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  1. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by Tromage View Post
    You have ppl go to the gym every day over 6 years and they wil never become as big as Arnold Schwarzenegger.
    I mean, not a great example considering he used steroids (not as much as today's standards, but he still did). You also coooooould get there, but the amount of work, effort, and drive required would be insanely high, especially given that you don't give in to steroids.

    OT: I'd argue yes and no. Some of your skill can be given to you through genetics while most of it is through practice. You can also get more through a mix of effort and drive. If you really, truly, want to do something, you can probably get there with enough experience+effort+drive, but the amount could be extraordinarily huge depending on the type of person you are.

    Due to their drive, some people will simply never get better. Using WoW as the example, since you have, OP, a lot of people are totally fine with LFR and not giving a shit. These people won't ever get better until they put in the effort to get better; the drive to want to get better. When I was a teen and WoW had just come out, I just wanted to faff around and explore the world. I wanted to raid when BC came out, and by Lich King, I at least wanted to do 10H/25N. With Cataclysm/MoP, I wanted to push as far as I can go, but from what I've seen, I'm actually held back by the rest of my raid not having the same goal. WoD I pushed back to just Heroics, and Legion I had the same mentality, but since I joined a new guild, it's at least "a few mythics".

    I know I could do better and probably even get Cutting Edge, but at the same time, I don't care enough to throw way too much time at the World First race and I'm comfortable where I am. Sure a handful of our raiders that have NO place in Mythics, I'd love to see replaced, but I just don't care enough to do so. I'm happy being 4/9M right now and usually being in the top 3 every fight, the guy to handle mechanics, teach people who don't, even going as far as making a 5m video on a single, simple, mechanic (I actually did that yesterday for Mythic Sisters because half the raid didn't understand Astral Purge).

    TL;DR: Kind of. If you have the drive, you can do just about anything, but it will take a lot, and I mean a LOT of time, effort, and drive.

    Quote Originally Posted by Requimortem View Post
    This game isn't about individual skill. It's about being forced to rely on others and unfortunately most players are dullards so you're never going to see any of the "true" endgame content.
    This is the true problem of any game that relies on the rest of your group. My guild is 4/9M (just got our 4th last night) not because of me, but because of what 25-50% of the guild is fucking up on and holding the rest of us back.
    Still wondering why I play this game.
    I'm a Rogue and I also made a spreadsheet for the Order Hall that is updated for BfA.

  2. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lens Hunter View Post
    This is one area where I believe I falter. I have never been able to keybind any more than 3-4 abilities. I've also never been able to type without looking, and have taken several typing courses to try and curve it but the muscle memory just will not develop.
    I think this is more about practice than taking courses. I got a lot faster when bored at various computer classes at school, and most fun sites were blocked so I sat and typed endlessly on http://typera.tk
    And it feels quite easy to improve, I tried it again just now and went from 64 wpm to 71 in a few tries. Not great, but considering I only use like five fingers to type, it could be worse.

  3. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by Polarthief View Post
    This is the true problem of any game that relies on the rest of your group. My guild is 4/9M (just got our 4th last night) not because of me, but because of what 25-50% of the guild is fucking up on and holding the rest of us back.
    My point exactly. Of course you can't say anything either because then you get labeled as an "asshole" and potentially removed from the guild. It's why raiding doesn't appeal to me and why I haven't even bothered to attempt Mythic+. There's too little reward at the cost of being endlessly frustrated.

  4. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by Lens Hunter View Post
    This is one area where I believe I falter. I have never been able to keybind any more than 3-4 abilities. I've also never been able to type without looking, and have taken several typing courses to try and curve it but the muscle memory just will not develop.
    It just takes time. Even still though, I was a clicker throughout Wrath and Cata still clearing all the content on the highest difficulty. I started slowly. In Wrath, I keybound F to interrupt. Then in Cata I started using 1-4 and F while still clicking everything else. By the end of Cata, I was using 1-4, F, R and E for CDs. MoP I started using like everything. 1-5, shift 1-3, R, E, T, G, V, Q, and Numpad 1-10, B5, B4, and shift B5 and B4 on my Razor Naga.

    If you're trying to break past your current skill ceiling then I definitely recommend you start using more keybinds. If you plan on doing a few dungeons of LFR one night just set up 1 new keybind. I also would recommend getting a mouse with extra buttons. Maybe not an additional 14 like the Naga has but at least like... 6ish? Two extra ones by your normal buttons and 4 for your thumb. All of this will greatly increase your ability to hit buttons on demand.

