Originally posted by Kormac I had an interesting experience there. The first time you posted, I didn't understand what you meant at all. Now I did. This rarely happens. Usually, when people make little sense to me I can point at something and say "that was wrong". Your logic makes sense. But what is your definition of a skill? I would say that the bare minimum of training is also a skill. A fundamental one at that. It doesn't cease to be a skill if you're useless without it. And I guess, by my own logic, I'll have to define walking as a skill. This could sound a little far fetched? Sure... But on the other hand, some people drag their feet lazily along, some trip, some expend less energy to walk a mile... Not only does it provide you with a good basis for running, but it can actually be perfected beyond the bare minimum. Still, calling walking a skill feels very strange, because everybody has it and uses it without greater concern. Much like hand-eye coordination. In the end, I can only conclude that I have a very fuzzy definition of skill.
Nicely said.
In answer to your question, to my way of thinking game skills are the things that determine your success or failure in the game, something that twitch skills do not do past a certain point, and in fact past a certain point they drop off your conscious radar altogether. It also suggests a meansure of excellence, as "in a skilled player" and I think twitch type skills only provide a base but do not seperate the excelent players from the average ones. To me, this along with the fact they work cross purpose to the things that make games fun calls their relevancy into question, at least in the context of a discussion about what constitues real skill.
Perhaps it would have been better for me to say something like “they are not skills relevant to the gaming experience once you have passed the basic stages of learning a game”, rather then to say “they are not really skills” but to me that would have just sounded confusing without the background we have covered since. It could also be that being questioned and challenged on a topic simply forces one to clarify and solidify their own thoughts on the matter and perhaps express those thoughts with greater clarity as a result.
Tadaaaaaaa.You are 100% correct sir.I've been preaching that for years.Good to see someone else bringing this out,i get tired of arguing with people over this.I just mentioned in one of my recent posts how i prefer games that challenge the mental aspect.Nowadays with so many players looking for ultimate machines and super high bandwidth,we need more strategy and tactics in our battle systems,otherwise it's a battle of connection/stability.You might be surprised at the lengths players have been going to overcome there lack of skills.
MMo's IMO are lacking in skills ,well frankly there was very little reason to be skillfull with no PvP.I touched on it before,that i felt FFXI battle system lends to the most skilled fighting of any PVE i have ever tested.There were ideas in strategy that left myself and others saying"WOW"didn't know that could be done that way.
What's the common skill in PVE's right now?pretty much simple stuff,like are they aggro or are they not.Do they cast magic or are they melee type mob?So the SKILL is pretty much thought based albeit not much thought needed to determine the strategy.The skills in using your class of player are limited as well.They try to incorporate slice/slash/crush/stab into the damage type.Spells are burn/freeze/blow/earthly[root].All this again is just a simple thought based strat used in fighting the mob.
The game would have to be PVP and FPS type to really be a skillfull game.The terrain would have to be utilized into the fold as well.Players should have to perform some sorta overall skill challenge each time they want to upgrade there player.Group leadership skills are also a very big factor in success.Youve got 5 melee and no healer,a great leader might be able to bring about sucess.There really is only 2 skills, those of the brain and the hand eye skill[harware and setup can really aid here]using a mouse setting of 8/9 would be dumb if you need a steady hand for snipering...just an example.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Okay, so we've determined that skills are what you do with rote memory according to a situation. Now how many MMORPGs require that kind of strategic thinking? I can only think of of two and neither are technically MMO.
I also liked the comment about how MMORPGs are made for a mass market and the majority doesn't like games that require skill. I think that was a pretty skewed comment. The "public" has embraced Tetris, Red Alert 2, and Virtua Fighter 4. All of those games require skill beyond the initial reflexes and rote memory that comes from learning the game. Most people want deep tactical options wether they are given to us fast (Street Fighter 2) or slowly (Civ 4). MMORPGs just give us a nice comparison of numbers that handicaps in favor of the player that's been playing longest, regardless of the player's "skills."
Mmorpg's give you a vastly more complex set of rules and challenges to learn than Virtua Fighter 4.
The skill tree is larger. The learning curve longer.
As you progress your Toon through the levels, you gradually learn it's limitations and what powers work best in what circumstances.
