How do you define MPQ "skill?"

Bad

Imo in here are being reflected many ways to play the game, many of them highly competitive.
Personally on pve I don't have the disponibility to a commited 3 days of play so I am ok with a perpetual t50.
On pvp I'm not on a competitive alliance and also I don't have the disponibility another time in order to coordinate on Line.
For me pvp is about climb and then hop on shields, because everyone can and will hit me if I spend more than 2 minutes and half in a match.
Commited play through days and years but on a more flexible level.
And even I could relax more if I wanted, nobody can kick me out of my alliance

Sekilicious

@entrailbucket said:
Suggesting "well, it would be easy for you if you just played a totally different game" is not helpful.

I don’t think Hound’s joke is implying ‘high level players’ should play a different game, it’s more about playing the game in front of them. Asking for nerfs is about modifying the game to satisfy their style of play. Many players are not shy about asking for this and they do it for every meta and it happens in every game. I’m sure most games are fine with this as it also drives engagement in their online platforms.

entrailbucket

(I think about MPQ way more than is healthy.)

Thinking about it more, the metaphor that works the best here is a competition like auto racing. In motorsports there are different skill levels among drivers, but unless all drivers have similar equipment, there's no way to objectively evaluate their skill.

An average driver in an F1 car will win the race every time against a highly skilled driver in a van. If both drivers have similar F1 cars, a more skilled driver will win the race more frequently (although not always, because luck is a factor too).

Meanwhile, the argument that one could technically complete the race riding an electric unicycle over the span of a month, while true, is not particularly relevant.

entrailbucket

@Sekilicious said:

@entrailbucket said:
Suggesting "well, it would be easy for you if you just played a totally different game" is not helpful.

I don’t think Hound’s joke is implying ‘high level players’ should play a different game, it’s more about playing the game in front of them. Asking for nerfs is about modifying the game to satisfy their style of play. Many players are not shy about asking for this and they do it for every meta and it happens in every game. I’m sure most games are fine with this as it also drives engagement in their online platforms.

To extend the metaphor, in motorsports there are near-constant debates about what equipment should or should not be allowed in the competition.

Imagine one team attaches a jet engine to their car. Every other team will immediately need to do the same, or they'll stand no chance of winning. Of course the racers would debate about whether jet engines should be allowed in the competition, and some would petition the race organizers to change the rules and ban them.

Someone who says "well, I can complete 200 laps without a rocket attached to my car," while technically true, is just having a completely different argument -- they're not racing.

Bad

Hound's joke is trying to mix lack of skill with a demand for a reaction.
I will always call out for a reaction if a meta becomes absolutely predominant because I'm interested on playing on a balanced game.

ThaRoadWarrior

This game is also kind of interesting for having characters who belong in a totally different mode of play than the two we have - there are some “interesting” or “puzzley play” characters who would probably be great in a game that didn’t overvalue speed the way this one does.

entrailbucket

Right -- to stretch the metaphor within an inch of its life, the race organizers have given us a few rocket-powered race cars, some city buses, a snowmobile, and a tugboat.

ThaRoadWarrior

Really it’s a multi-class race, not unlike the 24hrs of LeMans. You have the prototype class up at the top, the rolling chicane GT class at the bottom, with several stratifications within each. That race allows for a class win as well as an overall win, and sometimes in a blue moon the overall winner will be from a lower class of car.

HoundofShadow

On a non-joking note, skill includes finding the synergies that brings out the best of each character's abilities, regardless of their tier (meta/mid/bottom etc). It's probably akin to helping someone in real life to realise their potentials and being able to see past the superficial level of things. Some people would give up on that individual easily and ignore them, while others are able to discover the 'gold' in them.

Before this can happen, players need certain level of experiences to understand how different categories of abilities work together. Like many other non-MPQ skills, the honing of skills would look like this:

Laying the foundation -> gaining experiences with dealing different subset of problems / being exposed to different types of gameplay -> curiosity -> skill.

In MPQ gameplay, I say the superficial level in general is speed. However, board reading skill is a subset of speed, and it is something that can't be imitated easily. I would say board reading + making the right move when the tides are turned against you are also part of skills. Multiple exposures to different challenging problems could also speed up your skill levels as well.

entrailbucket

@ThaRoadWarrior said:
Really it’s a multi-class race, not unlike the 24hrs of LeMans. You have the prototype class up at the top, the rolling chicane GT class at the bottom, with several stratifications within each. That race allows for a class win as well as an overall win, and sometimes in a blue moon the overall winner will be from a lower class of car.

I think we're just brutally murdering this metaphor now, but this makes a lot of sense to me. It also explains why people have different ideas about what skill means, depending on which "class" they seem to be "racing" in, and their own particular goals.

What makes a player unskilled? Is there such a thing? What do unskilled players do? (I have a suspicion that for many here, one answer will be "they spend money on the game.")

Sekilicious

@entrailbucket said:

@Sekilicious said:

@entrailbucket said:
Suggesting "well, it would be easy for you if you just played a totally different game" is not helpful.

I don’t think Hound’s joke is implying ‘high level players’ should play a different game, it’s more about playing the game in front of them. Asking for nerfs is about modifying the game to satisfy their style of play. Many players are not shy about asking for this and they do it for every meta and it happens in every game. I’m sure most games are fine with this as it also drives engagement in their online platforms.

To extend the metaphor, in motorsports there are near-constant debates about what equipment should or should not be allowed in the competition.

Imagine one team attaches a jet engine to their car. Every other team will immediately need to do the same, or they'll stand no chance of winning. Of course the racers would debate about whether jet engines should be allowed in the competition, and some would petition the race organizers to change the rules and ban them.

