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

[Jersovic]

I've been playing MMOs since the release of EverQuest and enjoy gear-based gaming. However, I've noticed that the last 12 games I have played were not even an MMO, and they were still "gear based."

A friend invited me to play Combat Arms a couple of years ago. The first couple of days were brutal and I got destroyed. The next time my friend saw me online he was amazed at how I "suddenly got good at the game." The truth is I didn't get any better at the game, but rather I had finally grinded enough experience to purchase a decent rifle and assault vest.

I began playing Tribes: Ascend in Beta so I never experienced being undergeared. I invited a friend to join me in it the other day and he said it was too hard as a new player. I thought he was being ridiculous, so I tried playing his character and realized that I had absolutely no chance at competing against veteran players with superior weaponry and armor regardless of my "veteran skill level."

I play League of Legends pretty competitively, but recently made a level 1 account to play with real-life friends who are new to the game. I quickly learned that I could no longer perform my primary role of Jungling because I was too low level and didn't have enough runes and masteries to do it.

Of course World of Warcraft is an MMO, but it's Arenas are considered to be some of the highest skill cap PVP in the world. I recently had to start over on a new server, and it took me several months of grinding before I could even begin to compete seriously in Arenas. The irony of this? I played the exact same character to 2K+ experience on my old server, so you would think that my skill set would be enough to allow me to do the same thing with a duplicate character regardless of armor but it's not.

I won't even mention Diablo 3 because it makes my heart hurt what they did to that game.

Anyways, this trend seems to be growing and spreading to RTS (Age of Empires), FPS, and every other type of "competitive" online gaming and I'm starting to wonder if 5 years now if it will be impossible to find a video game that is 100% skill-based. I suppose it's not necessarily a bad thing, and should encourage "less skilled" players to participate (kind of like the handicap in bowling), but at the same time I miss just logging onto a game and being good at it. Not having to spend several months of grinding just to be competitive.

[chazus]

Skill is still needed to A) Get Gear, and B) Compete with people with gear once you have gear.

It's simply another variable.

[Jeina]

http://www.dorkly.com/comic/10137/ne...-skill-vs-gear

I think this sums it up nicely.

In order to be the best, you need both skill and gear, without both, you're doomed to mediocrity.

[hiragana]

go play guitar hero?

[Jersovic]

Skill is still needed to A) Get Gear, and B) Compete with people with gear once you have gear.

It's simply another variable.

I've yet to play a game that required skill to get the gear. In most cases it has just been a grind. My first WoW character had full Arena gear without breaking 1550 Arena Achievement, and my League of Legends summoner made level 30 while not really understanding what was even going on, lol.

In most FPS I play, you get the same amount of points for losing as you do for winning, so once again, it feels more like a time sink.

[Sylla]

You can jungle on a lv 1 account in League really easily, just takes a bit of practice (which ironically is the compete opposite of the point you were trying to prove). Start with cloth armor + 5pots and get a leash on blue from your teammates, even the squishy junglers have no problem. Lots of lv 30 people start with boots and don't use armor runes because you really don't need to, so saying you cant do it starting with an amour item is silly.

[Deleted]

I hope so. The "skill" as you put it is somewhat new to mmo's and I hope it goes the way it came. MMO's are about social interactions, fantasy and roleplaying. How skilled your character is should matter more than how skilled the person playing it is.

For me a perfect MMO is something with strong social interactions that encourages playing as a guild and communicating with other players and where a perfectly planned character with perfect gear would just destroy a mediocre "skilled" played, even when played by a slow and unskilled player. There's no need to mix FPS and RPG genres.

[Deleted]

People like having their efforts paid, therefore they like to kill people with only what they acomplished. That means, people like to kill only because they earned the gear. The idea is simple, therefore games are often based on it. And games based only on skill do exist. But they are rarely spoken of. One example?
http://www.bloodlinechampions.com/
Played it like a year ago or something like that, dunno what direction have the game gone, but afaik it should be only skill based game.

