# What games require actual skills from players?



## jDSX (Sep 19, 2015)

Legitimately speaking. Can call of duty be called "skillful" or just entirely luck based? Is tetris all blind luck too or needs careful planing for one to truly have fun? What about pokemon? MMOs/MOBAs are all "ZURG RUSH!!" to me. The old days were more skill based or is it the same as today's games? 
What do you think?


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## rdurbin (Sep 19, 2015)

dark souls games (and related titles) seem to be more skill based games.  If you dont know what you are doing or you rush through the game, you will die and you will die a lot.  You cannot really rush these games.  Yes and most new games seem to be a lot easier (for the most part) than older games.  I think part of this is due to old games were more limited in memory/space so the games couldnt be as long.  So to make up for this they made the difficulty of the games very hard to make the game last longer.


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## cvskid (Sep 19, 2015)

Fighting games require skill.


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## Greymane (Sep 19, 2015)

This is just how i see it.

Allmost all games require a amount of "skill" and "luck" which can be either positively or negatively influenced, the amount at which this can be done changes depending on the game's played, and against who/what it is played IA or human. As in Tetris you could say that one would need "luck" to get the right block, or "skill" to use the block given to its fullest extent. With fighting games you would need at least some "luck" to get a enemy to "give" you an opening but you also need to be able to take advantage of it which would take "skill". Even if you get "luck" you would also need to be able to take advantage of it, thus "skill" is needed you could go through just using "luck". But with every step a increasing amount of "luck" would be needed, lets say you get 4 buttons you need to push in a certain order (Simon says) the "skill" part would be able to remember the order of the buttons. With "luck" the first one would if i remember right (i don't calculate luck much ) be 1/4 next 1/8, 1/12 and so on. in short "luck" is always a factor no matter how small and so is "skill", being capable of taking advantage of "luck" is what matters the most. one who is talented but does not train will just become a normal person in a few years, he had the "luck" but did not take advantage of it "skill", of coarse being capable of taking advantage of it is again based both on "luck" and "skill", and so it keeps going.


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## jDSX (Sep 19, 2015)

Greymane said:


> This is just how i see it.
> 
> Allmost all games require a amount of "skill" and "luck" which can be either positively or negatively influenced, the amount at which this can be done changes depending on the game's played, and against who/what it is played IA or human. As in Tetris you could say that one would need "luck" to get the right block, or "skill" to use the block given to its fullest extent. With fighting games you would need at least some "luck" to get a enemy to "give" you an opening but you also need to be able to take advantage of it which would take "skill". Even if you get "luck" you would also need to be able to take advantage of it, thus "skill" is needed you could go through just using "luck". But with every step a increasing amount of "luck" would be needed, lets say you get 4 buttons you need to push in a certain order (Simon says) the "skill" part would be able to remember the order of the buttons. With "luck" the first one would if i remember right (i don't calculate luck much ) be 1/4 next 1/8, 1/12 and so on. in short "luck" is always a factor no matter how small and so is "skill", being capable of taking advantage of "luck" is what matters the most. one who is talented but does not train will just become a normal person in a few years, he had the "luck" but did not take advantage of it "skill", of coarse being capable of taking advantage of it is again based both on "luck" and "skill", and so it keeps going.



But don't forget: RNG manipulation/abuse/tactics are at work too.


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## Greymane (Sep 19, 2015)

jDSX said:


> But don't forget: RNG manipulation/abuse/tactics are at work too.


Of course, but being capable of those you would still need the "luck" for the weaknesses to be present and the "skill" for taking advantage, otherwise one would get results that are smeared over the board.


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## Guinea (Sep 19, 2015)

Pokemon games do, you need to know a lot to be good


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## Hungry Friend (Sep 19, 2015)

cvskid said:


> Fighting games require skill.



Beat me to it but this especially, along with platformers like Mario(2d or 3d), Mega Man, Ghouls n Ghosts, Castlevania(2d) and other games that require pinpoint timing/precision. Shmups fit this description as well but I'm fucking awful at them.


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## Arras (Sep 19, 2015)

Just about everything you named requires skill. Some take more time to learn than others, some are a combination of both luck and skill, but blindly pressing buttons won't get you far in any of those games. If there are any games that don't require skill, it's the free to play "wait X hours to build a new thing" games.


