What is skill?
" 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. |
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" Mind games are a skill, not a way to subvert them. The more skillful player will be duped less by mind games and apply their own. You used boxing earlier so lets go with that analogy: Imagine a boxer who has excellent performance in the gym and is prodigal sparrer but has a 0/10 win loss ratio in his actual matches. I don't think most people would call that person skillful. I would say he probably has a lot of potential though. If it's not second nature to you (aka you don't know what to do and panic - not knowing what to do is main reason you would panic) then the actions won't materialize. If it is you will likely be UNABLE to NOT perform - It will be effectively automatic. I think we're somewhat talking about different things though because I do agree there is a blurry line if you're talking about stage fright or other psychological/physiological factors such as sickness or lack of sleep. You can for sure be skilled but also have stage fright. If it's your enemies pressure that cracks you though that is absolutely a matter of being outplayed/out-skilled. This is why the goals thing seems important. The skills used to be good at street fighter online are not necessarily the same skills you will need to win EVO (biggest fighting game tournament)... Or maybe it's more appropriate to say you need the additional skills of performing on a huge stage with a huge prize at stake on top of the regular skills of being good at the game. I feel the desire to add at the end here that I find this conversation interesting and do not consider it an argument. |
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In POE1 it's knowledge
In POE2 it's dodge roll spam |
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" psychological manipulation is a skill, hell i met some ppl that made an art form out of it, but its a different skillset not relevant to in-game performance, unless we start talking about the game of life or playing people, one can argue those are also arpgs as well, but lets not get carried away here. One can also manipulate themselves to deal with stress through variety of tactics so sure this skill can indeed help your in-game performance in certain situations if you choose this coping strategy. and psychological manipulation defiantly can be used to subvert your opponent- if i can't convince you of this here you might want to listen to some professional performers in 1v1 sports. where it gets interesting its chess, where making an unexpected move can be indeed be a psychological manipulation that can test both the confidence of the opponent and his experience. it gets even further confusing if you look at recent AI chess games, where the algorithms choose moves that seem like psychological manipulation to a human but in fact the reason behind those moves are strictly logical just very unintuitive even to a whole community of very experienced players because they redefine the patch they take to victory. " winning is the end result, which requires more than just skill/technique. you can be a very skillfull boxer and renown sparring partner but you might not have everything to win tournaments. this is unless we start to dissect what boxing skills are. technically a sparring partner is not a boxer, so this is a different game? with different skillset? but what if there is a private boxing match without a wager? does that change into a very intense sparring session? does the outcome change upon being observed? i might need to take out my QM notes here... " you are just describing lack of experience here. being unfamiliar with the situation its not the only reason you will panic or get stressed, my previous examples outline those cases. " we are talking about the same thing, but we are making circles because the 'game definition' keeps changing here. i can see how even in arpg the 'stress management' skills are also important in winning the game, just by game design so i can lean towards this being part of the 'game skillset' and i alluded to that in my original argument (i said it gets funky if you account for that) however i still think there are key differences between the two and i would not be binning those two together myself " it is a fun subject to discuss and i think I understand why defining your goal can matter here. when comparing different games it is exactly the same as redefining your goals in the same game, because technically you making a different game out of it by self imposed rules. so again different game requires different mix of skill/experience/knowledge/stress management/etc etc. so 'game skill' will change dynamically. but this gets really confusing when trying to answer your original question because each player plays games lil differently, especially something like poe, where its not pvp, and has no elo. to me a 'task skill' is separate from 'stress management skills' and its just a question if we make it both part of the 'game skill', which is the 'funky' part in my very first statement lol edit- going even further one can bin experience and knowledge among variety of other things into the 'game skill' making the OP an ill-posed problem. Last edited by AintCare#6513 on Jan 11, 2025, 4:42:01 PM
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" Yeah this last part is good. Maybe we should just think of 'skill in a thing' as confluence of other, disparate skills into one objective. In terms of mind games I am fairly well versed in competitive psychology, as it's something I studied quite a bit in my fighting game (and other competitive) endeavors. That being said if you have some interesting sources to check out I would likely do so because it's fascinating. For sure in FG's mind games are one of the most important skills to develop. Some games are more technical than others but conditioning etc. is the only way you will 'open up' (ie: actually land a hit/create a combo opportunity) a strong opponent. If both players have mastered the technical aspects the entire match will be decided by mind games. " I'm not sure I see how you could be skilled at something you haven't experienced. If you come into a situation where other skills you have already developed apply then I would say that you do in fact have some experience with the situation - if indirectly. |
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" the argument here was that you can get stressed by factors other than lack of experience |
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