Which FPS Actually Takes Skill?

[Pyro Paul]

Left 4 Dead.

it takes more skill to play the game then simply the slight of hand and fine hand eye coordination it takes to play every other game mentioned in this thread...

 

[Atheist.]

UT3... being able to move in such a fast paced game and calculate rocket/enemy speeds and distances is rather difficult.

 

[BanthaFodder]

I find TF2 to be a good game. you can be a total noob and still be Kredit to teem. but if you REALLY work at it (ie. Demo w/ Loch N' Load) and practice hard, you can become a force to be reckoned with. its like Pokemon, ANYONE can play them, but it takes skill to learn all the nuances and strategy and go from "able to play" to "able to kick total ass"

 

[Drakmorg]

I personally believe that when it comes down to it luck matters more than skill does.
Sure, skill still matters, but there always comes a time when a seasoned pro will lose and get killed by a newcomer that was luckier.

 

[Sennz0r]

Metroid Prime Hunters for the DS. Have you ever tried to get a headshot on a bunnyhopping Samus with the sniper rifle from half across the map with a stylus on standard Wifi connection with your opponent being 2 continents over? Your hands cramp up after about 20 minutes, and I used to play that game for hours on end.

I do miss it though...

CounterStrike does seem pretty hard, but maybe that's because everyone who still plays it has been playing for so long you wouldn't stand a chance if you joined for the first time, so I'm not touching that game.

 

[Stuberfinn88]

Fear Combat, well not "Todays" fear combat..... but what it used to be. It was a MP FPS game with the craziest learning curve ever, its a very simple game to play, but fuck its hard to master. A great player can usually walk circles around average players. Beginners never lasted long because of how efficient the good players were with movements, and they akways get called hackers for how well they played, its unreal. Hell I only play the game once a month for about 2 hours still, and I walk around most of the players that are still playing it..

I remember that. Twas a beauty. The only thing was the kung-fu melee skills were way overpowered, and people would zip around poppin' people in the back of the head for an instikill.

Yeah, it took a special kind of finesse to be able to counter it and thats with 1.2 speed servers, 1.5 yeah nope, crouch punches ruled all.

The only thing that was OP was the crouch punches with the fact that the rate of punches were glitched to the point that UFC fighters would be wishing they could punch that fast, along with how fast a person could run unarmed.

The key to beating it was to never allow them to close the distance by shooting while running backwards, if not then your best chance is to do a Jump Scissor Kick on them as they run at you. But I always thought of Melee instant kills to be a counter to people that stock up on armor and meds, so if you could successfully close the distance to a stocked player, then more power to ya for getting the kill off. The key to winning was to survive long enough to collect armor and meds, and to keep your distance to avoid getting cheap killed by melee.

 

[DirgeNovak]

Fallout 3 without VATS. That game didn't have great shooting mechanics outside of VATS and took a bit of skill to come to terms with the shooting. It was even worse in third person mind.

That's because Fallout 3 is not an FPS. It's a true RPG through and through. Even if you shoot manually, whether you hit your target or not isn't based on your skill as a player, it's based on your character's skill with the weapon.

 

[murphy7801]

none of them really take skill, if you can play one you can play another, but they all take a certain level of practice.

This, pretty much.

All of them take skill to play, and yet none of them do. If you want to talk about 'skill', then you're going to have to talk about realistic shooters, or sniper games, where mastering real world physics is about all you're going to need for skill.

Not that most current-gen FPS games don't have that, it's just there's too many exploits to use. For example: If you have a totally realistic shooter, everyone is going to run around as a sniper and point-blank someone with it since getting shot in the chest, no matter where, from a sniper rifle will most likely tear a hole in your body the size of a silver-dollar coin.

