared WotLK content. After 4+ years of WoW I cannot really relate to anyone who played that game apart from old guildmembers and people in a similar positions, because it is like we were playing different games. Yet there are people who are even higher up than me, like GMs and world record dps holders, who feel the same way toward me, for the exact same reasons.

The difficulty of the encounters though have been steadily decreasing since Burning Crusade, and as I havent played in some time, I cannot speak for the game in its current state, only from my own personal experiences in Vanilla/BC/WotLK.

In the end it though really did come down to how thick skinned you were to be able to handle constant drama(and holy shit man, some of the drama was unbelievable), and how commited you were to doing the math/grinding neccesary to optimize your character.

Its hard to place WoW, because of the social aspect to it and the fact that in raiding, you aren't really trying to beat anyone as much as you are trying to create a well oiled machine. On one hand its not too hard to play, on the other theres so much shit you have to deal with outside of playing it. Many times in a 25 man raid group, even though those people raided together, many people actually straight up hated other people in the guild. I know I have played for a lot of time with people I hated, but had to so we could get shit done. Having a successful guild was closer to running a HR/Conflict Resolution department of a successful business than playing an actual game.

Apart from BW, I cannot think of many games that have a high individual skill cap. Many get their skillcap from team chemistry.

A Note on the people posting Dwarf Fortress:
There is a difference between a high learning curve and a high skill cap. Dwarf Fortress has a high learning curve, but a not a high skill cap because there are too many random factors for skill to ever account for.

Jeez I ended up writing a lot more than intended, but my fingers just kept flying since it irks me that people who make conclusions about WoW have no idea what goes on at the highest level and seem to judge solely on pvp, which in reality has been a joke in WoW for years. Its like someone judging SC, while only having played Fastest.

TLDR:
WoW PvP: pretty much a joke
WoW PvE: pretty intricate at top level, and it is hard to place it.

On May 12 2011 08:05 Seide wrote:
few things about WoW:
really low skill cap, unitll you get into the top .5-1% of raiding, then it is actually quite higher.

Thought this skillcap is usually a skillcap on how good your teamwork and reaction skills are, not at how good you are at playing your specific character.

Arena was more or less a joke, where playing certain comps and winning is a matter of performing an algorithm based on the comp you are playing.
It was hardly based on skills, as there are comps who can dominate and other comps who simply cannot beat certain other comps if said comp plays correctly. This has also been getting worse and worse the more Blizzard has tried to "balance" things. I think lately they have given up and decided if you have half a brain and play the right comps, you are deserving of a top rating. Honestly the closest WoW has ever been to balance in PvP was when they their original 13 rank system in Vanilla.

For raiding, it is actually extremely hard to find good people to play with for top guilds. Every single person you have that pays attention, keeps a cool head, and is very good at their class and math is a godsend. Often times, if a top dps left your guild, it could leave that spot vacant for months until you could find a comparable person, especially for guilds outside of the top10, but still in the top25.

It's a completely different game when you are in a top guild where you actually have to develop your own strategy to an encounter, not just copy a strategy a top guild did 3 weeks after a world first kill. The only time WoW actually takes skill to play in PvE, is the first month or so of new content, but this only applies to about maybe 300-500 people out of the whole WoW population(and I might be overestimating that as it is only the top10 guilds, and that is 250 main raiders + alternate raiders).

Top level WoW PvE is actually pretty interesting, I find it sad that it gets such a bad rep because only about 1000 people who play the game even can really perform at that level, and even less actually get exposed to what top level WoW is. Its like if a persons only impressions of BW is from watching a D/C level player play.

Its funny, I have played WoW on and off since release with guilds such as Blood Legion and Gentlemen's Club as an average player/officer in those guilds. Quit after we cleared WotLK content. After 4+ years of WoW I cannot really relate to anyone who played that game apart from old guildmembers and people in a similar positions, because it is like we were playing different games. Yet there are people who are even higher up than me, like GMs and world record dps holders, who feel the same way toward me, for the exact same reasons.

The difficulty of the encounters though have been steadily decreasing since Burning Crusade, and as I havent played in some time, I cannot speak for the game in its current state, only from my own personal experiences in Vanilla/BC/WotLK.

In the end it though really did come down to how thick skinned you were to be able to handle constant drama(and holy shit man, some of the drama was unbelievable), and how commited you were to doing the math/grinding neccesary to optimize your character.