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## jDSX (Sep 19, 2015)

So I must ask this what is required to have fun? Blind luck or having skill? A card game like yugioh (believe it or not) is very luck based while MTG isn't (think chess) then again it depends on who netdecks who and has the most money to blow on 'netdecking' and calls themselves "the best player" just from copying off of one person's idea. It's bad for the metagame which is why you have anti meta decks stuffs etc for mixing it up but short lived due to well..luck.


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## Catastrophic (Sep 19, 2015)

I think pretty much any game that requires tight reaction and precision can be called skillful; platformers, fighting games, Counter-Strike etc. Being good at an RPG is somewhat skillful but is more or less knowing where everything is and what the best way to go through the game is.


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## Hungry Friend (Sep 22, 2015)

Really depends on the RPG and how you play it, which is why I like them so much. There are millions of different ways to play them, kill bosses, challenge yourself and employ weird, unique strategies. Low level challenges, intentionally having shitty equipment and countless other things can make them either much easier or a million times harder. Memorization or grinding and brute forcing are just 2 ways to do it but there are so many other methods that all depend on the game you're talking about.

*jDSX:* Fun is completely relative. What one person finds fun, I may find sleep inducing and vice versa. If you like something then you like it, plain and simple and fuck anyone who gives you shit for it.


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## RustInPeace (Sep 22, 2015)

Guinea said:


> Pokemon games do, you need to know a lot to be good



Competitive play, yeah, skill is needed big time. It's a bit telling though that there was no variety in the top 8 in VGC this year. Very similar teams, so sometimes it's just based on the Pokemon. More skill is shown when victory comes no matter what the pokemon is, like the Parchirisu guy.

Also time is important, the more of that you spend on planning and trying out teams against others, the better you can get. That's why I suck, I don't think things out for too long.

Another game though that requires skills, if fast reflexes counts, is Bayonetta 1 and 2. At first I was losing lives all the time. Once you beat the games, replays are more doable. They're not incredibly easier, but now I just try chapters over and over for Platinum and Pure Platinum. The repetition of those right after playing them helps. The problem is rust. I haven't played in months, so I may be back to sucking when I play both games. Bayonetta 1 is slightly harder too, but both overall are relentless.


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## Cyan (Sep 22, 2015)

games on old consoles/computers requires more skills than newer games.
now players are spoiled with everything needed to be easy : easy visual, easy menu, easy difficulty, easy controls : like when you jump, you can move in the air and gauge the distance to the land spot by how much you press your controller, while in 8bit era it was either "jump vertically or jump a specific and always identical pixel precision distance". ever played Castlevania on Nes? or Battle of olympus? or TMHT ?


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## Deleted User (Oct 1, 2015)

MOBA games like DotA 2 and League of Legends. Personally I suck at them.

Dark souls is ridiculously hard. Couldn't complete the first level.

Then there's games like Sm4sh and Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze which are tough, but doable.

Maybe I just couldn't bring myself to get good at games that I don't find fun.


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## Atlas_Noire (Oct 1, 2015)

Almost all games require skill as far as I'm concerned. The only game that I don't have any skill at all are fighting games. I always get beaten by my older brother at Tekken and Mortal Kombat. I'm more into racing, RPG and hack'n slash games. Games like Dark Souls require a lot of skill, but it's just a matter of getting used to the controls. MOBAs like Dota and League of Legends require careful planning and sheer luck, so you can get ahead.

I find all games fun, whether if I win or lose, since I rarely worry about results.


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## Hungry Friend (Oct 1, 2015)

Cyan said:


> games on old consoles/computers requires more skills than newer games.
> now players are spoiled with everything needed to be easy : easy visual, easy menu, easy difficulty, easy controls : like when you jump, you can move in the air and gauge the distance to the land spot by how much you press your controller, while in 8bit era it was either "jump vertically or jump a specific and always identical pixel precision distance". ever played Castlevania on Nes? or Battle of olympus? or TMHT ?



