Do you think "skill" will disappear from games completely?

[Remilia]

The point is that you can completely cheese the skill 'requirement' because of a broken / unbalanced mechanic.

Let's take Super Smash Brother Melee.

If two people of equal skill competes against each other, one is Falco the other is let's say Game and Watch. Falco is going to win with all the abuse and uses that he has. Hes essentially higher tier. Taking a high tier character and going against a low tier, the high tier is going to win, and even if the low tier is even more skilled, hes going to lose because of the character differences.

Falco can just reflector / down spike and repeat that (assuming you're good enough) and do that before just finishing the person off, or Fox can just reflector / wave dash you around the arena for giggles. Take Mewtwo or Game and Watch or Bowser or whatever low tier you want to shove in there, they can't do these things, they don't have mechanics that are just utterly broken.

[Deleted]

There are many old school RTS games which are harder than BW mechanically such as WC2 because it's just so old but BW is a great game that's why it's famous in Korea. BW is dead anyway. R.I.P

Possibly but those games weren't explored and experimented upon nearly as much as Brood War. Kinda makes it difficult to gauge skill on RTS games when they aren't played competitively enough but part of the reason BW is...WAS so popular is because skill really set the best from the rest.

---------- Post added 2012-07-25 at 03:40 AM ----------

That's a good list, and I could only add one game to the list: Unreal Tournament. Although that game's learning curve was so high, that nowadays you can only see some random cups on clanbase what you can never win and random DM-servers with all weapons on spawn turned on so it is "more fun for all".

Imho good skilled game requires: tactical thinking, timing, reflex management and endurance. Only Quake, UT and SC:BW is left on those to really require all that skill. Other games also do require plenty of skill, but usually lacks on one of the scenarios above - what in turn makes them more popular, since it's easier.

Totally agree for UT, what I would give for a remake of classic UT or 2004 on 360/PS3/PC or the next console gen.

If anyone played AvP2 multiplayer a lot then that would be another game with a really high skill cap. Classes like pulse rifle, sniper, light pred and runner had a super-high skill cap for an FPS game, unfortunately the game has been dead for years thanks to "modern FPS" titles.

- Stagger shots aka rapid fire on sniper was so difficult to use only a handful of people could do it
- Stupid lag, 150 ping on a home country server was normal, this made it even more difficult for skill shots and melee
- Alien wall climbing, nobody unless they practiced used this because of how difficult and confusing it was
- Time shot/skill shot weapons like Speargun had an insanely high skill cap because they did awful damage against most targets unless it was a headshot
- Melee weapons that were really hard to use but were really good if you were good
- Speed jump spam as predator and synchronizing melee with it
- Pounce gauging as predalien
- Pred vision management in full team games, especially on small maps
: If you mastered all of these, you were a god among men in that game.

An excellent player in that game could solo kill entire teams with ease as predator, predalien or human.

Modern FPS is far more about who has the better connection, reaction or weapon and which corner is the best spot. I find that older FPS rewarded you greatly if you understood the game, even with a connection disadvantage. Call of Duty is more about perks, death streaks, killstreaks, what gun is most OP and who can camp the most.

I can definitely relate to the OP, skill is waning in most games but it won't disappear completely, at least I hope it won't.

[Olala]

I can attest to skill playing a role over gear, but it could also be a class being slightly OP.
My cousin had just hit level 85 on his mage and immediately began to PvP. We sat around together, drinking, PvPing having a good time.
Well, the next day I woke up and he was already PvPing on his mage, this time doing 2s with one of his old buddies from arena back during lich king days. They were already 1700+ and both were mainly decked in blues with a few epic BG pieces. Absolutely rolling teams that didn't counter them.
Now, given my cousin has been doing arena since BC and has a gladiator from lich king days, it wasn't all that surprising to me. Once he got more gear he began to do 3s and 5s and was hitting 2K+ easily.

Then the bastard did it again with a shadow priest just a month later!

The irony of all of this? He played a warrior forever before going to the dark side, bwahahaha.

But skill can only take you so far. If the guy is decked out in full gear in arena, well, you may be screwed anyway.
And don't talk about BGs requiring skill, at least not random ones. Rated is a different matter.
Everyone gets rick rolled in random BGs if you're gearless and full of skill.

EDIT: for a few missing letters lol

[Sobedesce]

you want skill-based games?


Or touhou project

dat freaking game

[barackopala]

Trail and Error is not the definition of Skill. Once you know the moves and tells in Demons Souls it becomes just as easy as most of the games people complain are 'no skill'. There just isn't a difficulty change ability in demons souls and the difficulty is set to hard.

Want Skill? Go play WC2 you vs 7 pc on Plains of Ice without walling.

Seriously though, FPS's generally require more skill then MMO's. As much as I dislike them, Arena games tend to require quite a bit of skill as well, at least at the higher levels.

The WC2 example is not good at all, what you're trying to show is use a random build, plus WC2 was quite imbalanced, most oldie players will tell you, on the competitive scene (if you can still call it competitive at all) most players (if not all) play Orcs, why? due to imbalance thanks to bloodlust, bloodlust micro > holy light micro.