Its hard to place WoW, because of the social aspect to it and the fact that in raiding, you aren't really trying to beat anyone as much as you are trying to create a well oiled machine. On one hand its not too hard to play, on the other theres so much shit you have to deal with outside of playing it. Many times in a 25 man raid group, even though those people raided together, many people actually straight up hated other people in the guild. I know I have played for a lot of time with people I hated, but had to so we could get shit done. Having a successful guild was closer to running a HR/Conflict Resolution department of a successful business than playing an actual game.

Apart from BW, I cannot think of many games that have a high individual skill cap. Many get their skillcap from team chemistry.

A Note on the people posting Dwarf Fortress:
There is a difference between a high learning curve and a high skill cap. Dwarf Fortress has a high learning curve, but a not a high skill cap because there are too many random factors for skill to ever account for.

Jeez I ended up writing a lot more than intended, but my fingers just kept flying since it irks me that people who make conclusions about WoW have no idea what goes on at the highest level and seem to judge solely on pvp, which in reality has been a joke in WoW for years. Its like someone judging SC, while only having played Fastest.

TLDR:
WoW PvP: pretty much a joke
WoW PvE: pretty intricate at top level, and it is hard to place it.

On May 12 2011 16:14 DannyJ wrote:
Wow i knew people would bring up the noob fest that is WoW... but i never expected people to also bring up PvE. Really?

Anwho, BW skillcap is ridiculous, which is probably the reason why people good at it get payed an extraordinary amount of money.

On May 12 2011 16:18 Jayme wrote:


Again, most people did WoW PvE on the backs of guides that the cutting edge groups of people MADE for them.

I used to get frustrated at the flagrant disregard people seemed to have for how much work and coordination went into a complex boss fight that NO ONE had done yet. Then I remember that maybe 400-500 people got to experience that in Vanilla out of a couple million and I don't bother anymore.

You would be surprised at how much more difficult it is to dodge the fire when you don't know it's coming...or you don't know what triggers it. Took a ton of work to figure out things then.

I'm not implying that the skill cap was extraordinarily high or anything but it was not piss easy. BW and Wc3 were much higher skill cap wise obviously.

On May 12 2011 07:42 mute20 wrote:
Fighter : Marvel vs capcom 2
Shooter: Quake 1-3
Stratagy: chess/starcraft 1

On May 12 2011 07:44 Eppa! wrote:
Some of the harder games that I know of are: CS 1.6, BW, SSBM, DotA all require huge amount of time to learn the basics of competitive play.

On May 12 2011 14:32 Cofo wrote:
Chess/Go are some of the most strategically deep games out there, but a 3 year old has the skills to move the pieces. You have to be more specific in the definition of skillcap; there are many different manifestations of "skill" across games.

On May 12 2011 17:19 Kurai Sora wrote:
Ever played Halo on top lvl ? Or COD ?.

On May 12 2011 17:25 jeparie wrote:


Oh god, please don't try to pretend any CoD game is a high level shooter.

CoD is so watered down its almost sickening

On May 12 2011 17:31 neobowman wrote:
Minesweeper

On May 12 2011 17:36 BouBou.865 wrote:
I played Cod competitvely for 3 years, missed my first 21 shots on Quake. Just, hitting, people on Quake is effing impossible.

On May 12 2011 07:42 mute20 wrote:
Fighter : Marvel vs capcom 2
Shooter: Quake 1-3
Stratagy: chess/starcraft 1

On May 12 2011 17:44 Iplaythings wrote:

mechanics =/= strategic depth..

On May 12 2011 14:21 T0fuuu wrote:
Cs is a weird game to give a skillcap to because of how the game is designed. In between quake and sc2 tourney streams I watch CS and I am still convinced that most pro games are decided by 1 or 2 players carrying the team with godlike aim rather than by a teams superior economy management or "teamwork". Where the game really shines is in 1 vs x situations where you can see the thought that goes into a play or a victory but saving guns or a quick death is what normally happens and that's pretty boring. I think part of the reason why its difficult to give the game a really high skillcap compared to dueling and rts games is because MR15 format and the idea of timed rounds doesn't give the game the depth to be able to capitalise on the pace of the game or time the same way dm and rts games can. Forcing a team to eco doesnt feel as immediate and flowing as controlling pickups because games are limited to rounds. The game feels limited in how the game can be played and mostly dependant on execution. Kind of like clan arena but with bombs to force a round to end.