Yeah, I started gaming with an NES and a ton of second hand games and just to get past most first levels in games back then you had to die over and over and over and memorize enemy placement. Fucking Ninja Gaiden is a perfect example of this and I was never able to come even close to beating it. Even the "easier" platformers like SMB were fairly hard if you didn't know what you were doing but when you beat some of those old NES games it felt GOOD because you knew you did it without your hand being held. I remember finally beating Double Dragon 3 on the NES when I was 8; the last boss is horrendously cheap but oh so satisfying to kill. I'm not about to attempt that again though. Kinda like beating Japanese arcade Ghouls n' Ghosts; it's one of those things I'd rather not put myself through again because I was screaming obscenities at my computer screen at 3 AM. I can beat the US Genesis version on professional because it has boss checkpoints but the JP/World arcade version is BRUTAL.

You have any games that were especially satisfying to beat? Karnov on the NES was another satisfying one despite the ending being shit.


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## Megaben99 (Oct 1, 2015)

Rogue likes require adaptation ... can't rely on memorization of timing / places.



--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



Hungry Friend said:


> Yeah, I started gaming with an NES and a ton of second hand games and just to get past most first levels in games back then you had to die over and over and over and memorize enemy placement. Fucking Ninja Gaiden is a perfect example of this and I was never able to come even close to beating it. Even the "easier" platformers like SMB were fairly hard if you didn't know what you were doing but when you beat some of those old NES games it felt GOOD because you knew you did it without your hand being held. I remember finally beating Double Dragon 3 on the NES when I was 8; the last boss is horrendously cheap but oh so satisfying to kill. I'm not about to attempt that again though. Kinda like beating Japanese arcade Ghouls n' Ghosts; it's one of those things I'd rather not put myself through again because I was screaming obscenities at my computer screen at 3 AM. I can beat the US Genesis version on professional because it has boss checkpoints but the JP/World arcade version is BRUTAL.
> 
> You have any games that were especially satisfying to beat? Karnov on the NES was another satisfying one despite the ending being shit.


Dude taking out Alakatai was absolutely the best


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## TecXero (Oct 1, 2015)

I think skill in games is: required planning, or required on-the-fly thought or a good reaction time. Obviously different games will require different levels of skill in different areas. That doesn't necessarily make a game good, though. I enjoy both Dark Souls and The Stanley Parable, but one requires significantly more skill while the other doesn't really require any skill. They're both still great in their own ways.


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## Cyan (Oct 1, 2015)

Hungry Friend said:


> You have any games that were especially satisfying to beat? Karnov on the NES was another satisfying one despite the ending being shit.


I never completed ninja gaiden. I always went up to the same level, which was very far, but always frustrated to reach so far and never can go further.

On NES, I've not beaten a lot of games.
- Snake Rattle 'N roll (took me ages, few years !!!!) I was sooo happy to finally complete it.
- Castlevania 2 ~ Simon's quest (one of my first completed game, and back then I didn't understood english... just went random everywere until I completed it  ). It wasn't a very hard game for me.
- Dragon Ball (my first bought game on NES) easy to complete too, even if some parts or boss were hard.
- Zelda 1 (not hard) but it was satisfying to complete it
- Zelda 2 (hard, and I didn't like it at first, but you learn to like it. Finally I completed it multiple times) That one was satisfying to complete.
- Maniac Mansion. 
- few others I completed, but they are not satisfying (like bubble bobble, it's only puzzle levels, one after the other. no real challenge)

There are games I don't remember if I completed or not (gradius, lifeforce, Mario2, Mario3, Chip'n Dale, duck tales, etc.). I think I did.

Games I wish I had completed but never could : 
- Ninja gaiden (most frustrating game lol)
- Battle of Olympus (Always fall in a hole where I had to jump over it... damn those "fixed pixel long jumps" were horrible)

My NES stats : 33 never completed,  19 (almost certain) completed


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## Vipera (Oct 1, 2015)

...every game ever that's not luck-based require skills. Seriously, is that even a debate?

However, if you meant very VERY VERY VERY difficult games, I'd say the whole danmaku genre.


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## Issac (Oct 2, 2015)

Most games nowadays feel very handheld. And I mean that the game holds your hand, not that it's a game you play on the go. 
I miss the days when games were hard, "NES hard". You had to try and try and try again to beat the games. At the same time I feel that it's terribly convenient with current games and their checkpoints every 4 steps, considering time a finite resource. 

Like, I really like the Arkham games, but they're in no way, shape or form difficult. 

Oh well, now the challenge lies in achievements for those who care. Games are more or less hard, and if you really want to test your skills: Achievement hunting. (Unless it's those crappy "play 300 hours online" ones).