Someone who says "well, I can complete 200 laps without a rocket attached to my car," while technically true, is just having a completely different argument -- they're not racing.

You should probably try to organize a race using cars from the 60s, 70s, etc. to the 2020s if you think this is remotely true. Even the drivers have higher skill levels due to the intensity of the targeted training programs, because in the sporting world efficiency is what they use to define skill. The difference between the ‘skilled’ and ‘unskilled’ is minute.

Besides, the main problem people seem to have with Chasm is he slows down the meta, so people can’t easily use their rocket fuelled weekly boosted or hulkoye or Shang-Chi + Valkyrie/Chavez to wipe the competition away. As such, if they use anything besides weekly boosted or Hulkasm they get targeted at high point totals.

Anyways, I won’t hijack this thread further. (Apparently this is a lie).

DAZ0273

Before this can happen, players need certain level of experiences to understand how different categories of abilities work together. Like many other non-MPQ skills, the honing of skills would look like this>

Or they can just ask on Line or check out a thread in Reddit. To use the motor sport analogy - watching videos of a Formula One Driver does not mean you can drive a Formula One car. With MPQ - watching videos of how a player wins a fight gives you a pretty decent chance to copy the strategy. So "skills" involved are up to debate (which is what this thread is I guess).

It doesn't take long for players to find out and copy new synergies. Take the 3* Gambit exploit for instance - that was all over the place almost instantly and the only "skill" needed was you either had the characters and the build or you didn't.

Bowgentle

yeah, it took about 5 seconds for team immortal to propagate through PVP.

Sekilicious

If we all had F1 cars we would all be better F1 drivers, regardless of whether we could us it in the international circuit. Owning a Toyota Prius does not mean you are unskilled, or that you have the required skills to drive a Model T. I’m pretty sure I could draw blank stares from the majority of the community if I mention I am skilled with both a three-in-the-tree and four-on-the-floor transmissions. Mr.F is more skilled at making Wasp work than everyone here. I think we should be careful in equating ‘unskilled’ with ‘I do not value the skills you have’.

DAZ0273

Who said ‘I do not value the skills you have’? If you got that from my post then I never said those words. In the for instance I provided, no skill was required to copy an insta-win team made thanks to a broken exploit apart from having the required characters.

Using a Formula One car for this analogy is a mistake in my opiniom. The G Force pressures alone make it a highly specialised form of sport requiring high levels of fitness, reactions and judgment. Handling a car that can reach over 300 km/h cannot be instantly learned or copied.

Even competent drivers will not be able to instantly adapt to the sheer speed and handling an F1 car requires. It is why F1 drivers are paid such eye watering salaries.

DAZ0273

Of course if you are saying that anybody can drive a Formula One car and go faster than somebody not driving one then I of course agree. However they still might be incapable of winning because somebody else can handle it better then and they crash at the first bend. You could of course drive the Formula One car slower but then what is the point?

I don't agree that just driving the F1 car makes us a better driver. There are some people who no matter what will never be able to master driving one. However if you watch enough videos/read enough threads/get enough advice then you should be capable of copying and using MPQ strategies to improve your gameplay. That is learned behaviour though as opposed to innate skill relevant to an individual.

Certainly some players may have a better developed sense of finding matches than others, possibly that is a natural skill or one obtained through practice/experience. I don't think any sort of practical observation has ever been carried out so we doubtfully have any evidence either way.

ThaRoadWarrior

@DAZ0273 said:

[…]

It doesn't take long for players to find out and copy new synergies. Take the 3* Gambit exploit for instance - that was all over the place almost instantly and the only "skill" needed was you either had the characters and the build or you didn't.

See my point about the “real” game being the ability to shape your roster how you need to. This is a competition between Head Coaches, not Quarterbacks. Or wait, let’s not change sports. It’s a competition between Manufacturers, not Drivers.

Sekilicious

Fortunately that hypothesis can be tested since nearly everyone with the necessary infrastructure can drive cars, and those that can’t either choose not to drive or cannot afford a vehicle. Driving an F1 and driving an F1 300 km/hr an hour around a corner are different things. Frankly, if you were skilled at driving an F1 and there was adequate infrastructure more people would be able to develop the skills to corner, even if society did not place a high value on being able to corner at 250km/hr.

Speaking of skill, it took a lot of skill to place my r5 tinkerer onto Vulture and press fly while Peter and Loki helplessly matched and did stuff. I’m proud of those skills. Peter did manage to match a green countdown which annoyed me to a great extent.

LavaManLee

One item that can throw a monkey wrench into the discussion is $$$$. Take the Year of the Rabbit Vault. With enough actual cash spent (by way of HP), one could get their Okoye to 550. Would that make the player any more/less skillful if Okoye was now 550 instead of, say, 470?

Continuing with the analogy, this is what NASCAR was trying to do with the NextGen car. Level the playing field for teams/drivers and not allow "out spending" to be the difference in winning. Is it working? Too soon to tell as there were other issues (like suppy chain) in 2022.

Either way, spending can influence whether a player is considered "skillful" or not.

DAZ0273

Let's add a further wrinkle - free time available. My free time available to play MPQ is not very much. Therefore if you put me up against another player who has far more free time available and we both have the same access to a newly released character, it should be the case that the other player develops more "skill" at finding synergies with other characters because they have much greater capacity to test. Likewise with @LavaManLee's comment above - if I have the $$$$ to acquire the character and/or build them before the majority of the rest of the player base then presumably that buys me longer to find and develop both optimal ways of playing and synergies before others can. It still isn't a given that I will come out on top though it can't but help.