Whereas when you look at Quake all the top aimers(killsen, strenx, spartie) have the ability to win tournaments but the more strategic and smart players are currently dominant (cooller rapha cypher). Plus they all have very different playstyles which makes for interesting games when the aimers and the thinkers collide. ie cooller vs strenx

On May 12 2011 17:36 BouBou.865 wrote:
I played Cod competitvely for 3 years, missed my first 21 shots on Quake. Just, hitting, people on Quake is effing impossible.

On May 12 2011 08:18 Seide wrote:

I think by skillcap most people really mean the skillcurve. How far ahead is someone who is in the top 1% vs top 10% vs someone who is average/pretty good.

On May 12 2011 08:05 Seide wrote:
few things about WoW:
really low skill cap, unitll you get into the top .5-1% of raiding, then it is actually quite higher.

Thought this skillcap is usually a skillcap on how good your teamwork and reaction skills are, not at how good you are at playing your specific character.

On May 12 2011 20:22 thoradycus wrote:
The skill cap in WOW is no different from Brood War, no one can really dodge CC perfectly yet,perfect positioning etc.

The skill curve however, is horrendous from day 1, in PVP.

The same can be said for PVE imo.Only the very best PVE players can complete the heroic high level content easily.At least for WOW vanilla/BC.

On May 12 2011 20:22 thoradycus wrote:
The skill cap in WOW is no different from any hard game,no one can really dodge CC perfectly yet,perfect positioning etc.

The skill curve however, is horrendous from day 1, in PVP. RNG factors prevents it from being a good PVP game.I

The same can be said for PVE imo.Only the very best PVE players can complete the heroic high level content easily.At least for WOW vanilla/BC. at least this is wat i feel

On May 12 2011 20:44 dunc wrote:


? I've been in the top10 every single season and I can browse TL while playing, WoW is not hard

Honestly people shouldn't compare WoW to SC2 and DEFINITELY not to BW.

On May 12 2011 17:40 maartendq wrote:

Chess>SC1 big time..

On May 12 2011 07:44 jtype wrote:
I think it's all quite subjective. I mean, you might look at very top level Quake (3/Live) and be completely blown away by the speed, accuracy and spacial awareness of the players. You could watch Starcraft players and get hypnotised by the speed of their hands and their sheer mechanical skill, in combination with their strategic planning and tactical awareness.

You could also look at team-based games like DotA/HoN/LoL/CSS/CS1.6 and observe the skill of the players when it comes to skilfully operating as a team; perhaps skilfully communicating information from the game to each other.

You can't really overlook any aspect of what it takes to play a particular game, when it comes to discussing this.

It's hard enough to decide exactly what 'skill' actually is, in gaming terms, let alone try to find out which game is the hardest or has the highest skill ceiling.

On May 12 2011 22:59 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:
impossible to judge skill cap in WoW because gear and tech tree plays such a big role
in brood war there isn't really any handicap like having better gear or a superior tech tree , the maps are pretty advanced and balanced now so it's just one v one pure skill no BS

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

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

On May 13 2011 00:00 CPTslut wrote:



Comparing the effort that has been put into the SC/SC2 AI and in Chess computers is fail.

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.

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.

On May 13 2011 00:40 ZaaaaaM wrote:

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 13 2011 01:10 Negative Zero wrote:


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 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.

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcMVI-7cn04

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.

On May 12 2011 10:00 Wasteland wrote:
Street Fighter III: Third Strike -- Don't take this as SSF4/SSF4AE hating, or 3S elitism. The parry system, as well as secret arts requires a bit more mechanical skill than setting up a situation where ultras even things up without much thought (a la: Ryu random DP FADC ultra )

Watching pro Japanese dudes play 3S is awesome.

On May 12 2011 19:25 dunc wrote:


I'm sorry but no, the only thing easier than arena in WoW is the PvE unless you're talking about vanilla.

Judging from your post you were just a hardcore PvE player and you're trying to make it seem much harder than it actually is. Every single person in the world could clear tbc/wotlk/cata encounters, at least not every single person could get Gladiator(though I have no clue why).