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## zerofalcon (Oct 2, 2015)

Every video game console or handheld have variety and shape of challenging games, but one thing is true: Since first to fifth/sixth generation, a lot of games were harder than the currently active generation. Today most games does not require a lot of ability or  similar conditions,  today games are programed to make things easier for the end user, sadly. I have fond memories with the NES and arcade games, try to beat arcade games with one coin was a pain in almost every game, same with tons of NES games, overall that was the real entertainment and fun behind, the replay value was giant.


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## RichHomieSupreme (Oct 2, 2015)

jDSX said:


> Legitimately speaking. Can call of duty be called "skillful" or just entirely luck based? Is tetris all blind luck too or needs careful planing for one to truly have fun? What about pokemon? MMOs/MOBAs are all "ZURG RUSH!!" to me. The old days were more skill based or is it the same as today's games?
> What do you think?


Skill is quite a nebulous term. It all depends on what you consider skillful. Fast reactions, robotic repetition of short windowed combination of button presses, intelligence to make good decisions in the context of the game, those could all be considered skill. but everyone uses a different definition.


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## jDSX (Oct 2, 2015)

Skill is learning, luck is hand holding. Skill is requiring thinking rather than fast reactions at random.


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## Hungry Friend (Oct 2, 2015)

Cyan said:


> I never completed ninja gaiden. I always went up to the same level, which was very far, but always frustrated to reach so far and never can go further.
> 
> On NES, I've not beaten a lot of games.
> - Snake Rattle 'N roll (took me ages, few years !!!!) I was sooo happy to finally complete it.
> ...



I don't really have the patience to beat a game like Ninja Gaiden anymore. I wasn't able to beat it as a kid with infinite free time and I dunno if I have it in me to beat it today. My NES is broken so if I played through it in an emu, abusing save states would be VERY tempting(if you do that it doesn't count as beating it) and the game is just insanely hard, especially the flying enemies and some of those jumps. Often a combo of the 2.

Beat Zelda 1, haven't beat or tried to beat 2 so I'll stick that one on my list and I'm REALLY bad at Castlevania games. Beat Rondo of Blood(PCE emulated with Magic Engine) with both Richter and the much easier Maria but haven't complete all of the prime levels yet. The PCE got a really good port of Double Dragon 2 and I really wanna try beating that sometime soon as well. It's basically an enhanced version of the NES port with much less slowdown than either the NEs or arcade versions. Music's weird as hell though.

Some of those FF6 ROM hacks are tempting as well.


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## Vipera (Oct 2, 2015)

Issac said:


> Most games nowadays feel very handheld. And I mean that the game holds your hand, not that it's a game you play on the go.
> I miss the days when games were hard, "NES hard". You had to try and try and try again to beat the games. At the same time I feel that it's terribly convenient with current games and their checkpoints every 4 steps, considering time a finite resource.
> 
> Like, I really like the Arkham games, but they're in no way, shape or form difficult.
> ...


I'm of the opposite idea. A game's difficulty shouldn't be given by the terrible controls, the glitches or the awful AI.
The NES had a lot of AAA titles (or "first line") that were very difficult. We still get difficult games now, but thank God you have to select the right difficulty or search better. I think it's great that AAA titles' regular difficulty isn't too high, or not as many people would play them. Also, excluding RPGs, older games were 100% shorter than games of the present. You hear people bitching about longevity when the game isn't more than 10 hours long, yet they forget how short Crash Bandicoot was. I'd rather play a fair, yet still difficult game than some of the crap released on the NES (looking at you, Ghosts 'n Goblins).


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## stephaniie (Oct 2, 2015)

Online games.

An AI - is just about finding the right combination of pushed button.
Real humans, thats where skills counts.


However, even that we praise Emulators and save abilities todays. 
What made games fun was actually when we had to push uself to complete a whole game 
in one sitting. Or codes which only was possible to get at certain places , churches in A Battle of Olympus.


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## Issac (Oct 2, 2015)

Vipera said:


> I'm of the opposite idea. A game's difficulty shouldn't be given by the terrible controls, the glitches or the awful AI.
> The NES had a lot of AAA titles (or "first line") that were very difficult. We still get difficult games now, but thank God you have to select the right difficulty or search better. I think it's great that AAA titles' regular difficulty isn't too high, or not as many people would play them. Also, excluding RPGs, older games were 100% shorter than games of the present. You hear people bitching about longevity when the game isn't more than 10 hours long, yet they forget how short Crash Bandicoot was. I'd rather play a fair, yet still difficult game than some of the crap released on the NES (looking at you, Ghosts 'n Goblins).


