Videogame Playing Skill

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Crawl and 1OOO	Videogame Playing Skill	Lead	[-]
Posts: 15691 (11/30/09 10:16 AM) Administrator Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Tags : None What do you think? Videogames are... (Result) ...like riding a bicycle. ...use it or lose it.
Facilitypro		#1	[-]
Posts: 2495 (11/30/09 1:41 PM) Slow Daddy Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Hmm...not really sure it's either. There's a limit to individual differences in spatial ability. So, no matter how hard or long you practice, you're only going to score so high in, say, Ikaruga. Some will be able to reach the asymptote set by the stage limits, some never will get close. 85% of video games are above the median in quality.
MaskedSheik		#2	[-]
Posts: 907 (11/30/09 3:11 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I keep most of my videogame muscles. If I return to, say, Super Mario Kart after a hiatus, I can't beat my old records but I still play more like a reasonably experienced karter than a beginner.
Strawberry Eggs		#3	[-]
Posts: 55 (11/30/09 3:11 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	In my case, it is definitely, "use it or lose it." I used to be primarily a player of platformers. Then sometime after discovering Phantasy Star Online, I began to play more and more RPGs. I became use to the generally easier difficulty and being able to overcome challenging bosses and areas merely by gaining higher levels. My attempts at platfromer except for ones I've played in the past have proven disasterous. And even when playing thoes older games, I'm notciable slower and more prone to dying than I would have before. My sister is a good example of "like riding a bicycle," when it comes to fighting games, anyway. Even after a hiatus she still kicks tail in Smash Bros. Melee/Brawl and Soul Caliber II. "You ate the wall?? Are you insane?"-Trill, Baten Kaitos Last Edited By: Strawberry Eggs 11/30/09 7:34 PM. Edited 2 times.
btizubayer		#4	[-]
Posts: 326 (12/01/09 7:38 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I'd fit into the "like riding a bicycle" slot. If it came down to winning a race, I would rely on my training.
Flying Omelette		#5	[-]
Posts: 21029 (12/01/09 11:00 AM) But you had to have the BIIIIIG salad! Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I think it depends on the game. Some games I can get really out-of-practice with, but other games I can go right back to even after not having played anything for a long time and beat them right away. I remember how out-of-practice I was with Star Fox Path 3 about a year ago. I still beat Paths 1 and 2 rather easily even after not having played it for several years. But Path 3 took me longer to beat. I finally did, although my performance wasn't so great. I used to be able to beat Path 3 without losing a life and I don't think I accomplished that the last time. I was telling Crawl earlier that playing Evil Zone was hurting my thumbs, but that was more because I broke both thumbnails off while doing all the housekeeping and yardwork than it was from just not having played any games in awhile. (Besides, it wasn't that long ago that I played through Level 6 of Equinox.) www.flyingomelette.com
Bomberguy221		#6	[-]
Posts: 2228 (12/01/09 9:40 PM) Hit and away is my style! Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	MaskedSheik wrote: I keep most of my videogame muscles. If I return to, say, Super Mario Kart after a hiatus, I can't beat my old records but I still play more like a reasonably experienced karter than a beginner. This. I played Mario Kart 64, a game I've had a great deal of practice at, with some other people after at least 3 years of not playing it, and I did significantly better than the other players. I had to practice to get my power slides up again, but I still intuitively knew the behavior of every item. It's that way with all games: I need to practice a little to get up to scratch, but I fall back into the rhythm of things easily.
