What is skill?

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ShadyC#1006 wrote:

I think, in its truest and most raw form, in a game like PoE...

Yeah, it's a lot of what you said. Game knowledge, mechanical capability to not make errors, and in my opinion, what tops it all off is efficiency.

You might have enough game knowledge to make an unkillable build, and this mitigates your requirement for mechanical capability in most cases. But your efficiency/speed is most likely very low, unless, in theory, ONLY a mega tanky build could clear certain content that made the slow pace worth the reward (which none of these games really have).

So then you might make a "blast everything hard and fast before they can blast you" build, which IMO is what PoE accidentally became "balanced" around... But this puts high emphasis on mechanical skill, not making a mistake and dying (which kills your efficiency), but also being able to maximize your "uptime" as well, which means... not only simply not dying, but also killing constantly, effectively, and efficiently. (Which includes lots of things, like mobility for example.) And then, your efficiency is also in looting, as in speed, knowing WHAT to loot, knowing what to vendor quickly, storing things quickly, etc.




A lot goes into this definition of skill for ARPG's. But since a lot of it is unfun skill forms, like looting and vendoring... I can't imagine seeking out maximization of ARPG skill.

Also to note, there's also more specific goals being set. For example: It can be skillful to know when to reroll a map to something that can be done easier/faster/etc. But ALSO, you could say that it's skillful to be able to clear ALL map mods, no matter how it rolls. Both are skillful, and end up requiring a predetermined GOAL beforehand, which you can then express your skill in achieving that goal.


Think of speed running video games, how there's different categories like a full clear speed run, or an anypercent speed run. You have to determine the GOAL first, before being able to analyze the skills in doing so, or else it's an incomputable and incomplete formula.

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AintCare#6513 wrote:

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bassphenomenon#2281 wrote:

Consider: A player who can survive an endgame boss by dodging everything perfectly for 30 minutes but can't kill it because their character has crap damage.

Is this hypothetical player skillful, a complete noob, or something in between?

imo this is skill in arpg. but just because you are skilled doesn't mean you are a good player. obviously skill helps a ton with how good of a player you can be, but you need knowledge and experience to 'git gud'. this gets really funky once you realize that keeping cool during high pressure gameplay (pinnacle bosses) affects your 'skill' quite a bit.

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AintCare#6513 wrote:

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bassphenomenon#2281 wrote:

I disagree that you are actually skilled though if anytime you're feeling pressure you can't perform.

Really? Tilting due to stress/pressure, however induced is pretty well known I think, hell in 1v1 sports its often a tactic to throw off our opponent by playing mind games for that reason. Tyson was well known for that, and I wouldn't say the guys he fought were unskilled. Handling pressure sure is part of the equation but it is completely separate from skill imo.

edit: "anytime"- even with this generalization, which is a little strawman, wouldn't matter because it would just mean the persons stress tolerance is extremely low.

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AintCare#6513 wrote:

hmmm i don't see how performance under pressure is an indicator of ones skill, since its the very end result. unless you mean the stress handling being part of the skill? whihc would be lil odd. the stress handling ability does affect your skill expression as to clarify my initial argument. pressure/stress can be induced by variety of sources very often not related to your actual performance (i.e. large audience), and in the arpg setting it would be related to time/virtual items lost due to failure (form of wager). in 1v1s throwing off you opponent by playing mind games with them can secure your victory even tho the opponent might be stronger/better skilled than you. this is a known phenomenon/strategy.

your criteria/goals do not affect your skill in any way, they can change how much the end result/success is reliant on your skill vs other factors. some extreme examples of such goals:
-deleting end game bosses requires min skill but good planning,
-beating campaign with a white bow and running CI+EB is mostly skill, min planning, if you throw in HC to the last example the longer you play the more stress will be added since you are risking more the more you play, if you further add live audience to the mix, and maybe put your house on the line the stress management will become very important to your success regardless of your skill.

on the subject of trivializing the game- i actually think arpgs are more strategy games than actual RTS games. in arpg you can compensate for lack of skill to the point that you can become very successful/good at the game just by clever planning, where in actual rts games just planning will not carry you that far, even against AI.