Well, I agree that difficulty doesn't (or shouldn't) come from terrible controls, glitches or awful AI.
Sure you can raise the difficulty settings of the recent Batman games, but they still aren't that hard just because of the so frequent checkpoints. The same goes for Call of Duty. Dying doesn't mean anything, you can just try again and again. 
Of course there are difficult games now too, I haven't actually played Dark Souls and those games so I can't comment on them, but Alien Isolation is a good example. Manual saving, and you have to get to a safe save station to be able to save at all. There's tension, dying means something, you'll have to retry sometimes long segments to work out your strategies.
I must say, the online mode in games like Call of Duty is also skill based, since it's against other players, a lot of strategies, and the game is "different" from the story mode.

I am one of those who actually enjoy shorter games, because I don't feel that I have the time to play long stuff. But again, I agree with you that the games should be fair. Fair and difficult. Zelda 2, Mega man series... oh, and Ghosts 'n Goblins is fair in my opinion


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## DinohScene (Oct 2, 2015)

GTA SA speedrunning.
Cause that game will do everything to ruin your run, EVERYTHING!


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## Aidan25 (Oct 2, 2015)

I guess with platformers you need to understand depth perception, abilities of the character/s and the objective of course. You need to also be really fluent with the controls because you could easily fall down back to the start or lose progress if you make a wrong turn or you press the wrong button. 

Every game is different so you can't always base it on a genre like I have just done. It also depends on the quality of the game's engine because you need to be able to use the skills that the game wants you to use in their environment while using your own skills as a gamer to work out what to do and to complete the tasks in order to progress. This notion can be applied to most genres and therefore, the majority of games that have been released require some sort of skill and intellect from the player itself to make the right decisions and know how to use what they know to their advantage.


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## Hells Malice (Oct 3, 2015)

Guinea said:


> Pokemon games do, you need to know a lot to be good



That's not skill, that's just memorization.

Pokemon requires very little skill even against other players. Basically the only skill a person uses is their ability to read their opponents moves and actions. A skill yes, but it's also not that difficult.


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## Taleweaver (Oct 3, 2015)

jDSX said:


> Legitimately speaking. Can call of duty be called "skillful" or just entirely luck based? Is tetris all blind luck too or needs careful planing for one to truly have fun? What about pokemon? MMOs/MOBAs are all "ZURG RUSH!!" to me. The old days were more skill based or is it the same as today's games?
> What do you think?


I'm mostly thinking you're taking things way too broad to properly discuss them.

Let's start with the obvious: almost every game has an element of luck and an element of skill to it. The degrees may vary, but both can be enjoyed (most obvious examples are roughly the extremes: chess and the lottery). Part of playing the game is figuring out how to use the situation. The whole "game XXX is just pure luck" often comes from those who do not understand that it takes skill to turn luck your way. The average player can (or rather: should) see games of poker about pure luck. There is no way to tell what others are holding, so it's just luck whether you have something higher than the others. The skill, however, lies elsewhere: in reading the opponents and calculating the odds to maximize your profits. In other words: skill may be in parts where you don't expect it.

I won't comment on MMO's or MOBA's as I don't play 'em (though I thought 'Zerg rush' was a strategy from starcraft, which is, ironically, an RTS from the old days). But I can tell you this: fun stems from neither skill or luck, and strangely enough not necessarily even a combination of both either. There are specific aspects of a game that can be considered 'fun', and provided luck or skill don't ruin those aspects (eg. by making it feel like you don't accomplish or improve anything), meeting those aspects will make the game fun.
A rather obnoxious example is the clicker game 'Adventure capitalist'. Go play it if you want: it's free. It also requires no skill (it's just literally pressing buttons...there isn't even a win state or a possible bad decision) and no luck (all the odds are layed out before you; there are no hidden things or anything random). Yet it's fun because it gives that tingling sensation of achieving something and getting ludicrously rich.



jDSX said:


> So I must ask this what is required to have fun? Blind luck or having skill? A card game like yugioh (believe it or not) is very luck based while MTG isn't (think chess) then again it depends on who netdecks who and has the most money to blow on 'netdecking' and calls themselves "the best player" just from copying off of one person's idea. It's bad for the metagame which is why you have anti meta decks stuffs etc for mixing it up but short lived due to well..luck.


