What is the difference between a "skilled" player and an "average" player?

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Rizzin, Oct 18, 2018.

  1. Rizzin Elder

    As a bit of background, I've been playing an Enchanter since 1999, a Necro since 2000. Of course I've played pretty much everything else since then, but always return to these two as my mains. I'm not a raider, though I have been in family guilds the entire time; I have raided, mostly Fear and Hate back in the days of Epic 1.0, which I found tedious, so I've not experienced most of the raid content since 2000.

    There have been some recent, fascinating threads (to me) on classes, raid make up and player skill. I noticed that player skill was mentioned more than once and it got me to wondering, what the Guild Leaders see that is different between a good and average player.

    I am always interested in how to be a better player, so I ask those that see lots of different people playing, what makes a good player better than an average player, such that you would be interested in adding them to your guild regardless of recruitment openings?
    snailish likes this.
  2. Horyuken Augur

    My two cents.

    I started playing online games seriously with Age of Empires.

    I watched hours of recorded games to get batter and noticed two reoccurring themes. Knowing how the software would react, and actions per minute.

    These pretty much what hold true with all games, watch the Overwatch league on Espn or Disney and those guys never stop moving or clicking, they know every hole in the geometry and how each weapon will react.

    Everquest is the same way, the high DPS guilds who dominate the game simply push more buttons and use more of games small bonus to their advantage. Gina has a great tool that will compare casts between any numbers of players, if someone of the same class has 100 more casts per fight then you they will always have a better parse, it's just simple math.

    Anytime we raid, or I play AoE, my goal is to never stop clicking or making movements till the battle is over.
    Gyurika Godofwar likes this.
  3. Jumbur Improved Familiar

    That attitude right there: Curiosity about class abilities/game mechanics and the ambition to improve, is in my experience, the difference between an average player and a skilled one. :)
    Tierwyn, snailish, Metanis and 3 others like this.
  4. BadPallyGuildLeader Augur

    Or the bleeding retardation of game add-ons that WoW brought to us? All that new infoz makes it possible to determine who is l33t and who isn't? :D /sarcasm off
  5. Thrillho Augur

    Not a guild leader, but have reviewed and recruited apps before.

    Willingness and ability to learn are very high on my list when evaluating. The devs throw so much at us each season with new raids, new gear, new abilities, and changes via patches. If you're not willing to learn the new things, you're useless to me. This is the same in real life when I've had to evaluate resumes.

    Understanding of the game is another important one for me. Following directions is fine ("run over here when that emote goes off"), but if you don't know why you need to run you're not going to be able to adapt to a change. "Oh crap, that mob I need to train over here is going to wipe out the players over there. What do I need to do to avoid that? Oh, I'll run to another spot that will be just as good since we don't need to be there until phase 3."

    Another indicator I've used is the Heroic AA count. Are they maxed out? Or do they have just a few done? Each level is a small increase, but if you get enough of them it makes a larger impact on your character overall (see: understanding the game). However, I've run plenty of people through tasks / missions to get these for them, so having them maxed out does not mean the player is skilled, but not having them is indicating they might not be skilled.

    Gear is another indicator. The non-current gear, or the stuff that takes a while to grind - artisans prize, shawl, tear, crestras earring all take a good portion of time to do. But as above with the heroic AAs, not having them says more than having them. Raid gear doesn't mean a thing - it means 53 other people helped you get it.

    Lastly, if someone enjoys their class. I've known people who will switch classes to one that is being recruited, or a flavour of the month, just to get into a guild. You're not going to perform nearly as well playing a class you're indifferent about than one you're passionate about.
    Atvar likes this.
  6. Conq Augur

    Willingness to listen/learn/teach depending on the circumstance. Unwilling to do any of those? Not just unskilled but below average - more of a mouth breather - point them to WoW, kk, thx.
    Beyond that, activity is key. If you're not always doing something...I'll replace you with one of my boxes.
    Conq
  7. svann Augur

    A skilled player doesnt need to watch the parse while the event is ongoing.
  8. Waring_McMarrin Augur


    It should be stated that it is using the correct abilities/spells at the correct time is what is really important. Someone might get more casts off in a fight but if they not using the correct spells and properly timing to line up with burns and other abillites it might not matter. For example a caster continuing to nuke an hp locked boss will show up as having more casts but will not impact the dps at all.
  9. p2aa Augur

    In a raid, skilled players of a class versus average players of the same class will depend of the type of class
    For DPS classes, those that constantly parse higher than the others, and look to coordinate well their abilities to ADPS classes
    For ADPS classes, those that constantly time well their ability with those of DPS classes, but also are capable to DPS parse well.
    For healers classes, for tank group healers those that constantly parse better than others on tanks heal parse they are supposed to heal and also cast more than others, for DPS group healers those who can keep their whole group alive better, also various utility stuff like growths on tanks, or AE heal utility on raid.
    For tank classes, those that survive better (average hit from parse is one of the indication or healers having an idea too also if a tank is easier to heal than another one), aggro better, and have a fast reaction to grab mobs they are assigned to.

    Also, something that will be common to every class is a player that fails less than the other to react on emotes stuff.
  10. Cicelee Augur

    If you are a high elf magician, you are skilled. If you are a gnome magician, you are unskilled.