    My best advice for building muscle memory is to just keep doing it. Don't get frustrated if you mess up. Do some content that is more chill and less rigid in how good you have to play. If you have to hit Death Grip and you don't remember the keybind or you keep hitting something wrong, DON'T START CLICKING IT. Just keep fishing around until you hit the correct button. And just remember to take it slow. If current me dropped over to Wrath me and set up my WoW account... oh boy would I hate my life lol

  5. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by Lens Hunter View Post
    A glass ceiling. Sometimes I feel like no matter how much research and practice I do, Ill never be able to clear a Mythic 15, or top those charts in a heroic raid. I feel like even though Ive been playing video games my whole life, I still actually kind of suck at them. Sometimes I wonder if I just lack a certain something that will always keep me from being a great player, no matter what game Im playing, not just WoW. Gets me down sometimes because I want to be that high end mythic raider but it seems like all the time I pour into it, I never seem to get better than I am now.

    This might come across as venting but Im actually interested to see what other people think about a supposed skill cap, the belief that you can't always be super amazing at something no matter how hard you try.
    Sure there is. Everyone has a differing level of ability. You can bolster this by practice, research, and addons, but you'll only ever be as good as what your ability level allows. Age and genetics also come into play. Younger players tend to have faster reaction times.

    That being said, I don't believe anyone's ability level is below that of a Mythic +15 or Heroic raiding though (the exception would be BR servers). If you want it bad enough, you can achieve that regardless of your ability level.
    Last edited by TheWorkingTitle; 2017-08-08 at 05:04 PM.

  6. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by Bovinity Divinity View Post
    Feel free to go ask them if any random #1 ranked parse is actually indicative of that player being the best in the world or something. Hell, I myself had several parses that were at #1 for a given boss on WoL for a time, but that really didn't mean shit.

    Parses tend to have a shitload of variance, padding, effects outside of the individuals control, and so on. Hell, more often than not when recruiters/officers are looking at logs they're not even looking at total DPS numbers, they're looking at how the player handled the fight mechanics, if they stayed active, if they were responsible for any important parts of the fight and so on. Any asshole can just dig up some high DPS logs, that really doesn't matter.
    I maintain that there's a huge difference between someone performing 50 percentile, and someone performing 95. The differences are clearly not just hingent upon "lack of practice" or "lack of will", but due to how good they are respectively at playing the game and performing with the tools given.

    It's clear as day that a lot of players, do hit that glass ceiling and simply cannot breach it. Not through lack of will or practice, but due to mechanics of gameplay, which are not some sort of myth. Same as in every other game. Some people can't even get past a certain level on Candy Crush.

  7. #27
    Of course there's a hard cap. Human beings have very real physical and mental limitations when it comes to performing different skills, not to mention the handicaps we face as a natural part of aging, physical injury/disability, and social constraints putting a limit on how much time we can spend practising.

    Any form of skill is a combination of hard work and talent, the latter being comprised of genetic factors along with the experiences that have shaped our various aptitudes. You can practise twelve hours a day every day of the week, research in meticulous detail, and receive training from the best people in the world, but unless your neurons fire in the exact right pattern and your body is tuned to perfection, there'll always be someone better than you.

    There is always room for improvement, but the potential varies dramatically between individuals. Not to mention that (especially with nonessential skills like playing video games) there is a point where the effort in > reward out balance is simply not worth it any more, and this is where an individual's "soft" skill cap tends to lie.

  8. #28
    There are some limitations people will have for improving. Be it physical ones, bad hardware or poor habits. The last 2 can be fixed or improved upon. The problem for many bady players they don't know why they struggle making improvement very difficult. I know for myself one of the biggest leaps forward I mad was when I completely changed how I bound abilities after a few weeks of doing arenas. Now I had done arenas prior to that, but this go round we had a glad level player with us. Seeing how 1 person carried the team in 3s and 5s sparked a big step forward in my game.
    "Privilege is invisible to those who have it."

  9. #29
    Why is this even a question? Wow is one the best examples of it, with sims, logs, parses etc.

  10. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by Requimortem View Post
    My point exactly. Of course you can't say anything either because then you get labeled as an "asshole" and potentially removed from the guild. It's why raiding doesn't appeal to me and why I haven't even bothered to attempt Mythic+. There's too little reward at the cost of being endlessly frustrated.
    There is a country mile of difference between pointing out a mistake or coaching someone and being a dick about it. If people aren't willing, wanting and able to learn from mistakes, theirs and others, then mythic raiding or high keystones isn't for them.
    "Privilege is invisible to those who have it."

  11. #31
    Quote Originally Posted by Bovinity Divinity View Post
    There's just nothing in WoW that I can look at and really believe that a typical person is truly *incapable* of it. It's just impossible for me to believe that - without some handicap - a typical human can't press one key every 1-1.5 seconds in the right order, or move their character out of Defile in the 2 seconds they get to do it if they really wanted to.

    I can believe that people just don't really take it seriously enough, or don't really want to try. But a genuine inability? I dunno, that just seems crazy to me.
    It's a bit more than that.