A lot of people can go on about the "skill" it takes to play any given FPS, but in the end, they're just bullshitting themselves. The only thing it takes is practice, learning the quirks of the game, and exploiting the ones that work the best for you and your chosen class/loadout. That's all the "skill" that it takes. Battlefield Bad Company 2 can be used as an example. Carl Gustav & 40mm Grenade point-blanking, the AN-94 Abakan, and so on and so forth.

Well if factor practice as a standard arch which is predictable FPS fall into 3 categories: Out react you opponent which people who can react the fastest with whats on screen to head shots and efficient map movement.
Luck as in games with alot auto fire spray and pray lot explosives which are chaotic in nature.
Out think opponents/Team which through tactics and team work and prediction on opponents reactions cause you two win.

 

[Tomany2]

Guhhh

'ALL NEW GAMES IZ FAIL! Only old games with hardcore followings, who refuse to stop playing it because they put 5 solid years of their life into it are worthy of my presence.'

There. I just some summed up the entire thread.

haha nice nice, although, i didnt say i dont enjoy COD and BC, they are just... easier haha

I know. But these threads always annoy me. It's full of people who love game X slandering anyone who dared to pick up game Y, because since they don't like game Y it's obviously inferior. Then you have the game Z fans who come in and start saying 'none of you are hardcore. We only play games that are 32 bit.'

No multiplayer game takes anymore skill than another. Just a different style of play and perhaps level of practice.

agreed, but hey, what can you do? as long as this topic put a flame under our escapee bottoms to make an interesting conversation.

 

[murphy7801]

Guhhh

'ALL NEW GAMES IZ FAIL! Only old games with hardcore followings, who refuse to stop playing it because they put 5 solid years of their life into it are worthy of my presence.'

There. I just some summed up the entire thread.

haha nice nice, although, i didnt say i dont enjoy COD and BC, they are just... easier haha

I know. But these threads always annoy me. It's full of people who love game X slandering anyone who dared to pick up game Y, because since they don't like game Y it's obviously inferior. Then you have the game Z fans who come in and start saying 'none of you are hardcore. We only play games that are 32 bit.'

No multiplayer game takes anymore skill than another. Just a different style of play and perhaps level of practice.

And that is sheer ignorance. Having played so many FPS' I know that is flat out wrong.
Shattered Horizon takes a lot more skill than CoD. Why? Because of the entire game mechanics - zero g, conservation of momentum, 720 kill field, not your normal 540.
You also have to factor in how much of your kill count is due to skill rather than a) luck and b) imbalance in the game. Let's compare Medal of Honour to MW2. In Medal of Honour being level 15 doesn't mean you have a massive advantage over the opponent, in fact the advantage is almost minimal (one extra grenade). All the added extras (silencers etc) are simple tweaks and frankly you can get very, very far with the basics. Then on top of that the ranking is so quick that there is seems to never be a massive level difference between you and the opponent - skill rating is a far better indicator than rank.
However with CoD the game isn't about skill. Due to the spawn points being random it turns into cat & mouse. As you can't guard your front & back simultaneously, no matter how good you are, you can still be shot in the back as there is no defined front line, making it a matter of spawning in the right place rather than skill. Then on top of that a Lvl 70 has a huge advantage over a level 20, let alone a level 1 player thanks to add ons such as heart beat sensors etc, making it a game that rewards grinding with better guns, whereas MoH rewards better performance with a higher skill rating.

I always hated how games like MW2 reward grind to get better weapons shouldn't be inverse that better players get worse stuff to make them work harder. Though like it on killing floor because team game against AI hordes feels like you earn something with help from your friends.

 

[jmerridew124]

Team Fortress 2. If you're worth anything you'll pick a class that requires skill; i.e. anything besides the pyro or the engineer. Also if you're a sniper don't use the fucking razorback. If you're one of the two instakill characters in the game then your weakness shouldn't get nerfed.

Engineers can be skilled (most aren't) but a good engineer has a good location to which his buuldings are useful, hard to hit, hard for spys to get to. And he himself has some skill in spy whacking.