    On a more serious note, understanding game mechanics and situations, and being able to react immediately to them, is what separates skilled from unskilled.
    Thraine and Axel like this.
  11. Maedhros High King

    effort and results.
  12. IblisTheMage Augur


    If your magician is blue
    you know his awesomeness is true
    once you go Neriak
    you don´t go back
    pet, attack!
  13. kizant Augur

    If someone has all their heroic AAs, max artisans prize, always has tribute running, and does all the achievements and collections. Then they're probably bad players trying to compensate by wasting time on the useless stuff.
  14. menown Augur

    = (
    Beimeith and kizant like this.
  15. strongbus Augur


    na those are the players who have done everything else. atm the only aa I can buy besides the glyph's are the general tab ones that do nothing for my toon in way of living longer on raids or dps. its all ts aa and the end ones that make no different to a caster.

    once you get there and have all raid gear all that is left is to finish out the achievement window and level alts.
  16. moogs Augur

    Having a ton of ridiculous time sink quest items completed is not an indicator of skill. It's an indicator of time commitment. Having a lot of achievements usually means that they have benefited from a strong support network.

    Being able to anticipate, then quickly react to a developing situation, and analyze and adjust tactics after something does not go perfectly is way, way, way more important and a far better indicator of skill than mindlessly casting as many spells as possible.
  17. mmats Augur

    using more than 2 spell gems = skilled

    less than 5000 posts on forums = average
  18. Sancus Augur

    I think you have to further delineate between "good" and "exceptional" players.

    There are a lot of good players in the top 5 or 10 guilds. These are people who listen to instructions well. They have a basic understanding of how different things work mechanically in EQ. They accurately understand, in broad strokes, what their abilities do. They cast abilities/spells frequently, and the abilities/spells they use are "pretty close" to optimal. They generally want to contribute, learn, perform well, etc. They often ask for advice (e.g. "Is x true?" or "Is x or y better?"). They may casually test different spells or abilities (run a 10 minute parse on x vs y).

    Exceptional players are far less common, and EQ could really use more of them. I'm going to list some characteristics, although not every exceptional player fits all of these and not everyone who fits these is an exceptional player. Probably the biggest one in my mind is that they don't accept someone telling them "Use X" or "X is better than Y" or whatever. They need to know why X is better than Y, and they find as much evidence as possible to determine the accuracy of those claims. That isn't to say they never listen to advice or the opinions of others, they just make sure to verify the validity of those opinions. The result of this is they know exactly why they're doing what they're doing. They are intimately familiar with how their abilities work, how they interact with other abilities, etc.

    They have a high volume of casts, and often use similar spells to the "good" players. Their casts are also of a higher quality, though. The best way to explain that is an exceptional player will, on average, get more damage out of the same cast because they used it in a certain way or in conjunction with another ability. That same thought can be applied to healing or tanking - they can use the same ability but to a greater effect. It's also possible (and probable) that they have additional casts or do additional things that cumulatively amount to a gap in performance. Good players will probably be averse to those additional things because they don't add that much (e.g. caster melee) or because they're too difficult to implement. Exceptional players definitely analyze the risk/effort vs reward of things (you can be an exceptional caster and not melee), but at the very least they are acutely aware of the exact reward derived from those actions (instead of saying "casters meleeing doesn't do much").

    Exceptional players generally try to continue to improve, learn new things, come up with new ideas, etc. They don't want to just perform well, they want to perform as well as they possibly can. That means spending hours parsing things and learning about intricate mechanics. It also means communicating with developers and spending time gathering data about new abilities in beta. It means researching the capabilities of other classes and understanding those capabilities in the context of your own. Overall there is a general aversion to just being "good enough" or waiting for someone else to figure something out.

    Situational play is derived from all of the above. EQ is not a game that requires great reaction times. It isn't an FPS; I'm awful at FPS games. However, by understanding the intimate details and interactions involved in playing your class, as well as thinking about and planning for different potential scenarios, an exceptional player can make a better decision in the moment than a good player. EQ has some element of unpredictability, which means that perfectly crafted rotation you read online isn't going to be 100% applicable in some instances. Exceptional players consistently make better decisions because they understand why they're doing what they're doing. If that reasoning isn't applicable to their current situation, they can change what they're doing because they understand their abilities.

    The only way a person's character contributes to this IMO is in the areas in which they made choices. If you chose one belt over another, assuming you had access to both, you should probably have a thoughtful answer to that if your goal is to be exceptional. A good player might have parsed it for a few minutes and concluded something partially inaccurate or just read that they were both about the same. Exceptional players can make different choices and come to different conclusions, but there should be an intelligent conversation about why those choices were made.

    That was super long, but yeah...
  19. Gnomereaper Augur

    The ability to wield the Sword of Omens and unite all the Vah Shir.
  20. Captain Video Augur

    Skilled players are those who know enough about the game to have won one or more of the EQ Trivia contests (which can be brutal).

    Skilled players are playing toons rolled from scratch on the Test server, in order to, you know, test things.

    Skilled players don't look for a group, they offer to group.

    Skilled players are those who read the patch notes and know what to expect will happen before any of the average players do.