Notice the difference when you meet someone who powerleveled or bought their max levelled charcter, the numbers are not enough, they haven't spent 300 hours acquiring the skills to use them.
However, althoughskill isn't required for many MMO's, it often helps by offering faster and more enjoyable progress. In addition to hand-eye co-oridnation the following skills will help:
Leadership - for being able to make progress with clueless groups
Teamworking - knowing that sacrificing your own interests for your groups can help you in the long term
Diplomacy - for handling the inevitable group/guild squabbles
Strategy - e.g. we are outnumbered 10-8 in pvp - should we sit back and defend hoping for reinforcements, or attack now despite the odds?
Tactics - hamstring the druid at the first opportunity to stop him taking advantage of his superior speed
Patience - enduring the grind
Economics - which items should I craft to earn the maximum amount of money per hour?
Sales - how much can you persuade someone to give you for that nice drop
Imagination - more useful on an RP server
Socialising - making friends and keeping them
Self-awareness - being able to predict which things you will find fun, and knowing how your individual skills best contribute to a group.
Good summary, though I'd be inclined to add a few, and to note that different games make different skills more valuable. I'm personally the sort of player who loves strategy games, playing solo - so I gravitate to MMORPGs that reward planning, analysis, and investment. You've kind of touched on that with economics, but there's a whole lot more.
More interestingly, perhaps, I've noticed that (some) MMORPGs manage to teach these skills to (some of) their players, basically by providing lots of practice in a relatively safe atmosphere. I suspect there are kids learning effective budgetting and investment, in the process of climbing to the top of some scoreboard or the other.
"player 'skill' does not equal 'hand eye coordination'""
Yeah, i'm also sick of all these people who dominate in sports and those incredible artist types, when its clear they are merely just good at hand eye co ordianation.
Skill in MMOs usually comes down to what makes RTS players good. It's essentially micromanaging your character to keep up with your health, your opponenets', and your team's. Still, most MMORPGs come down to memorize the skill order and just keep pressing the same hotkeys over and over.
I remember a time in UO where PvP was paralyze and spamming explosion potions. Skill is a very insignificant factor in most MMORPGs. You're supposed to play your "character". It usually gets boring to me but that doesn't mean it's a bad thing. Everyone has their own opinion of what is fun.
Ironically it takes hand-eye coordination to operate a computer, start up a game, use a keyboard, and click those spell casting and special move icons. It's all hand-eye coordination. All of it. While I agree with the misnomer identified with the OP I strongly disagree with some of the following posts that claim that hand-eye coordination isn't a skill or that downplay the efforts of obtaining those skills. I think many proponents (myself included) of "player skills" are arguing that it takes more skill to manually aim and hit something and more skill and even interaction on the players part to dodge and block and parry manually than to have those actions automatically calculated by the computer without any need and usually any ability for the player to handle those functions manually themselves. While I agree hand-eye cordination by itself isn't everything (even in quake and half-life, a player with better hand eye coordination can easily lose against a player with inferior aim but better strategic skill) , a company would do well to make a good mmorpg that catered to those wanting a more direct manual control over more of their characters basic combat manuevers.
I just had a flashback example of several players working in skillchains in FFXI.To anyone that has played it you will remember how many countless times thieves could not get off there SATA[sneak trick attack]because it took a total effort from the WHOLE team to insure it didnt mess up.Even players in the high levels like 60-70 still had clue ,that a thief and party CANNOT afford to have it missed.Thieves in FFXi do horrible melee damage like 6-15 a hit,so without the 200-500 sata into the skillchain your losing tons of damage that causes many problems....longer fights/more healing wasted mana[was it called mana?]been awhile since i played it lol.
Level 65 players would say stupid things like it don't matter we are still killing and some xp is better than none[lol]ya no kidding thats a no brainer,but whats wrong with getting your over all skills in order so the whole thing goes off without a hitch?
You get white mages deciding to cast a heal 3 just when your about to SATA ,there goes the mob after the whm ...no sata.Try again ,this time black mage decides to be a hero and throws off his mega nuke that he just bought[showoff]..there goes the mob after the BLM..guess what no sata ..grrrrrrrrrrrrr.Because of your setup there is often one player who skillchains alone,so he has to pay attention not to turn the mob so you lose SATA.I have seen it all,so many ways to screw it up,and at all levels of play not just noobs.Some players are so afraid of having to do SATA wit ha thief they often decline the party or fake a reason to leave.This was my perfect example how you can have several aspects of teamwork/leadership/hand eye co-ord/pay attn [lol].
