SKILL NO SKILL SKILLED UNSKILLED. It's going nowhere.

can we agree that the class is called infiltrator and not sniper.

Sorry but I think I have to do this...



Back on topic, Skill is an abstract feeling, depending on people's opinions...

Personnaly, I'd define skill as being able to adapt to each situation to give the more benefits to your team rather than being able to score a 50+ killstreak on an isolated territory with no impact on battle...

But this is just my opinion...

You forgot Shotgun Maxes

It's definitely an abstract that we can at the least agree upon being subjective enough to have a difference of opinion about, yet agree upon its rough outline.

Unfortunately, the meme (not referring to your picture, which is somehow still funny and appropiate) is that "omg sniping is MLG pro skillz anything with autofire or explosions or lockons is no skill REMOVE IT SKILL ONLY" is what all the howler monkeys are going on about right now.

Hi Earthman. I think, in the big scheme of things, the game does require a some skill, just not a great deal. What most players call "skilled" is just experienced. Hence why it's pointless to say "learn to play", you might as well just say "play".

In short, I'm qualifying why I agree with your original post.

That's fine.

Still, saying "this game takes very little skill" presupposes a clear definition but more than that implies strongly some other game out there that, relatively speaking, takes much more "skill".

My knee-jerk question is if "skill" is the number one priority for so many according to their forum posts, why aren't they playing that other game now.

My spidey sense is tingling and telling me the word "chess" will be used very soon.

So, TLDR : Nerf Skill

I remember a suggestion thread about calculating the score of a player based on the "Impact" more than rough K/D or pure killboard scores...

It would probably help showing some of those "skilled" players they are not contributing at all to their team...

Still, the following question :
How do you evaluate impact of a player on the battle ?

In ways that would require the server to run a simulation of its own just to see everything we're doing. Like if a Heavy intentionally goes charging in front of a medic to take bullets for said medic. Intentionally.

Aye. It's horses for courses, I guess.

Motor racing requires a different set of skills to aforementioned tennis. Some do one, some do the other. And even amongst both, you have high stakes and you have low stakes; you have your cart racing and then you have your F1 Grand Prix.

Um, what's my point? I think I'm saying that PS2 is, ultimately, easy.

Back in the days, some people used to say "Skill is when luck becomes a habit".

I didn't claim that America beat the British because of guerilla tactics. All I said was that guerilla tactics were considered not honorable. It's understandable, based on what I said before about David and Goliath, that it would appear I was claiming this was a case of David beating a Goliath, but it's not what I meant. I only was attempting to point out one case of a conventional versus unconventional mindset.

You also inferred that I was defending cheesy tactics, which is fairly reasonable, but I never said that directly. I was just bringing up Malcolm Gladwell because he has some interesting insights on the thinking behind the dominant players in a game towards those that use tactics they don't like.

For the actual record - my own view on the matter - I don't believe there is such a thing as "cheap" or "cheesy" things in games. HOWEVER, I am an advocate of "more skillful" mechanics over "low skill" mechanics.

For example: I was dismayed when I saw how prevalent lock-on weapons would be in PS2. If I had my say, there would be zero lockon weapons in this game. I preferred the Lancer in PS1, and I like flak weapons because they at least require aiming and leading of the target. For me, an ideal AA/AV model would be no lockons, and then have flak type weapons as the "Low skill" option, and some type of laser/machine gun for the "high skill" option.

And I always expect the "high skill" option to have greater potential of effectiveness.

The main reason for this is where I agree with you - "crutch" weapons are boring. They are boring to use, and boring to fight against. I don't have fun locking on to aircraft, and the pilot I lock on to doesn't have fun dealing with my lockon.