Crawl and 1OOO		#7	[-]
Posts: 15691 (12/01/09 10:42 PM) Administrator Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Facilitypro wrote: Hmm...not really sure it's either. There's a limit to individual differences in spatial ability. So, no matter how hard or long you practice, you're only going to score so high in, say, Ikaruga. Some will be able to reach the asymptote set by the stage limits, some never will get close. As a psychologist, how could you possibly prove this? Say you had an experiment where a group of people played Ikaruga 8 hours a day for three months. Well, first, that would be impossible, because no subjects would be able to dedicate that much time to such an experiment. Even so, you still haven't controlled for previous videogame experience up to that point. Or what approaches the different players take. Which is what I suspect dominates. Of course, people don't talk much about that, because it's how they maintain a competitive edge. I don't think there has been ANY scientific evidence of definite inborn skill differences, for ANY skill. Granted, different people obviously perform with different skill levels at different tasks, but proving that those resulting skill levels are due to some inherent individiual difference has heretofore been impossible. An example I always think of is a Winter Olympics show I watched several years ago. They contrasted the skiing technique of the '70's -- the skiiers went through the gates standing straight up, nicely going between them -- with the current technique -- crashing through the gates, with the knees deeply bent. No skiier in the '70's could approach the times that were currently being set, no matter how much they trained, but it's not like they had reached their limits as individuals and were just genetically inferior to later athletes. They were just reaching the limit of that training technique. Anyway, other people were answering the question as I had thought I asked it. Assume you somehow reach skill level X for some videogame. It doesn't matter what that skill level is. If you want to talk about Ikaruga, maybe you don't have score Y that some people have, but at least you have score X. Is that skill level maintained? "Of the three ways in which men think that they acquire a knowledge of things--authority, reasoning, and experience--only the last is effective and able to bring peace to the intellect." -Roger Bacon
bjstrykes		#8	[-]
Posts: 1097 (12/03/09 8:09 AM) Pinpoint Accuracy Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Definitely use it or lose it for me. I can go back and immediately finish any old game that became really easy for me (or was easy for me to begin with), but if I get out of practice with a hard game it'll take me a long time to finish it again, and I've also developed an aversion to playing games I've never played before because of this. There was a time when I made up for that by mostly playing RPGs that require no skill, but they eat up too much of my time these days.
Facilitypro		#9	[-]
Posts: 2495 (12/03/09 6:44 PM) Slow Daddy Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Well, saying it's impossible to prove (a better term is "display", since we never really say we "prove" anything in psychology, hence the term soft science) there are individual differences in innate abilities is like saying it's impossible to prove there are individual differences in, say, strength or personality. Yeah, technique will matter, of course. But your technique is limited by your ability. "They were just reaching the limit of that training technique." True, but assuming two skiers who had both mastered the technique perfectly, the one with better physical ability will win. See Fosbury Flop, etc etc. I still can't really say whether a skill you've built up in gaming is retained. If you play a game to the point where your scores are hitting an asymptote, then put it away for a year, and then come back to it, no, you won't perform as well the first time you pop in the game. But, you'll return to the asymptote much quickly the second time. Same thing with a bike. If you don't ride a bike for a year, it might feel a little weird to get back on it, but it's not like you're going to biff it either, and have to learn completely over. So would that count as a "yes" or "no" on skill retention. I guess since you're not going to fall over, I guess that means "yes" I wonder how long it would take me to crack into the high score list on my Mars Matrix save? 85% of video games are above the median in quality.
abaxa		#10	[-]
Posts: 50 (12/04/09 4:22 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I'm more of the bike rider myself. I find that changing expectations with game mechanics (jump height, response time, etc.) do more to throw me off then anything else. ------------------ "Nevertheless, a rule is a rule. We can't go about making exceptions to these rules just because they're stupid. We can't even use a case-by-case basis to see if the intent of the (stupid) rule doesn't apply to this particular book. No, no, a thousand times no! We must have iron-clad, meaningless rules, and we must follow them to the letter!!! Otherwise, anarchy will result." --Dadof3, Snopes messageboard --Well of course anarchy will result! Duh, that's what the dancing chickens are for. My YouTube page.
Crawl and 1OOO		#11	[-]
Posts: 15691 (12/04/09 9:28 AM) Administrator Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	"They were just reaching the limit of that training technique." True, but assuming two skiers who had both mastered the technique perfectly, the one with better physical ability will win. One will win, but it will be close. The winner might be determined by a hundredth of a second. Ties are possible. So precise is this sport that two-tenths of a second is a career. A lot of sports seemed designed to split very small differences. A specific thing that makes me skeptical that videogame skill has a, say, bimodal distribution is that games have to be made. The people who made Ikaruga had to know what a player was capable of with it. They had to play test it. And while the people at Treasure had programming and game design experience, I don't know why there should be an assumption that they have a specially gifted level of "spatial ability". Do Treasure applicants have to get a certain high score on Dodonpachi during the interview process? It seems to me that knowing what the designers know would be the biggest advantage.