It's glorified camping with an incredibly overpowered autoaim bot and a little free health station, but he also has the weapons of a Scout.

There IS NO SKILL to the Engie.

 

[Bribase]

The S.T.A.L.K.E.R series was very tough to get through. The AI was pretty well written and the earliest weapons really lacked accuracy, not in an annoying way though. It really added to the immersion.

 

[murphy7801]

I think it's less to do with individual skill and more to do with the size and skill of the community.

Call of Duty is played by a lot (understatement I know) of people and they're all varying in skill. Chances are that I ( bear in mind I'm a complete FPS newb) could easily slip in to Call of Duty because chances are there will be a lot of other players in my position of starting at the bottom wanting to get better.

My only experience with CounterStrike was one I did not enjoyed. Either I really am that bad or a majority of players have been playing for a while and the number of skilled players outnumber the newbs.

I've found that neither can be played the same way. But I think it's less to do with skill and more about the accessibility of the game.

Its a hard game to get into. Made moreso by the fact that the community is harsh and unforgiving (if your not in a guild willing to give you a shot in the game i would recommend most people not play it, the elitism in that game is rampant). Given its age the community which has stuck it out knows the game far better than any1 joining now ever could.

That game almost stopped me from bothering to get into PC gaming, fortunately there were other games to rely on which pulled me in.

Actually there some nice people in the Pc community just join clan that likes to play friendly.

 

[MaVeN1337]

Unreal Tournament (Any of them)
CS:S
Killing Floor (on the hardest difficulty)

I'd say... those.

 

[mikev7.0]

Hexen.

lol 1 or 2?

It had to have been 1 since it was just called "Hexen" or maybe "Hexen 64", since naming anything for the 64 was eponymous by law, but it was everything I ever wanted doom to be and in my opinion it took real skill.

Want something more modern? Fine. Wolfenstein.

*flees* (even though I'm serious.)

 

[murphy7801]

Guhhh

'ALL NEW GAMES IZ FAIL! Only old games with hardcore followings, who refuse to stop playing it because they put 5 solid years of their life into it are worthy of my presence.'

There. I just some summed up the entire thread.

haha nice nice, although, i didnt say i dont enjoy COD and BC, they are just... easier haha

I know. But these threads always annoy me. It's full of people who love game X slandering anyone who dared to pick up game Y, because since they don't like game Y it's obviously inferior. Then you have the game Z fans who come in and start saying 'none of you are hardcore. We only play games that are 32 bit.'

No multiplayer game takes anymore skill than another. Just a different style of play and perhaps level of practice.

And that is sheer ignorance. Having played so many FPS' I know that is flat out wrong.
Shattered Horizon takes a lot more skill than CoD. Why? Because of the entire game mechanics - zero g, conservation of momentum, 720 kill field, not your normal 540.
You also have to factor in how much of your kill count is due to skill rather than a) luck and b) imbalance in the game. Let's compare Medal of Honour to MW2. In Medal of Honour being level 15 doesn't mean you have a massive advantage over the opponent, in fact the advantage is almost minimal (one extra grenade). All the added extras (silencers etc) are simple tweaks and frankly you can get very, very far with the basics. Then on top of that the ranking is so quick that there is seems to never be a massive level difference between you and the opponent - skill rating is a far better indicator than rank.
However with CoD the game isn't about skill. Due to the spawn points being random it turns into cat & mouse. As you can't guard your front & back simultaneously, no matter how good you are, you can still be shot in the back as there is no defined front line, making it a matter of spawning in the right place rather than skill. Then on top of that a Lvl 70 has a huge advantage over a level 20, let alone a level 1 player thanks to add ons such as heart beat sensors etc, making it a game that rewards grinding with better guns, whereas MoH rewards better performance with a higher skill rating.

You again? I severely dislike any conversation that you get involved with. There's always an aftermath of mod wrath. Always.