On May 13 2011 03:00 fishjie wrote:


No its not. 3rd strike is a horrible game. I was unfortunate enough to watch the 3rd strike finals at Evo once. The final match was basically two chun players walking back and forth, and crouching a bunch. Neither player of course wanting to commit to an attack because a parry would mean death. Throw parry attack is a terrible rock paper scissor mechanic. And then I watched the Super Turbo finals which was night and day difference. And of course Marvel was awesome as usual.

If you like pros from Japan playing 3s, you would really enjoy watching them play Super Turbo which requires perfect execution, with none of the boring snoozefest of 3s.

On May 13 2011 04:09 Zlasher wrote:
I think the unique thing is that BW is something that can be grinded and trained for to get good at but there are games, like fighting games and shooters, that require reactions that can only be trained to a certain limit (even the best 100m dashers in the world only have .185 second reactions.)

On May 13 2011 03:00 fishjie wrote:


No its not. 3rd strike is a horrible game. I was unfortunate enough to watch the 3rd strike finals at Evo once. The final match was basically two chun players walking back and forth, and crouching a bunch. Neither player of course wanting to commit to an attack because a parry would mean death. Throw parry attack is a terrible rock paper scissor mechanic. And then I watched the Super Turbo finals which was night and day difference. And of course Marvel was awesome as usual.

If you like pros from Japan playing 3s, you would really enjoy watching them play Super Turbo which requires perfect execution, with none of the boring snoozefest of 3s.

On May 12 2011 16:37 Zlasher wrote:


Absolutely not, at MvC2 for fighting games. GG or SF2 or 3rd strike would take a dump over MvC2.



SSBM, no. You can learn basicallye verything there is to the competitive aspects of the game in a day, but its just the execution and footsies of it that take a while to learn, but the execution and footsies of other fighting games absolutely tears SSBM a new hole.



Pretty much accepted by the fighting game community as truth for the current gen of games

On May 12 2011 12:59 plated.rawr wrote:

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.

That said, I love both games <3.

On May 12 2011 12:44 Jibba wrote:

I played CS in CAL-i, and imo it's definitely behind Q3 for skill.

On May 13 2011 04:27 Zlasher wrote:
Yeah I'd have put BB a little further right as well, those anime fighters actually require ridiculous execution.

On May 13 2011 03:00 fishjie wrote:
3rd strike is a horrible game. I was unfortunate enough to watch the 3rd strike finals at Evo once. The final match was basically two chun players walking back and forth, and crouching a bunch. Neither player of course wanting to commit to an attack because a parry would mean death. Throw parry attack is a terrible rock paper scissor mechanic. And then I watched the Super Turbo finals which was night and day difference. And of course Marvel was awesome as usual.

If you like pros from Japan playing 3s, you would really enjoy watching them play Super Turbo which requires perfect execution, with none of the boring snoozefest of 3s.

On May 13 2011 04:53 sung_moon wrote:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgbRRf5sOSA&feature=fl_lolz&playnext=1&list=FLZvxwz2xOJzo

clearly puzzle fighter dan mirrors

honestly i pretty much only know BW and fighters so BW and GG/mvc2/melee for fighters. i hardly even play smash but once u get past the "its a kids party game", its a pretty deep game. i just hate the smash community from my area in tournaments :/



its not as quite high as u'd imagine. i can teach u some braindead 400-500k pretty easily. haven't tried CS2 yet though



lol i bet it was the fun fun fun nuki/justin chun mirrors. lemme just say don't judge an entire game on a mirror match (which happens to be really fuckin boring)

On May 12 2011 16:37 Zlasher wrote:


Absolutely not, at MvC2 for fighting games. GG or SF2 or 3rd strike would take a dump over MvC2.



SSBM, no. You can learn basicallye verything there is to the competitive aspects of the game in a day, but its just the execution and footsies of it that take a while to learn, but the execution and footsies of other fighting games absolutely tears SSBM a new hole.



Pretty much accepted by the fighting game community as truth for the current gen of games

On May 13 2011 03:00 fishjie wrote:


No its not. 3rd strike is a horrible game. I was unfortunate enough to watch the 3rd strike finals at Evo once. The final match was basically two chun players walking back and forth, and crouching a bunch. Neither player of course wanting to commit to an attack because a parry would mean death. Throw parry attack is a terrible rock paper scissor mechanic. And then I watched the Super Turbo finals which was night and day difference. And of course Marvel was awesome as usual.