I don't follow the MTG scene anymore, but it seems it hasn't changed. But...you call it bad for the metagame, but that's not true: the metagame is something WotC is aware of (unless they collectively forgot about it in the last year or so), and is something they simply cannot avoid...so they'll accept it and work with it.


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## jDSX (Oct 3, 2015)

Taleweaver said:


> *I'm mostly thinking you're taking things way too broad to properly discuss them*.
> 
> I don't follow the MTG scene anymore, but it seems it hasn't changed. But...you call it bad for the metagame, but that's not true: the metagame is something WotC is aware of (unless they collectively forgot about it in the last year or so), and is something they simply cannot avoid...so they'll accept it and work with it.



I am being open minded here not one tracked for debate rather than favoring one over the other. 

With mtg a metagame can change so drastically with the ban list on the fly that one could be bad for good players with depth and skill and good for others that are just poor with card choices and sportsmanship in general. It's happen before take when mirrodin block was out and affinity was in full throttle, the game because known as slow and bad because of one deck that dominated and couldn't be won against with shear luck of draw. Then tooth and nail came and finally broke the winning streak and proved affinity's tactics were null against the nail deck (a 5 color type too) since then wotc has been banning most of the cards to decks that just ruin anyone's strategy (like memory jar and most vintage cards) power playing is another term for it but I don't want to get into that.


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## Hungry Friend (Oct 3, 2015)

Playing almost any game at a very high level requires skill and practice but it is true that in a general sense, games from the 2600-PS2 era, namely 2600-SNES/Genesis games were much harder and far less user/mass market friendly than many of today's games with some exceptions. They kicked your ass and never said sorry so to speak, even the really popular series like Mario, Castlevania, Megaman and the earlier JRPGs like FF I-IV and early Dragon Quest.(DQ is still fairy old school, least up to VIII)

Usually though when I think of seriously skilled gamers I think of fighting games but I'm also biased towards the genre. High level play of most games requires obsessive practice but fighting game tournaments are the most fun to watch because of how varied peoples' playstyles are.(and yes Smash is a fighter no matter what anyone says)


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## Taleweaver (Oct 4, 2015)

jDSX said:


> I am being open minded here not one tracked for debate rather than favoring one over the other.
> 
> With mtg a metagame can change so drastically with the ban list on the fly that one could be bad for good players with depth and skill and good for others that are just poor with card choices and sportsmanship in general. It's happen before take when mirrodin block was out and affinity was in full throttle, the game because known as slow and bad because of one deck that dominated and couldn't be won against with shear luck of draw. Then tooth and nail came and finally broke the winning streak and proved affinity's tactics were null against the nail deck (a 5 color type too) since then wotc has been banning most of the cards to decks that just ruin anyone's strategy (like memory jar and most vintage cards) power playing is another term for it but I don't want to get into that.


This isn't about open mindedness but practicality. There are entire books written about how to make your games fun (I've personally read "Theory of fun for game design" by Raph Koster...but IIRC, the guys from Extra credits had an entire list that didn't even include that one), and how luck and skill play into that.

I did a quick check on magic: the gathering. You may want to pick your examples a bit more careful: the massive banning of cards in mirrodin's block was eleven years ago. Yes, it had a lot of banned cards (list of ALL banned cards), but you may want to look at all the sets after that: Kamigawa, Ravnica, time spiral, lorwyn/shadowmoor, shards, zendikar, scars of mirrodin, return to ravnica, theros and khans of tarkir had zero banned cards (Innistrad had two). So it's not like they haven't learned. Besides...I played MTG in those days, and it wasn't like I even noticed affinity being ridiculously overpowered. That only mattered if you really HAD to have a deck that won against any other type (meaning: you had to pay for cards that quickly rose in price). For casual play, it was fine.

And that lesson goes for video games as well. My favorite example is the shieldgun in UT2003/2004: the alt-fire set up a shield that blocked incoming damage a bit. Since this was on your melee weapon and only blocked directly in front of you, it's not like anyone noticed. It only mattered in duels at high levels, where it was constantly used to withdraw (thus reducing those matches to a boring-to-watch hide-and-seek game). Epic could've fixed it if they cared...but they assumed (rightfully so) that the majority of players didn't even knew, so it wasn't a priority. Which was true.