IN ffxi you even have to have timing,if your too fast..no Skillchain..too slow ..you miss the skillchain.So many factors are in play when skillchaining with a thief,experienced FFXi players i am sure can relate to this scenario.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Originally posted by basalt sure ok then, will u plz back up all points made or it s not a valuid argument. the so-called 'skill' is no more than obsessive playing in some cases, but in others i agree that it is in fact actual skill cos of reaction times etc. it all depends on the mmo/mmorpg that u personally r playing 2 determine how much or how little skill is involved in playing the game. does everyone agree or do sun still think that all mmo's/mmorpg's require lots of skill or absolutely none whatsoever cos i think that this post settles the dispute
Reaction time is not a skill. You cannot train reaction time. Reaction time is not the time it takes for your hand or body to move, it is the time it takes for you to process the information. This cannot be trained. When you are supposedly training reaction time, what you are doing is developing a system for interpretign events, therefor the processing of information has started or the schema is formed before the event happens. If you go to a completely different event from what you trained you are just as slow, the processing is just as slow. The skill then is the development of motor programs to cut down on the time needed to interpret events.
There is some rudimentary skill in games, hand-eye coordination does involve some skill, learning the game mechanics does involve some skilll. Perhaps not a lot, nor anywhere on the same level as say piano playing, or things of that nature. But yes there is some amount of skill. How do we know this? People get better at it. They have developed those motor programs.
Venge Sunsoar
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
The only MMOG that I ever felt like my player skill had any real relevance compared to my character level/equipment was EVE online. Most games that I've played suffer from the 'LOL LVL 60 vs LVL 59 = WTFRAPE' syndrome.
Of course, I also feel that quite a bit of the skill required in EVE has been siphoned out to accomodate people who prefer very straightfoward level/equipment based combat, but at least it was there up to a point.
Originally posted by lomiller Originally posted by nomadian has there been a mmorpg which has tested any other 'skill' apart from Leadership?
Go to any MMO and give two people the same equipment and they will perform differently, sometimes by a large amount. The only explanation for this is that there is indeed a significant skill factor involved.
Actually there are several explanations for this, one of them being sheer randomness. Two characters of a different class also will also progress differently.
Exactly measuring "skill", including the definition, is not very easy.
Originally posted by Novaseeker To be honest, I am growing tired of numerous posts which refer, glibly, to "player skill", when in reality what they mean to refer to is "hand eye coordination".
There are many more ways that a a player can be skilled other than hand eye coordination. Hand eye coordination is but one skill, and not necessarily a more valued one than any other. Now I'm not knocking people who prefer games that emphasise hand eye coordination, but it would help if the advocates of these games here would not refer to this as "player skill", but rather more simply and directly as "games that emphasise hand eye coordination".
It depends what skills your talking about. Indeed hand eye coorddination is a player skill but so is the ability to think strategically and tactically
As far as battlefields go, as an idividual player you'd expect hand eye coordination to be the determining skill in regards to 1on1 combat if it was a simulation or any kind.
I play Guild Wars a lot, which is a great game by the way, and I can easily say you need no hand-eye coordination. I have it setup so that I press "," to target monsters and "/" to target items, and once targeted, I press "." to perform the action. Usually games like Counter Strike require more hand-eye coordination, but it's still not quite like playing baseball.
Originally posted by Arithian Originally posted by lomiller Originally posted by nomadian has there been a mmorpg which has tested any other 'skill' apart from Leadership?
Go to any MMO and give two people the same equipment and they will perform differently, sometimes by a large amount. The only explanation for this is that there is indeed a significant skill factor involved.
Actually there are several explanations for this, one of them being sheer randomness. Two characters of a different class also will also progress differently.
How do you get “two different classes” from that post? Anyway, if it were random it would tend to cancel out, it doesn’t. Two players with similar characters frequently have different levels of performance and this difference is consistent. That will not occur due to random variation.