    Hitting the correct button every ~1.2 seconds for 6-10 minutes strait while simultaneously dancing around mechanics. And doing it consistently for hours.

    Miss a spell because your brain was locating where you need to run and soak an Armageddon and that's a damage loss.

    Miss a a gcd while positioning for hydra shot? Skill cap issue.

    Over 10 minutes (450 1.5s GCDs) these little things add up and become the skill aspect people are talking about.

    Some people just aren't going to be able to maintain very high damage while mentally processing and reacting to al the mechanics at the same time.

  12. #32
    Quote Originally Posted by Tyrven View Post
    There is a country mile of difference between pointing out a mistake or coaching someone and being a dick about it. If people aren't willing, wanting and able to learn from mistakes, theirs and others, then mythic raiding or high keystones isn't for them.
    Thank you Captain Obvious.

  13. #33
    glass ceiling
    hhmmmmmm.. interesting choice of words.

  14. #34
    There are also limiters you can impose on yourself. If you're the type of player who refuses to use addons like DBM or Weakauras, or keybind, or use a gaming mouse, you can be hurting your own performance. You can also hurt your own performance playing classes that don't gel with you out of persistence, or by simply not practicing enough. If you just log on to raid or just do solo content out in the world, you may not actually be challenging yourself. Do you actually take all the advice from your class guides in the discord, or is there some advise you have failed to follow out of laziness? Not tracking that swing timer? Are you tracking absolutely every relevant buff or have you neglected a buff or two?

    I think more often than not people refuse to adapt to uncomfortable changes that could benefit them. It's not out of lack of knowledge that such options to improve their play exist for them, or that they need to be told how to do it, or where to find the information, it's that they chose for whatever reason not to.

  15. #35
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    Of course people have limitations to what they can do. It varies by individual of course but some will never be as good as others no matter how hard they work at it. Same goes for things like music performance as well. Some will always excel. Goes for every athletic sport I can think of as well.

    In group content, the skill cap will be even more complicated by not only the individual players but also how well they interact and respond to events that require more than one member of the group to do some task.

    It's worth saying that many players have no desire or intention to be the best player possible. WoW after all is also about having fun, relaxation and entertainment. Most players are not there to be stressed out and the game is not some test of life competence. Nor should it be.
    Last edited by MoanaLisa; 2017-08-08 at 06:50 PM.
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  16. #36
    Quote Originally Posted by Requimortem View Post
    Thank you Captain Obvious.
    If clearly wasn't that obvious. Enjoy blaming others for your short comings and playing some watered down version of the game.
    "Privilege is invisible to those who have it."

  17. #37
    Quote Originally Posted by Tyrven View Post
    If clearly wasn't that obvious. Enjoy blaming others for your short comings and playing some watered down version of the game.
    I don't blame others for my shortcomings, if I make a mistake I own up to it but that doesn't change the fact that the average player is bad and that adversely affects me in a game where I have no choice but to rely on them.

  18. #38
    Quote Originally Posted by Bovinity Divinity View Post
    There's just nothing in WoW that I can look at and really believe that a typical person is truly *incapable* of it. It's just impossible for me to believe that - without some handicap - a typical human can't press one key every 1-1.5 seconds in the right order, or move their character out of Defile in the 2 seconds they get to do it if they really wanted to.

    I can believe that people just don't really take it seriously enough, or don't really want to try. But a genuine inability? I dunno, that just seems crazy to me.
    Seems crazy to you (and I admit to me at first), but the performance gaps prove it's not so crazy. Just as with anything else, people can be better or worse at shit, for a multitude of reasons but neither need to be as a result of a handicap. It's as tangible as the difference between people able to handle PVP, and those who cannot. A great PVPer is not always a great PVEr, and vice versa. ^^

  19. #39
    Quote Originally Posted by Requimortem View Post
    I don't blame others for my shortcomings, if I make a mistake I own up to it but that doesn't change the fact that the average player is bad and that adversely affects me in a game where I have no choice but to rely on them.
    Luckily you don't have to play with the average player if you don't want to. It is rather easy to play with able and willing people. Now if you find that you keep getting stuck with people that can't do things then that starts to reflect on your own ability.
    "Privilege is invisible to those who have it."

  20. #40
    Quote Originally Posted by Tyrven View Post
    Luckily you don't have to play with the average player if you don't want to. It is rather easy to play with able and willing people. Now if you find that you keep getting stuck with people that can't do things then that starts to reflect on your own ability.
    Except you do? If you're not on the right realm and/or have the right schedule, you have to take what you can get and since skilled, Mythic raiders are roughly 1% of the total population, you will end up playing alongside the average player. Others performing poorly is not an indication of one's own skill, I don't know where that moronic logic came from but I strongly suggest you put it back.

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