I'm not going to get in it with you. You're just a contrary for contraries sake, sort of person. So no matter what I say you're going to have some beef with it.

All I will say is the luck factor of CoD is part of what counts to a persons skill on it. It's part of the playstyle you need to learn to be good at the game. You need to know where an enemy is likely to spawn by looking at peoples placement on the map and where is the best place to situate yourself when you've decided. And you can be just as effective as a level 70 when you start the game. It's all about getting the best out of what you've got.

I'm not saying some games don't have major flaws, or that some multiplayers aren't unbalanced. Learning those balance flaws and accommodating for them is just as much of a skill as learning the best place to camp the fuck out of for the entire game in SOCOM.

"All I will say is the luck factor of CoD is part of what counts to a persons skill on it. It's part of the playstyle you need to learn to be good at the game. You need to know where an enemy is likely to spawn by looking at peoples placement on the map and where is the best place to situate yourself when you've decided. And you can be just as effective as a level 70 when you start the game. It's all about getting the best out of what you've got."

But by this logic you proved it requires alot less skill I will explain why.
The game has alot more luck therefore its more chaotic in nature meaning to hard to work at eventualities whilst playing. Which eliminates the ability to team out manoeuvre also not help by spawning around the place. The way game works in, it works better then if chaotic to spray and pray because may just kill stuff by accident with out skill like a precise head shot. It has auto aim in game therefore again counter to skill because the computer doing the work for you. The spawn points though you can predict to some degree where you can go at the end of day since the levels are pretty direction less and just big loop to lean towards random which re-enforces chaotic/luck based nature of the game.

Now weapon upgrades detract from natural talent. Because some people will have just better weapons as in higher fire rates better patten spread which means you can use these weapons more effectively. But to get them you have grind at the game which counter nature talent. Which some people are just better than others but mixed ability part of the human race which COD works against which very left wing of it?!.

 

[zz_]

Fuckin' Quake Live. Fast paced shooter hell yes.

 

[murphy7801]

I think it's less to do with individual skill and more to do with the size and skill of the community.

Call of Duty is played by a lot (understatement I know) of people and they're all varying in skill. Chances are that I ( bear in mind I'm a complete FPS newb) could easily slip in to Call of Duty because chances are there will be a lot of other players in my position of starting at the bottom wanting to get better.

My only experience with CounterStrike was one I did not enjoyed. Either I really am that bad or a majority of players have been playing for a while and the number of skilled players outnumber the newbs.

I've found that neither can be played the same way. But I think it's less to do with skill and more about the accessibility of the game.

Its a hard game to get into. Made moreso by the fact that the community is harsh and unforgiving (if your not in a guild willing to give you a shot in the game i would recommend most people not play it, the elitism in that game is rampant). Given its age the community which has stuck it out knows the game far better than any1 joining now ever could.

That game almost stopped me from bothering to get into PC gaming, fortunately there were other games to rely on which pulled me in.

Actually there some nice people in the Pc community just join clan that likes to play friendly.

Im just stating from my personal experiences with the game. And those of a colleague who played competitively for a while. I won't say all of it is like this, but it's far more widespread than it ought to be. And i wouldn't recommend it to anyone who wasn't already highly skilled at other shooters due to the skill disparity and the unwelcome attitude to most newcomers (mind you i would only recommend one community to newcomers, thats tf2).

Yer I would say that its moving more away from that on the euro servers which I play on and tell just by server names not what to join and what to join.

 

[dalek sec]

This is a dumb question but is "Borderlands" a tough FPS or a easy one? I'm just wondering about that game and the new "Bulletstorm" one that's coming out soon.

 

[murphy7801]

This is a dumb question but is "Borderlands" a tough FPS or a easy one? I'm just wondering about that game and the new "Bulletstorm" one that's coming out soon.

Borderlands I found quite easy but not a competitive game more a CO-OP. This Thread more about Online Team death match or single player Death match.