The real problem is that "skill" isn't required if you have a handy game guide to hold your hand and give you the easy 1-2-3 steps on accomplishing everything in the game.
It's one reason the only real skills needed in raiding are effective communication with other humans (apparently a rare and unusual ability for gamers to have these days) and the ability to follow instructions (from one or more leaders, and/or from any of dozens of online guides telling you what everyone in a raid should do).
In theory, WOW's Battlegrounds are far more dynamic and difficult than any raid instance. Not only do the opponents change (and thus their tactics, priorities, gear, etc.), but often, so do your comrades. You have to readjust your own skills to mesh well with new friends to win, covering any deficiencies that didn't exist before, and possibly building on different strengths that weren't in the last match.
The fact is, any gamer who must rely on a guide for any but the most obscure and mysterious parts of the game (where there are no clues whatsoever as to what to do or how to do it) simply isn't very skillful. Except at reading and mindlessly following directions. It in no way exercises a person's creativity, deductive reasoning, or even their social skills (i.e. asking others for help).
But what makes up "skill" in a game? Not easy to say. Reflexes (good sense of timing, and being able to know when a situation comes up or changes), creativity (if something comes up nobody was prepared for, being able to come up with a plan on the fly to handle it), logic (just paying attention to what's going on, what's working or not working, and how to improve all of it), and socializing (being able to respectfully communicate with other players and help them work with you to accomplish a task), these are good starting points. After that, the game itself (or the task in the game) determines the specific skills needed to accomplish a goal.
Sadly, none of the above I listed are considered important by anyone, especially "raid leaders". The qualities they want are obedience and repetition, since the content often requires only that. It is sad that "raiding" is synonymous with "large group farming", but that's not going to change until raiders start demanding better content, and they won't do that with all those big numbers on the screen (especially on items). Somehow, they've been deceived into believing that "big numbers = better content".
Oh, well. There's always FPS and RTS, I suppose...
How do you get two different classes from that post? Anyway, if it were random it would tend to cancel out, it doesnt. Two players with similar characters frequently have different levels of performance and this difference is consistent. That will not occur due to random variation.
Well you didn't specify which two people you gave the same equipment to. These two people could be of a different class.
I don't see any evidence for your assertion that "skill" is the only explanation, unless you are attempting to define "skill" by the difference in play between two people who are using two identically constructed player avatars. Even if you did attempt it, I would question that definition in today's MMORPG climate where it is a given that playtime is the dominant factor in determining relative power. This playtime dependence tends to provide more evidence that it is not "skill" alone that differentiates two players.
Finally, "random" doesn't cancel out unless you approach infinite time. Suppose one of the toons gets a lucky uber drop, or happens to get a gift from a higher level?
Originally posted by Eindrachen It's one reason the only real skills needed in raiding are effective communication with other humans (apparently a rare and unusual ability for gamers to have these days)
That, my friend, is a rare and unusual ability for humans in general, to say nothing of the subset of humans that are gamers.
That, my friend, is a rare and unusual ability for humans in general, to say nothing of the subset of humans that are gamers.
More's the pity. I guarentee you, if the MMO community ever actually tried to come together and really talk through what is good or bad in an MMO game, the possibilities would be endless.
How do you get “two different classes” from that post? Anyway, if it were random it would tend to cancel out, it doesn’t. Two players with similar characters frequently have different levels of performance and this difference is consistent. That will not occur due to random variation.
Well you didn't specify which two people you gave the same equipment to. These two people could be of a different class.
Since you didn’t specify that the moons isn’t made of green cheese I can only assume you are saying it is, so clearly you have no idea what you are talking about.
All sarcasm aside, not free to interpret a written paragraph however you like just because some detail or qualifier isn’t present. This is especially true if the meaning is abundantly clear. If you have a legitimate question the appropriate thing to do is ask for clarification, not to decide the meaning is something completely different from the obvious intent.
I don't see any evidence for your assertion that "skill" is the only explanation, The burden of proof does not rest with me, if you believe there is a valid alternative explanation it’s up to you to show us that explanation and defend it from criticism. unless you are attempting to define "skill" by the difference in play between two people who are using two identically constructed player avatars. Even if you did attempt it, I would question that definition in today's MMORPG climate where it is a given that playtime is the dominant factor in determining relative power. What doesn’t relative power have to do with two similar characters? By definition we are discussing characters with the same relative power. This playtime dependence tends to provide more evidence that it is not "skill" alone that differentiates two players.