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## jDSX (Oct 4, 2015)

Taleweaver said:


> I did a quick check on magic: the gathering. You may want to pick your examples a bit more careful: the massive banning of cards in mirrodin's block was eleven years ago. Yes, it had a lot of banned cards (list of ALL banned cards), but you may want to look at all the sets after that: Kamigawa, Ravnica, time spiral, lorwyn/shadowmoor, shards, zendikar, scars of mirrodin, return to ravnica, theros and khans of tarkir had zero banned cards (Innistrad had two). So it's not like they haven't learned. Besides...I played MTG in those days, and it wasn't like I even noticed affinity being ridiculously overpowered. That only mattered if you really HAD to have a deck that won against any other type (meaning: you had to pay for cards that quickly rose in price). For casual play, it was fine.



Yes I know about mtg and the sets because I play on and off, I started with time spiral back in 07 there were a great number of decks to play with and diversity. But I was referring to the ban list back when affinity became a thing (I am sure it's archived somewhere) there was only probably skullclamp on the ban list because of how ridiculously broken it is (not like jitte for example) to a point where they believed the game was going stale and dying from this top tier deck and everyone copying off of it. Before that I haven't a clue what would of been more solid than affinity, look at todays version of it: fast, overwhelming, almost unstoppable, but it is not anymore thankfully now because wotc learned their lesson (except for jund maybe) and it shows the game is more different than it was back in 04.


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## mechagouki (Oct 4, 2015)

This thread is a bit pointless without a clear definition of what constitutes "skill".

Some people have said "beating (insert game name here) is just a matter of memorizing", but surely the ability to identify a solution by repeated experimentation is a skill?

Others have said "just fast reactions", but that for sure is a skill applicable in games and the real world, and a skill that can be improved through exercising it.

Most games reward logical thought processes, and some people have better logic processing than others, though again, practise can improve this too.

Only games that employ a pseudo-random (no truly random events in computers) element require luck (whatever luck is), games with "random" special item placement for instance, some of the weapon drops in Castlevania (SotN amongst others) spring to mind.

What is for sure is that societal change over the last three decades has driven a general reduction in the difficulty levels of video games (there are exceptions). It's worth remembering that home gaming grew out of the popularity of arcade machines, which were designed to make money first and foremost, but rewarded practise and skill with longer play time for your money. It seems to me that gamers have become less patient as the years have passed, they want the reward faster and easier, though on some level -perhaps unconsciously- they are aware that they have traded the sense of achievement that comes with beating a truly hard (but not cheap) game for a dirty hit of quick gratification?


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## Hungry Friend (Oct 4, 2015)

mechagouki said:


> This thread is a bit pointless without a clear definition of what constitutes "skill".
> 
> Some people have said "beating (insert game name here) is just a matter of memorizing", but surely the ability to identify a solution by repeated experimentation is a skill?
> 
> ...



I think a lot of modern gamers are far too young to remember 2600-SNES/Genesis games and that the younger kids see PS2, GC, DC and Xbox games as old "retro style" games. That generation while mostly offline was kind of the genesis period for what we see as modern gaming, namely the Xbox with Halo and LIVE. I'll keep my opinions and rants to myself but I definitely prefer games from before 2006 or so generally speaking, especially games from around 1986 to 2001. Part of it is nostalgia but I see the mid-late 80s to 2001 or so as the "golden age" of console gaming because there was so much experimentation going on as well as games being generally more difficult. Shit was so much more diverse and the industry was much more open-minded in a lot of ways. Fewer games catered to the casual audience.

To summarize, I don't think a lot of newer gamers are aware of the dumbing down/hand holding that's become popular in more recent games and just see it as normal. Older guys like me(I'm 31) find it glaringly obvious and clearly you do too, but gamers that're 10+ years younger than I am probably aren't even thinking about this issue.


