What Genre takes the most "skill"?

[gamer_parent]

Here's the thing though, in ANY competitive game worth a damn, a good player will generally perform better than a lesser player. And if the game has very little randomness, this is should be hold true MOST of the time.

Heck, even games that HAVE a lot of randomness (i.e. poker), you will generally see the same top players come out on top.

But that often speaks about the community than the game itself.

 

[Hateren47]

Whatever genre Trials HD/Trials 2 SE is. Motorcycle platformer. These games take all the skill you have and probably a little more.

Spoiler: For the few people who does not know what I'm talking about. This is not as easy as it looks

 

[Mechsoap]

puzzle games, and survival horrors

 

[RedDeadFred]

I'm gonna go with the realistic racing games like Forza and Gran Turismo. Seriously, on the hardest difficulty it's just ridiculous. You have to be perfect with your timing of corners, braking, when to accelerate and when to pass. Hell, if the race is long enough, you need to strategically plan your pit stops. That's just the basics, then there's the several hundred cars and tracks to master.

Lets just say as far as difficulty and skill, Need For Speed has nothing on these.

 

[EatPieYes]

I'd say a game like Tetris, which is a puzzle game, and that is because I'm pretty sure it still hasn't been beaten.

 

[Dango]

Shoot Em Ups, aka schmups, especially ones like Ikaruga that require tons of memorization and perfect timing. Anyone who disagrees with me on this is just wrong, and I don't say stupidly pretentious things like that very often (I think).

RTSs are definitely not the hardest, I absolutely love them, and thy are simply not the hardest.

 

[Iron Lightning]

Turn-Based Strategy Games, which are basically hyper-advanced versions of chess. I'd say that RTS take less true skill since most depend on who can get units produced the quickest.

 

[Z of the Na'vi]

RTS's take a good amount of skill to master, from my experience. Trying to learn how to effectively play as the Japanese in Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 is very difficult, but I love every second of it.

 

[Reynaerdinjo]

Hardcore FPS games like Quake 3/Live, Painkiller, Warsow seem to require the most skill to me. Counter-Strike comes a close second, and third come the RTS games like Warcraft / Starcraft.

 

[obliviondoll]

I don't think high skill requirement is a trait of any one genre; all of them have produced games that require a lot of skill.

This. I'm not the only one repeating this line, but genre doesn't determine how much skill is needed. The game itself does.


Also, a couple of extra quotes/responses I can't hold back from making

Farmvill.

I shouldn't, but I'm going to ask.... WHY???

the first ninja gaiden. you have to be a ninja to complete that game... completing it makes you a fully qualified ninja.

Being a ninja is about not being recognised while achieving your goal, usually assassination, spying, or theft. If you want a ninja game, play Shinobido: Way of the Ninja. Assassin's Creed teaches you more about being ninja than "Ninja" Gaiden does. Driving through a spray shop to change you car's appearance is more ninja than Gaiden. Or any Metroid or Zelda games, for that matter.

---

Actually, now that I think about it some more... The original Japanese release of Armored Core: Formula Front - it practically counts as a genre in its own right. You custom design a giant robot, then PROGRAM ITS AI. Then it fights how you told it to. If the design isn't good, you're screwed. If the AI setup isn't good AND appropriate for the design, you're still screwed. If you do all that, but don't take your opponent's design into account, YOU'RE STILL SCREWED.

They added manual control to the English language version, but it's optional, and sometimes makes the fight harder instead of easier.

As for strategy, turn-based strategy games usually require more skill than most RTS games. And much as I hate using it as an example (I enjoy it, but I don't claim it's a particularly good game), Endwar's approach to RTS is more skill-based than most. You have a limited pool of reinforcements, and you have a VERY tight unit cap to work with. This means rules out almost every rush or spam tactic in the genre. There's a basic combat triangle where Tanks>APCs>Gunships>Tanks, but then you have two types of Infantry, Artillery, and Command Vehicles to mix things up a little. Unfortunately, a couple of the DLC's faction-specific upgrades allow units to break the combat triangle, which the developers had deliberately avoided at first, and should have stuck with. Also, the multiplayer persistent war was well implemented, but it never got a solid enough player base to take advantage (no real advertising beyond Clancy's name on the box), and the upgrade system and lack of matchmaking finished it off. Also, the interface for creating multiplayer matches outside the main war was truly horrific.

 

[Sebenko]

Actually, now that I think about it some more... The original Japanese release of Armored Core: Formula Front - it practically counts as a genre in its own right. You custom design a giant robot, then PROGRAM ITS AI. Then it fights how you told it to. If the design isn't good, you're screwed. If the AI setup isn't good AND appropriate for the design, you're still screwed. If you do all that, but don't take your opponent's design into account, YOU'RE STILL SCREWED.

They added manual control to the English language version, but it's optional, and sometimes makes the fight harder instead of easier.

Yeah, that game was fun. Seems to me that tracks + grenade launcher is best for 90% of fights, then you just work on it a bit for the big ones.

I played it a second time and completed it with manual control, too.

 

[Stuntcrab]

I would say RPG

Well if you want your best ending your gonna have to be VERY careful

You would have to actually rely on npcs (shit we're screwed) At some points if it has first person shooter parts

 

[Megacherv]

I'd say anything real-time, mostly stuff like fighting games, hack 'n' slash, FPSs, that sort of thing.

 

[TheEndlessSleep]

I think this question has no real answer, as most game genres require a skill of some kind. Whether it be reaction times in FPS or tactical analysis in RTS, some people are just better at certain game types.

 

[mattttherman3]

From what I've heard, Ninja Gaiden 2 on master. The last game I played on its hardest difficulty was Mass Effect 2, that was kind of hard(If your not a soldier class)

 

[Vortigar]

This needs to be split up between competitive games and single player games. And I will amend what has been said before that it largely depends on the game and isn't bound by the genre.

For competitive games:
I think its going to be Real Time Strategy games. They require immense amounts of knowledge on matchups and possibilities and require you to put that knowledge into practice by making decisions in split seconds. And then there's the physical and mental requirement of keeping tabs on twenty things at the same time without losing track of them. There's a reason why not even the Korean pros (those guys who play 80+ hrs of Starcraft per week) are capable of playing a 'perfect' game.

For non-competitive games (ie single player):
This simply depends on how narrow the programmer has made the margin of error for the challenges. Bullet-hell schmups are notorious for not allowing you to deviate more than a few millimeters from certain patterns or die. But you've also got shooters with nigh-impossible difficulty levels, where the ammo given is insufficient to kill all the enemies and opponents will one-shot you, forcing you to find exact patterns in their behaviour to abuse.

In the end I think the second category is a lesser challenge though. Given enough time any challenge like this can be analyzed and beaten. Especially in turn based games which you can attack by noting down what works turn by turn and just keep going at it with no manual skill hurdle to step over at all, just keep iterating to find the best possible combination of moves for the situation at hand.

 

[Proteus214]

It's not really a question of genre, it's a question of how the skill is applied and what metric you are using to measure the skill. I consider most platformers to be fairly easy, yet there are some videos out there of people playing Super Mario Bros. that are seriously impressive.

 

[Queen Michael]

Dunno, but I can tell you what takes the least skill: Mario Kart. A lottery decides what items you get, and what items you get decide if you win. So I'll have to say that the genre that takes the most skill is everything where no random elements are included.