Finally, "random" doesn't cancel out unless you approach infinite time. You should really get some basic statistics under your belt before trying to argue the randomness angle. Randomness ceases to be a relevant factor after a relatively small number of trials. Fewer then 50 trials is often enough to rule out random chance and establish a statistically significant trend. In most MMO’s you can do that within an hour of play time. Suppose one of the toons gets a lucky uber drop, or happens to get a gift from a higher level?
Originally posted by lomiller Since you didnt specify that the moons isnt made of green cheese I can only assume you are saying it is, so clearly you have no idea what you are talking about. ;)All sarcasm aside, not free to interpret a written paragraph however you like just because some detail or qualifier isnt present. This is especially true if the meaning is abundantly clear. If you have a legitimate question the appropriate thing to do is ask for clarification, not to decide the meaning is something completely different from the obvious intent.
Unfortunately for this argument, the meaning was not abundantly or even remotely clear. My examples should have demonstrated that to you.
The burden of proof does not rest with me, if you believe there is a valid alternative explanation its up to you to show us that explanation and defend it from criticism.
You were the first to provide the assertion, so technically this burden was on you to back up your assertion with evidence demonstrating it's validity. All I did was provide one or two counterexamples which demonstrated your assertion, as worded, was incorrect.
What doesnt relative power have to do with two similar characters? By definition we are discussing characters with the same relative power.
First of all the first sentence doesn't parse exactly. I'm going to presume that you meant "does" instead of "doesn't" in my response.
The point was that you didn't define the two characters that you gave the same equipment to as being exactly equal. You just said something like "give two people the same equipment". What two people? Are these two people the same class and stat distribution? That is what my examples were hopefully pointing out to those who read them.
You should really get some basic statistics under your belt before trying to argue the randomness angle. Randomness ceases to be a relevant factor after a relatively small number of trials. Fewer then 50 trials is often enough to rule out random chance and establish a statistically significant trend. In most MMOs you can do that within an hour of play time.
It's not good to presume what someone knows.
The entire idea of statistically significant is based on a premise that you are attempting to filter out the randomness from your data. But you can't do that if you are exactly comparing a single levelling experience of two players, since any randomness will affect your comparison.
In fact, I don't think you can make any statistical comparison and presume you can orthogonally factor out some quantitative skill level. This is because a single trial would have to be levelling from the same starting point to some predefined end point. Each trial has to start from the same place and level to the same end point, and then you'd presumably be measuring the time this took each player. If you are trying to filter for skill, you'll have to get the two people to level some number of times from the start, already an unlikely proposition. Since you can't really filter out the fact that both of these people will learn (at different rates) to do this faster and faster, this will skew your data so you won't be able to clearly factor out the skill value you seek.
Measuring skill quantitatively is a difficult proposition.
Player "skill" does not equal "hand-eye coordination"
Hmmm, well I guess that all depends on what you are putting "skill" to. Skill in cooking does not need hand-eye cord.
But when It comes to mmorpgs, I dont thing it does. Well not on most. Age of Conan will change that. I think its all really down to understanding then skill. Mmorpgs need understanding, not skill.
Comments
Nicely said.
In answer to your question, to my way of thinking game skills are the things that determine your success or failure in the game, something that twitch skills do not do past a certain point, and in fact past a certain point they drop off your conscious radar altogether. It also suggests a meansure of excellence, as "in a skilled player" and I think twitch type skills only provide a base but do not seperate the excelent players from the average ones. To me, this along with the fact they work cross purpose to the things that make games fun calls their relevancy into question, at least in the context of a discussion about what constitues real skill.
Perhaps it would have been better for me to say something like “they are not skills relevant to the gaming experience once you have passed the basic stages of learning a game”, rather then to say “they are not really skills” but to me that would have just sounded confusing without the background we have covered since. It could also be that being questioned and challenged on a topic simply forces one to clarify and solidify their own thoughts on the matter and perhaps express those thoughts with greater clarity as a result.