[agathangalos]

WoW arenas have super high skill cap? Whaaaa? You mean, my class is currently in a good way and has synergy with other classes that are in a good way. Didn't it get dropped from MLG or something because its so completely unbalanced?

Anyway, Starcraft 2 is pretty much 100% skill based. Its not going anywhere for a LONG time. And on the Esports scene for pretty much any game, all the pros are on an equal level within the game, so the only thing that makes a difference for them is their personal skill.

[Bisso]

Depends, since WoW is divided in 2 gameplay, pve and pvp, I got 2 anwers.

PVP: I don't play PVP, and I will never until they remove gear from the calculation, at all, the only way for pvp to be a successful competitive game that would attract sponsors and tournaments makers worldwide would be to have Battlegrounds with very strict rules, where you can't change your gear, have upgrade or sidegrade, all warriors use the same items. So Blizzard can fine tune every class around this gear so they all compete, they would also need to make Battlegrounds more equal in terms of goals and player limits, so a WoW battleground team would always have 10 players or something like that, or 11 for the 11th class, depending on rules of how many of each class you can have. Then, skills would take ALL the place in a situation like this.

PVE: I thought skills was needed to be good in WoW, it certainly was needed a few years ago, or at least, it was a big plus, simply because I was noob, then I got better, and I saw the huge difference, while my gear was always in the average for the content. But even if I still see difference, skills is less and less needed to be a "good player" and achieve stuff. So yeah, it will probably dissapear in a few years max.

[Bigbazz]

By skill do you mean pure skill? Where there is no gear to sway the advantage?

Strategy games
FPS games
Racing games

All pure skill games. Though you could argue that in FPS games different weapons give an advantage that removes skill, you could argue that in Strategy games different team options give an advantage over another removing skill factor and in racing games you could argue that a superior car or a players knowledge and ability to setup the car could lower the skill needed to be fast.

Games like WoW and D3 still require skill, there are very important other factors in play but you cannot say they are completely skill less otherwise the difference in the success of players would not be so massive, and it really is massive which really can only point to skill being an important factor.

[chazus]

In most cases it has just been a grind. My first WoW character had full Arena gear without breaking 1550 Arena Achievement,

You ignore your own arguement.

You got the EASY gear without skill.
You did not get the HARD gear (2200+ gear), so your statement is invalid. You need skill to get GOOD gear.

[adamzz]

Of course World of Warcraft is an MMO, but it's Arenas are considered to be some of the highest skill cap PVP in the world. I recently had to start over on a new server, and it took me several months of grinding before I could even begin to compete seriously in Arenas. The irony of this? I played the exact same character to 2K+ experience on my old server, so you would think that my skill set would be enough to allow me to do the same thing with a duplicate character regardless of armor but it's not.

Nah, you just aren't good enough.
The Druid that were ranked #1 in Arena during WoTLK had an alt Druid with full blue pvp gear and that blue geared alt had over 2.2k rating.
The name of that Druid was Bootybang and the alt was Bootylol (I think), he changed the name of his main a couple of times Djbåtenx is one of the other names he had that I can remember.

[Venziir]

I've been playing MMOs since the release of EverQuest and enjoy gear-based gaming. However, I've noticed that the last 12 games I have played were not even an MMO, and they were still "gear based."

A friend invited me to play Combat Arms a couple of years ago. The first couple of days were brutal and I got destroyed. The next time my friend saw me online he was amazed at how I "suddenly got good at the game." The truth is I didn't get any better at the game, but rather I had finally grinded enough experience to purchase a decent rifle and assault vest.

I began playing Tribes: Ascend in Beta so I never experienced being undergeared. I invited a friend to join me in it the other day and he said it was too hard as a new player. I thought he was being ridiculous, so I tried playing his character and realized that I had absolutely no chance at competing against veteran players with superior weaponry and armor regardless of my "veteran skill level."