If you like pros from Japan playing 3s, you would really enjoy watching them play Super Turbo which requires perfect execution, with none of the boring snoozefest of 3s.

On May 13 2011 05:15 Zlasher wrote:


But in the end Melee had very little depth for a fighting game. It was all about SHFL'ing and wave dashing along with timing nair/dair/spiking. Thats not really depth thats just uses of very precise timings on frame links but its nowhere on the level of standard fighters.

On May 12 2011 08:05 Seide wrote:
TLDR: WoW PvP: pretty much a joke
WoW PvE: pretty intricate at top level, and it is hard to place it.

On May 12 2011 12:51 Sm3agol wrote:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPfaQJuWGvU&feature=related

Watch this video.


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.

On May 12 2011 07:44 synapse wrote:
I'd say the most mechanically demanding game would be GunZ.

On May 13 2011 05:11 trancey wrote:
@Seide

In regards to PvE progression... The biggest factors to making a top raiding team is: 1) having good leadership and 2) attendance and progression time.

I'm actually in guild that's 13/13 (Insomnia on Tichondrius, various NrG members are in our guild as well). I raided with the 10man team thats 13/13 and I couldn't keep up because I didn't want to raid 4-5 days a week for 4+ hours.... Too much fucking time man. Our 10 man was also the 4th team to kill Sinesta in the world, btw.

It's also a known fact among hardcore old schoolers that top arena players make great raiders if they want to put the time into it. Mostly because it takes a ton of time to become a great arena player and master the fundamentals, if you transition those skills that make you a good player into a raider -- it just comes down to learning the script of the encounter.

On May 13 2011 05:15 Zlasher wrote:


But in the end Melee had very little depth for a fighting game. It was all about SHFL'ing and wave dashing along with timing nair/dair/spiking. Thats not really depth thats just uses of very precise timings on frame links but its nowhere on the level of standard fighters.

On May 13 2011 10:35 cLutZ wrote:
+ Show Spoiler +
False, just simply false. Over 90% of the community in no form, no matter the amount of practice could kill The Original Kael/Muru/Firefighter at the appropriate progression gear levels.

Obviously the ability to dedicate hours figuring out encounters also is a factor, but if you put everyone on a clock, those guilds still come out ahead.

That being said I still agree with your points, just to a smaller degree.

On May 13 2011 05:30 sung_moon wrote:


you're forgetting a whole lot more stuff in Melee. i'm no melee expert, but what about shit like DI'ing and whatnot (akin to oki'ing or AA'ing in traditional fighters).

and do u really want to stack it up against the "standard" of fighters today? today's new generation of fighters are all watered down mechanics/execution. compare landing an mvc3 solo HG loop/dhc glitch and then mvc2 solo rom consistently. yea the top players are still top players and still win but new games now aren't the same :/

edit: i think i can see why melee ppl are so adamant/defensive when ppl don't call melee a deep game.

On May 13 2011 11:58 Zlasher wrote:

DI'ing becomes a reaction thing though since you always try to float yourself towards the middle of the screen so any time you get smashed or go flying you just move the sticks that way, it happens for everyone, thats why it was figured out.

I'd still say that the footsies and baiting involved in a game like AE still trumps melee since melee ended up being a run towards yoru opponent and hit a high priority move with fox, falco, puff, and the occasional marth (well, only ken).

On May 13 2011 11:58 Zlasher wrote:

DI'ing becomes a reaction thing though since you always try to float yourself towards the middle of the screen so any time you get smashed or go flying you just move the sticks that way, it happens for everyone, thats why it was figured out.

I'd still say that the footsies and baiting involved in a game like AE still trumps melee since melee ended up being a run towards yoru opponent and hit a high priority move with fox, falco, puff, and the occasional marth (well, only ken).

On May 13 2011 02:17 kainzero wrote:

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 13 2011 04:41 Skwid1g wrote:


I'd like a steamID because I honestly don't believe this in the slightest.

With that being said, being CAL-i is like being a master league player in sc2 or a semi-pro foreigner in BW. You would still be getting stomped 16-0 by any halfway decent team. I've played Q3 for quite a while and most of the thinking is very, very simple, which isn't the case for CS. The aiming portion is quite true though, although recoil control becomes a factor.

On May 13 2011 10:35 cLutZ wrote:
The actual skill involved in WoW progression is obviously evident in the fact that Guilds like SK, Nihilum, etc were able to stay at the top so long.