Tadaaaaaaa.You are 100% correct sir.I've been preaching that for years.Good to see someone else bringing this out,i get tired of arguing with people over this.I just mentioned in one of my recent posts how i prefer games that challenge the mental aspect.Nowadays with so many players looking for ultimate machines and super high bandwidth,we need more strategy and tactics in our battle systems,otherwise it's a battle of connection/stability.You might be surprised at the lengths players have been going to overcome there lack of skills.
MMo's IMO are lacking in skills ,well frankly there was very little reason to be skillfull with no PvP.I touched on it before,that i felt FFXI battle system lends to the most skilled fighting of any PVE i have ever tested.There were ideas in strategy that left myself and others saying"WOW"didn't know that could be done that way.
What's the common skill in PVE's right now?pretty much simple stuff,like are they aggro or are they not.Do they cast magic or are they melee type mob?So the SKILL is pretty much thought based albeit not much thought needed to determine the strategy.The skills in using your class of player are limited as well.They try to incorporate slice/slash/crush/stab into the damage type.Spells are burn/freeze/blow/earthly[root].All this again is just a simple thought based strat used in fighting the mob.
The game would have to be PVP and FPS type to really be a skillfull game.The terrain would have to be utilized into the fold as well.Players should have to perform some sorta overall skill challenge each time they want to upgrade there player.Group leadership skills are also a very big factor in success.Youve got 5 melee and no healer,a great leader might be able to bring about sucess.There really is only 2 skills, those of the brain and the hand eye skill[harware and setup can really aid here]using a mouse setting of 8/9 would be dumb if you need a steady hand for snipering...just an example.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Okay, so we've determined that skills are what you do with rote memory according to a situation. Now how many MMORPGs require that kind of strategic thinking? I can only think of of two and neither are technically MMO.
I also liked the comment about how MMORPGs are made for a mass market and the majority doesn't like games that require skill. I think that was a pretty skewed comment. The "public" has embraced Tetris, Red Alert 2, and Virtua Fighter 4. All of those games require skill beyond the initial reflexes and rote memory that comes from learning the game. Most people want deep tactical options wether they are given to us fast (Street Fighter 2) or slowly (Civ 4). MMORPGs just give us a nice comparison of numbers that handicaps in favor of the player that's been playing longest, regardless of the player's "skills."
Not at all.
You couldn't be further from the truth.
Mmorpg's give you a vastly more complex set of rules and challenges to learn than Virtua Fighter 4.
The skill tree is larger. The learning curve longer.
As you progress your Toon through the levels, you gradually learn it's limitations and what powers work best in what circumstances.
Notice the difference when you meet someone who powerleveled or bought their max levelled charcter, the numbers are not enough, they haven't spent 300 hours acquiring the skills to use them.
More interestingly, perhaps, I've noticed that (some) MMORPGs manage to teach these skills to (some of) their players, basically by providing lots of practice in a relatively safe atmosphere. I suspect there are kids learning effective budgetting and investment, in the process of climbing to the top of some scoreboard or the other.
Yeah, i'm also sick of all these people who dominate in sports and those incredible artist types, when its clear they are merely just good at hand eye co ordianation.
/sarcasm
Skill in MMOs usually comes down to what makes RTS players good. It's essentially micromanaging your character to keep up with your health, your opponenets', and your team's. Still, most MMORPGs come down to memorize the skill order and just keep pressing the same hotkeys over and over.
I remember a time in UO where PvP was paralyze and spamming explosion potions. Skill is a very insignificant factor in most MMORPGs. You're supposed to play your "character". It usually gets boring to me but that doesn't mean it's a bad thing. Everyone has their own opinion of what is fun.
Ironically it takes hand-eye coordination to operate a computer, start up a game, use a keyboard, and click those spell casting and special move icons. It's all hand-eye coordination. All of it. While I agree with the misnomer identified with the OP I strongly disagree with some of the following posts that claim that hand-eye coordination isn't a skill or that downplay the efforts of obtaining those skills. I think many proponents (myself included) of "player skills" are arguing that it takes more skill to manually aim and hit something and more skill and even interaction on the players part to dodge and block and parry manually than to have those actions automatically calculated by the computer without any need and usually any ability for the player to handle those functions manually themselves. While I agree hand-eye cordination by itself isn't everything (even in quake and half-life, a player with better hand eye coordination can easily lose against a player with inferior aim but better strategic skill) , a company would do well to make a good mmorpg that catered to those wanting a more direct manual control over more of their characters basic combat manuevers.