MaskedSheik		#12	[-]
Posts: 907 (12/04/09 2:40 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I disagree on that last point. Well, on a small scale the designer might know best--the quirks of character movement and such. But as for optimizing whole levels, the designer's work putting them together can't match a whole fan-base's experience taking them apart. Gamers will think of ways through levels the designers never dreamed of. That's the principle behind glitches, oversights, and imbalances. But your main point that technique matters more than "skill" is correct. I, today, could probably beat the world's best Super Smash Bros. Melee player in 2003 just because strategies have advanced so far. Even somebody who only follows tournament Melee very loosely can pick up a lot of pertinent knowledge. So experience is what differentiates me and anyone else. Of course, in sports that split small differences, intrinsic skill plays an important role at the top, and that's where the question of "does intrinsic skill matter more than experience" becomes relevant. At the top, it's hard to differentiate yourself just on knowing a little bit more than your opponent unless you break new ground. Last Edited By: MaskedSheik 12/04/09 2:56 PM. Edited 2 times.
ACC KAIN		#13	[-]
Posts: 943 (12/04/09 3:38 PM) Band on the Run Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	It would be easier for me to determine if I've lost any video game playing skills during times when I didn't play much if I had any skills to begin with. Although I did beat Battletoads if that counts for anything. Not sure I could pull it off again, though, and I used a warp to skip two stages. "No one can withstand the power of KAIN"
Crawl and 1OOO		#14	[-]
Posts: 15691 (12/04/09 7:52 PM) Administrator Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	MaskedSheik wrote: I disagree on that last point. Well, on a small scale the designer might know best--the quirks of character movement and such. But as for optimizing whole levels, the designer's work putting them together can't match a whole fan-base's experience taking them apart. Gamers will think of ways through levels the designers never dreamed of. That's the principle behind glitches, oversights, and imbalances. An example that comes to mind of that is that, due to a glitch, it's supposedly possible to beat the first stage of Perfect Dark in 6 seconds. But at that point, I have to wonder what that proves. It's completely removed from any way the game could have been intended to play. It just seems that the time trial for that stage is broken. It's like realizing you can "finish" a book by just reading the last page.
MaskedSheik		#15	[-]
Posts: 907 (12/05/09 8:35 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	True, but you needn't break a game to play beyond the designer's imagination. His job isn't to understand every way you could worm through the game, or even just the best ways. He just has to make a game that works (and, one hopes, is thrilling, edifying, "fun") any reasonable way you play it. So often imbalances and strategies fall through the cracks. I doubt Game Freak wanted me to raise just two Pokémon and go into battle stocked to the brim with curatives; all the NPCs and press suggest they wanted you to raise a team of six Pokémon of different types. But my way works so much easier. The designer's knowledge is powerful but, as your old sig suggests, experience gives me a richer understanding of how the game actually works.
Crawl and 1OOO		#16	[-]
Posts: 15691 (12/05/09 11:29 PM) Administrator Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Maybe. I gotta wonder about how much Nintendo knows about that stuff, though. Like for the NES World Champion Cart. It was common knowledge that you wanted to get to Tetris and rack up a high score there, but it was Howard Philips who figured you could get a high score by playing as little of Tetris as possible and actually racking up a high score on Super Mario Bros. I think the cheats in Goldeneye are an example of the designers thinking a step beyond the obvious way of playing their own game.
James FP		#17	[-]
Posts: 3189 (12/15/09 5:09 PM) Schmendrick's Nose Moderator Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I'm in the same boat with Sheik and Bomber - If I don't play a game for awhile, I'll go back to it and won't be able to do as well as I used to (the aforementioned Star Fox and Super Mario Kart are good examples of that), but I'll still do better than someone who has never played them before or even never beaten them before. One time I got out of practice with Star Fox and stumbled through the first difficulty, losing a lot of energy, getting hardly any 100% scores, and breaking both wings off the Arwing, and I still beat it without losing a life. People who have never played it before usually don't get past the Core boss of the Armada without losing a life. Get out of my cheese, get into my corn!

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