I play League of Legends pretty competitively, but recently made a level 1 account to play with real-life friends who are new to the game. I quickly learned that I could no longer perform my primary role of Jungling because I was too low level and didn't have enough runes and masteries to do it.

Of course World of Warcraft is an MMO, but it's Arenas are considered to be some of the highest skill cap PVP in the world. I recently had to start over on a new server, and it took me several months of grinding before I could even begin to compete seriously in Arenas. The irony of this? I played the exact same character to 2K+ experience on my old server, so you would think that my skill set would be enough to allow me to do the same thing with a duplicate character regardless of armor but it's not.

I won't even mention Diablo 3 because it makes my heart hurt what they did to that game.

Anyways, this trend seems to be growing and spreading to RTS (Age of Empires), FPS, and every other type of "competitive" online gaming and I'm starting to wonder if 5 years now if it will be impossible to find a video game that is 100% skill-based. I suppose it's not necessarily a bad thing, and should encourage "less skilled" players to participate (kind of like the handicap in bowling), but at the same time I miss just logging onto a game and being good at it. Not having to spend several months of grinding just to be competitive.

None of the Diablo games were about skill. None. N O N E!
Diablo has always been about hacking demons to death with your buddies.

..... That said, go play Ninja Gaiden and Demon Souls.

[DSRilk]

There are plenty of skill based games. You're looking in the wrong places. Look at RTS, shooters, arcade-style combat games, etc. Not MMOs. Guild Wars 2 is theoretically a lot more skill based as it supposedly scales everyone. Anything that's about getting gear is going to be gear-based first, skill based second, unless there's some attempt at scaling.

[GeordieMagpie]

Finish Deus Ex:Human Revolution on hardest mode, Demon Souls, Ninja Gaiden. Devil May cry 3 Hardest mode, The list goes on. Alot of hard games,Skill hasn't dissapered, just requires less from some games than others.

As for wow, if you wanna be the best, no, if you wanna be decent..Somewhat.

[Deleted]

You know what? That grind you hate so much could also be seen as some kind of progression. You want an instant lvl 85 character with full BiS gear to have some skill based fun? Go play Arena Pass. What you dont like is obviously the most effective way of lengthening a game's content.

[StationaryHawk]

Why would you state that you will not mention Diablo III, but proceed to bash it in that same statement while making the text bold so that it stands out? Also:

but at the same time I miss just logging onto a game and being good at it. Not having to spend several months of grinding just to be competitive.

If a game was 100% skill based, someone wouldn't be able to just log onto it and be good at it.

[Loaf Lord]

..... That said, go play Ninja Gaiden and Demon Souls.

Pft... demon souls? Skill? More like painful trial and error disguised as skill.

[Deleted]

Whether skill is required really depends on what level you play at tbh. A lot of people when they get the option don't set the bar very high. I've heard people call the God of War series for instance being a buttonmasher which pretty much means they didn't play it on hard or very hard mode (or even for the really masochistic people no-upgrade run hardmode). Believe me skill is required on a lot of games al long as you don't shy away from making it easy on yourself.
When it comes to competitive multiplayer, I personally like it if all opponents get the same tools and situation so only skill can matter. This is the reason why I don't like the PvP in WoW too much, because of the gear and possible unbalanced classes. There nothing better than go head-to-head against eachother with the same odds, even more so they are in same room.

Bit offtopic, but I remember when we played 8 player ffa in WC2 on the school network which one of the players was the teacher. We knew he was using a cheating program, so all 7 of us wiped him off the map first before we got to killing eachother. Great times Another great one was a 1v1v1 in Starcraft with my cousin and his friend. Now my cousin was pretty much unbeatable 1v1, but then came the pro of being in the same room. I heard that there was a big battle was going on aka my cousin was trying to wipe his friend of the map, so I just marched into his base knowing it was unguarded. It was incredibly hilarious having him sit out the rest of the match. Trash talk is so much more fun in person with people you know