Guild Wars 2 is my religion
I just had a flashback example of several players working in skillchains in FFXI.To anyone that has played it you will remember how many countless times thieves could not get off there SATA[sneak trick attack]because it took a total effort from the WHOLE team to insure it didnt mess up.Even players in the high levels like 60-70 still had clue ,that a thief and party CANNOT afford to have it missed.Thieves in FFXi do horrible melee damage like 6-15 a hit,so without the 200-500 sata into the skillchain your losing tons of damage that causes many problems....longer fights/more healing wasted mana[was it called mana?]been awhile since i played it lol.
Level 65 players would say stupid things like it don't matter we are still killing and some xp is better than none[lol]ya no kidding thats a no brainer,but whats wrong with getting your over all skills in order so the whole thing goes off without a hitch?
You get white mages deciding to cast a heal 3 just when your about to SATA ,there goes the mob after the whm ...no sata.Try again ,this time black mage decides to be a hero and throws off his mega nuke that he just bought[showoff]..there goes the mob after the BLM..guess what no sata ..grrrrrrrrrrrrr.Because of your setup there is often one player who skillchains alone,so he has to pay attention not to turn the mob so you lose SATA.I have seen it all,so many ways to screw it up,and at all levels of play not just noobs.Some players are so afraid of having to do SATA wit ha thief they often decline the party or fake a reason to leave.This was my perfect example how you can have several aspects of teamwork/leadership/hand eye co-ord/pay attn [lol].
IN ffxi you even have to have timing,if your too fast..no Skillchain..too slow ..you miss the skillchain.So many factors are in play when skillchaining with a thief,experienced FFXi players i am sure can relate to this scenario.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Reaction time is not a skill. You cannot train reaction time. Reaction time is not the time it takes for your hand or body to move, it is the time it takes for you to process the information. This cannot be trained. When you are supposedly training reaction time, what you are doing is developing a system for interpretign events, therefor the processing of information has started or the schema is formed before the event happens. If you go to a completely different event from what you trained you are just as slow, the processing is just as slow. The skill then is the development of motor programs to cut down on the time needed to interpret events.
There is some rudimentary skill in games, hand-eye coordination does involve some skill, learning the game mechanics does involve some skilll. Perhaps not a lot, nor anywhere on the same level as say piano playing, or things of that nature. But yes there is some amount of skill. How do we know this? People get better at it. They have developed those motor programs.
Venge Sunsoar
Of course, I also feel that quite a bit of the skill required in EVE has been siphoned out to accomodate people who prefer very straightfoward level/equipment based combat, but at least it was there up to a point.
Go to any MMO and give two people the same equipment and they will perform differently, sometimes by a large amount. The only explanation for this is that there is indeed a significant skill factor involved.
Actually there are several explanations for this, one of them being sheer randomness. Two characters of a different class also will also progress differently.
Exactly measuring "skill", including the definition, is not very easy.
As far as battlefields go, as an idividual player you'd expect hand eye coordination to be the determining skill in regards to 1on1 combat if it was a simulation or any kind.
Go to any MMO and give two people the same equipment and they will perform differently, sometimes by a large amount. The only explanation for this is that there is indeed a significant skill factor involved.
Actually there are several explanations for this, one of them being sheer randomness. Two characters of a different class also will also progress differently.
How do you get “two different classes” from that post? Anyway, if it were random it would tend to cancel out, it doesn’t. Two players with similar characters frequently have different levels of performance and this difference is consistent. That will not occur due to random variation.
The real problem is that "skill" isn't required if you have a handy game guide to hold your hand and give you the easy 1-2-3 steps on accomplishing everything in the game.
It's one reason the only real skills needed in raiding are effective communication with other humans (apparently a rare and unusual ability for gamers to have these days) and the ability to follow instructions (from one or more leaders, and/or from any of dozens of online guides telling you what everyone in a raid should do).
In theory, WOW's Battlegrounds are far more dynamic and difficult than any raid instance. Not only do the opponents change (and thus their tactics, priorities, gear, etc.), but often, so do your comrades. You have to readjust your own skills to mesh well with new friends to win, covering any deficiencies that didn't exist before, and possibly building on different strengths that weren't in the last match.