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## RichHomieSupreme (Oct 4, 2015)

Why are checkpoints seen as a way of removing skill from a game? Why does dying need to place you at the beginning of the game? That only makes the game tedious, not difficult.  What is skillful about having to redo what you just did because you died? It's like grinding in a jrpg, it's tedious and the time you spend doing it creates a false sense of difficulty because you put so much time into doing it. I mean in a jrpg, your skill is having bigger numbers than whatever you're fighting. In say a platformer without check points, its sorta the same thing, it forces you into repetition and eventually you beat it except it's a little more annoying. I think that the games that either put you against other players or have "randomness" are the most skillful. "Randomness" tests your adaptation and resourcefulness which is why I think that tetris is definitely skillful. Don't get me wrong I enjoy games like ninja gaiden nes and the older Mario games, but I don't think that things like checkpoints and the ability to save anywhere make games less skillful.


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## Deboog (Oct 4, 2015)

Cyan said:


> - Castlevania 2 ~ Simon's quest (one of my first completed game, and back then I didn't understood english... just went random everywere until I completed it  ). It wasn't a very hard game for me.


You didn't speak English? How in god's name did you figure out to crouch in a corner with a red orb?


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## Hungry Friend (Oct 4, 2015)

*RichHomieSupreme:* I see your point but when a game is incredibly tough and unforgiving, it's so much more satisfying when you do finally beat it than if you beat an easier game. Most good JRPGs require very little to no grinding but admittedly Dragon Quest games do requires some and it is annoying, but I believe the positives outweigh the negatives. If you don't wanna grind just get to what's considered the minimum level required to complete whatever section is coming up and come up with a strategy to kill tough enemies, bosses etc rather than grinding forever and brute forcing it.

Also I agree Castlevania 2 has the wrong kind of difficulty by being full of cryptic bullshit as AVGN put it.


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## RichHomieSupreme (Oct 4, 2015)

Maybe he found another way to trigger the tornado :o


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## mechagouki (Oct 4, 2015)

RichHomieSupreme said:


> Why are checkpoints seen as a way of removing skill from a game? Why does dying need to place you at the beginning of the game? That only makes the game tedious, not difficult.  What is skillful about having to redo what you just did because you died? It's like grinding in a jrpg, it's tedious and the time you spend doing it creates a false sense of difficulty because you put so much time into doing it. I mean in a jrpg, your skill is having bigger numbers than whatever you're fighting. In say a platformer without check points, its sorta the same thing, it forces you into repetition and eventually you beat it except it's a little more annoying. I think that the games that either put you against other players or have "randomness" are the most skillful. "Randomness" tests your adaptation and resourcefulness which is why I think that tetris is definitely skillful. Don't get me wrong I enjoy games like ninja gaiden nes and the older Mario games, but I don't think that things like checkpoints and the ability to save anywhere make games less skillful.



Well your point about platformers is valid, but perhaps it's only because checkpoints and the ability to save your game is the norm now. When I originally played through SMB 3 on the NES, I knew I had to complete that sucker in one sitting, no battery backup in that cart. It added a level of tension and a need to be absolutely focused on every jump (world 8 level 2 I'm looking at you!).

With RPGs I would say grinding is an alternative to skillful use of strategy in boss battles, and as such the boredom penalty is justified.


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## RichHomieSupreme (Oct 4, 2015)

mechagouki said:


> Well your point about platformers is valid, but perhaps it's only because checkpoints and the ability to save your game is the norm now. When I originally played through SMB 3 on the NES, I knew I had to complete that sucker in one sitting, no battery backup in that cart. It added a level of tension and a need to be absolutely focused on every jump (world 8 level 2 I'm looking at you!).
> 
> With RPGs I would say grinding is an alternative to skillful use of strategy in boss battles, and as such the boredom penalty is justified.


Smb3 was one of the games that I loathed for not having the ability to save lol. Thank the heavens for save states. They let you save in games without such a feature. Also, the game should've at least had a password save. I'm only able to complain about such a thing because it's commonplace now but saving anywhere is a good thing.


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## Cyan (Oct 4, 2015)

Deboog said:


> You didn't speak English? How in god's name did you figure out to crouch in a corner with a red orb?


I don't remember, probably followed game guide? (we had some nintendo club magazine back then, with player's writing, asking questions, and waiting next month for the answers lol)
I guess this is where you had to crouch in front of a wall ? I remember doing it to open a hidden passage all the way to the west.

I had rudimentary english understanding (2 year of school level english) when I played that game. maybe it was enough, I don't remember very well.

Ps: I still have my card member and nintendo magazine from 1980's


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