Obviously the ability to dedicate hours figuring out encounters also is a factor, but if you put everyone on a clock, those guilds still come out ahead.

On May 13 2011 13:44 cozzE wrote:
Lol at WoW being involved with the word 'skill ceiling'. I certainly hope that isn't a troll.

Jokes aside, the hardest games are by far are:

FPS: CS 1.6 (Q3 a close second imho)
RTS: SC:BW

On May 13 2011 13:37 iinsom wrote:
Trancey = Trance the priest from Emi?

On May 13 2011 05:11 trancey wrote:
It's also a known fact among hardcore old schoolers that top arena players make great raiders if they want to put the time into it. Mostly because it takes a ton of time to become a great arena player and master the fundamentals, if you transition those skills that make you a good player into a raider -- it just comes down to learning the script of the encounter.

On May 13 2011 14:42 Jibba wrote:
I've seen a lot of correlation from PvP->PvE, but I don't know if it's causation. Obviously it's not the other way around though. Guilds like DnT couldn't PvP worth a shit, but they consistently pulled US firsts, despite carrying known idiots. Most of the stuff you're talking about happens outside of the game. Getting into a top guild and raiding at that level can be difficult because there's so much competition and networking, but picking up a character and playing it to its absolute potential in PvE is quite easy. I don't know why so many people invest so many hours and are still terrible at the game. It's kind of mindblowing.

On May 13 2011 15:51 eviltomahawk wrote:

You should try QWOP, then. Crazy stuff right there.

On May 13 2011 14:42 Jibba wrote:
I've seen a lot of correlation from PvP->PvE, but I don't know if it's causation. Obviously it's not the other way around though. Guilds like DnT couldn't PvP worth a shit, but they consistently pulled US firsts, despite carrying known idiots. Most of the stuff you're talking about happens outside of the game. Getting into a top guild and raiding at that level can be difficult because there's so much competition and networking, but picking up a character and playing it to its absolute potential in PvE is quite easy. I don't know why so many people invest so many hours and are still terrible at the game. It's kind of mindblowing.

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.

On May 13 2011 15:48 goldemerald wrote:
http://spongebob.nick.com/games/spongebob-squarepants-boat-o-cross.html

This is the hardest game I have ever played in my entire life.

On May 13 2011 14:52 rickybobby wrote:
the brood war skillcap is basically infinity because 12 years in people with better mechanics and better strategies are still appearing... no other game can say that, especially since the commitment of time and energy from brood war pros is matched by few if any.

On May 13 2011 17:51 Earll wrote:



Although an interesting way to put it, it is still a very flawed way of looking at a games 'skillcap'. The reason why a game like wow you would not win 10-0 in a row, is because of the 'huge' luckfactor in the game (For the sake of this post lets just assume we are talking about some sort of mirror matchup where all other things are the same.) If they removed the luck in wow, then a person who was slightly better, would be able to win close to 10-0 of the time, as he would be able to remove all the straight up unlucky\lucky losses and the better player would come out ahead a lot more of the time. So removing the luck mechanics in wow would increase the layers of dominance. That being said, removing the 'luck factor' in wow, would not at increase the "skill cap". if anything it would make the game a lot 'easier' because one of the 'hard' things in wow is being able to handle the unpredictability that comes from sometimes being crit\sometimes missing etc.

The layers of dominance comes down to how much luck there is in a game to be honest. There is a lot of luck even in a game like BW, when you get into positions where you 'randomly' counter his build because you thought he might be going what he was going, whereas other times you might have been wrong and ended up being countered yourself. Also stuff like 'randomly' scouting a dropship or a proxy or something. Obviously the better you are, the better you are at starsensing out these things, and also the better you are at still winning even when you get 'unlucky'. But there is still a big luck factor in games like BW.

Ignoring the fact that nobody plays at the top of their game all the time, there will be games with absolutely no random factor, where there will be A lot more levels of "dominance" than sc:bw, as a person who is 1% better than you would dominate you (assuming you both played as well as you could) if no luck was involved. As I mentioned before, Poker is a game where there is basically no dominance, The best player in the world can often have a pretty large losing streak against a pretty bad player, yet there is still a tremendous amount of 'skill' in poker and it does not have a 'low skillcap'. And also as mentioned before, the theoretic levels of dominance is also directly related to the amount of people playing and competing in a game, not just the game itself.