The fact is, any gamer who must rely on a guide for any but the most obscure and mysterious parts of the game (where there are no clues whatsoever as to what to do or how to do it) simply isn't very skillful. Except at reading and mindlessly following directions. It in no way exercises a person's creativity, deductive reasoning, or even their social skills (i.e. asking others for help).
But what makes up "skill" in a game? Not easy to say. Reflexes (good sense of timing, and being able to know when a situation comes up or changes), creativity (if something comes up nobody was prepared for, being able to come up with a plan on the fly to handle it), logic (just paying attention to what's going on, what's working or not working, and how to improve all of it), and socializing (being able to respectfully communicate with other players and help them work with you to accomplish a task), these are good starting points. After that, the game itself (or the task in the game) determines the specific skills needed to accomplish a goal.
Sadly, none of the above I listed are considered important by anyone, especially "raid leaders". The qualities they want are obedience and repetition, since the content often requires only that. It is sad that "raiding" is synonymous with "large group farming", but that's not going to change until raiders start demanding better content, and they won't do that with all those big numbers on the screen (especially on items). Somehow, they've been deceived into believing that "big numbers = better content".
Oh, well. There's always FPS and RTS, I suppose...
Well you didn't specify which two people you gave the same equipment to. These two people could be of a different class.
I don't see any evidence for your assertion that "skill" is the only explanation, unless you are attempting to define "skill" by the difference in play between two people who are using two identically constructed player avatars. Even if you did attempt it, I would question that definition in today's MMORPG climate where it is a given that playtime is the dominant factor in determining relative power. This playtime dependence tends to provide more evidence that it is not "skill" alone that differentiates two players.
Finally, "random" doesn't cancel out unless you approach infinite time. Suppose one of the toons gets a lucky uber drop, or happens to get a gift from a higher level?
That, my friend, is a rare and unusual ability for humans in general, to say nothing of the subset of humans that are gamers.
Good post.
More's the pity. I guarentee you, if the MMO community ever actually tried to come together and really talk through what is good or bad in an MMO game, the possibilities would be endless.
Unfortunately for this argument, the meaning was not abundantly or even remotely clear. My examples should have demonstrated that to you.
You were the first to provide the assertion, so technically this burden was on you to back up your assertion with evidence demonstrating it's validity. All I did was provide one or two counterexamples which demonstrated your assertion, as worded, was incorrect.
First of all the first sentence doesn't parse exactly. I'm going to presume that you meant "does" instead of "doesn't" in my response.
The point was that you didn't define the two characters that you gave the same equipment to as being exactly equal. You just said something like "give two people the same equipment". What two people? Are these two people the same class and stat distribution? That is what my examples were hopefully pointing out to those who read them.
It's not good to presume what someone knows.
The entire idea of statistically significant is based on a premise that you are attempting to filter out the randomness from your data. But you can't do that if you are exactly comparing a single levelling experience of two players, since any randomness will affect your comparison.
In fact, I don't think you can make any statistical comparison and presume you can orthogonally factor out some quantitative skill level. This is because a single trial would have to be levelling from the same starting point to some predefined end point. Each trial has to start from the same place and level to the same end point, and then you'd presumably be measuring the time this took each player. If you are trying to filter for skill, you'll have to get the two people to level some number of times from the start, already an unlikely proposition. Since you can't really filter out the fact that both of these people will learn (at different rates) to do this faster and faster, this will skew your data so you won't be able to clearly factor out the skill value you seek.
Measuring skill quantitatively is a difficult proposition.
hand eye coordination skill is for FPS games -.-
skill in mmorpgs is to know what to do and not panic or do anything in the wrong order or something.
Hmmm, well I guess that all depends on what you are putting "skill" to. Skill in cooking does not need hand-eye cord.
But when It comes to mmorpgs, I dont thing it does. Well not on most. Age of Conan will change that.
I think its all really down to understanding then skill. Mmorpgs need understanding, not skill.
Shoot, speak for yourself. You ever deep-fried something and accidentally splashed hot grease onto you hand? Or tried flipping an egg or pancake?
Mmm, pancakes.
Damn, now I am hungry...