I'd rather point mostly to SC: BW competitive scene, it has got quite a biiiiiiiiiiiiiig skill cap, if you don't want to beleive that just watch Flash/Jangbi/Stork/Bisu/Leta, games DO require skill, nowadays is quite easier to find nice calm walks in the beach games that will take your hand from the beggining to the end meaning no challenge at all, try playing DMC4 on the highest difficulty, it requires quite a good skill and patience.

[Gothicshark]

Several misconceptions in this thread.

1. Gear and Skill having a correlation. Sure in most RPG type games Your gear needs to be equal or greater than the challenge. But you still need skills to play the game (except Arcane Mages 1 or two buttons on macro does not make for skills)

2. All games have gear, sure many games have gone to RPG mechanics as a way to balance players based of length of time played. However there are still plenty of games out there which you have no gear and can jump right in and play. Granted most Multiplayer games have gone to RPG mechanics. Oh yah and on the popular free to play model the person willing to pay more gets the better loot, sadly to close to real life for my comfort.

Examples of gear not equal to skills.

Ever hear the legend of the bad paladin who walked away from the keyboard and his pet cat took over and played better then him? Well it most likely isn't true, but I have seen during a raid when someone was sucking badly and his/her BF/GF took over the character and had max dsp. (they both played female toons)I also use to raid with a person who only played Subtlety (back when it was considered the weakest tree) and always had maximum DPS. Also in that raid we had another Rogue with the 'best' combat build and better gear, played by the guild leaders girlfriend, she never came close to the same level of DPS from the Subtlety rogue.

So gear is not equal to player skill.

[Clockwork Pinkie]

Must say, skill was never in games. Not anymore, arcade games in the 80s and early 90s, that was skill. Now? It's nothing. RPG = Kill something get loot, mechanics that are made to be beaten. FPS = Get first shot, probably win the game, know how to camp, know how to get a headshot, know how to lead your shots, all common sense.

[apepi]

As long as choices are in video games, skill will exist.

[Shinzai]

Must say, skill was never in games. Not anymore, arcade games in the 80s and early 90s, that was skill. Now? It's nothing. RPG = Kill something get loot, mechanics that are made to be beaten. FPS = Get first shot, probably win the game, know how to camp, know how to get a headshot, know how to lead your shots, all common sense.

Getting the first shot equates to skill. Avoiding being shot in return equates to skill. Knowing where your enemy will be and handling him effectively is a battle strategy in miniature and is therefore a skill. It all comes down to timing and execution, the exact same thing that 80's and early 90's games relied on. Now though, games expect people to use FAR more mechanics than the games from those days ever did. The 'skill' requirement has risen over the decades by a vast amount.

[Deleted]

Dota 2 is good example of game which has all atributes of skill based game, is still in developement and will be played for more then 5 years after you created this thread. So dont worry, there will always be games which will give you this feeling.

[ComputerNerd]

Take a look at the gear in Blacklight Retribution (an fps).
Practically every item of gear is a sidegrade, where an increase in one stat will see a decrease in another.
Higher levels simply unlock more gear options, which follow that exact same design and so do not give you an outright increase in power.

Unfortunately that does not ring true in most games, because players like to feel rewarded, and an increase in power is an easy way of doing that.

[Aphrel]

dota 2 is skillbased, go get it!

[Ferocity]

1. Gear and Skill having a correlation. Sure in most RPG type games Your gear needs to be equal or greater than the challenge. But you still need skills to play the game (except Arcane Mages 1 or two buttons on macro does not make for skills)

I don't think people understand what kind of "skill" must be present in RPGs. You can check Phantasy Star II (if not scared that it is 16-bit console game) - being released on Genesis, it is proper example of "Nintendo Hard" RPG game.

Or Might and Magic VI. Welcome to Castle Darkmoor, Castle Alamos and Tomb of VARN!

It is not good to add necessity of action/arcade/fighting skill in RPG. On other side, I don't think that people asking for more "skill" in RPG games, would be really glad if developers would start making games which would require proper RPG skill.

[aztr0]

Any game that is PVP based will require skill. Take a look at say a game like Street Fighter. That game will require skill no matter what they do with that game.

[Spurmwhale]

honestly one of the best things to come from quitting WoW was not having to hear all of the esport crowd skill this skill that complaining. its so annoying especially when game designers will always include some degree of it because its a fundamental aspect for gaming. but the way a minority of WoW's players constantly yap and complain about it like everything should be all about pure skill and competition where they're extremists towards it is/was so annoying that it just hit me how annoying all that stuff was since i haven't heard that noise in a long time

i'm all for skill in games but i swear the way some people in WoW constantly yap about it is absurd. i guess i spent way too much time reading the esport side of WoW garbage. makes me laugh in hindsight how they are....

[Reyzzz]

dota 2 is skillbased, go get it!

And horribly lacks balance, thus should start with dota 1

[Gothicshark]

Phantasy Star

I am quiet failure with that series of games. I'm over 40 and have been playing RPGs since AD&D in the early 90's. I think the best classic computer RPG was Baulder Gate, which took 2nd edition AD&D and turned it directly into a video game. The Playstation version of the game was definitely a skill challenge.

As for Phantasy Star I am curious about the new game which is in Japan right now.

[Hraklea]

The point is that you can completely cheese the skill 'requirement' because of a broken / unbalanced mechanic.

That's why you have to play good games, not any one...
I'm talking about fighting games and you come up with SSB Melee... seriously...