Which FPS Actually Takes Skill?

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Omikron009

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Team Fortress 2 requires tactics and planning as much as it requires gun skill. I like to think that Halo requires skill as well, because of how much of a difference teamwork can make and how necessary the ability to track an erratically moving target is. In games like Call of Duty you can snap to a target and kill him in seconds, but Halo games, especially Reach, require careful shot placement and timing in order to reliably kill enemies.
 

anian

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Sep 10, 2008
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Well "skill" is not really clearly defined here. CS requires reflexes, but is that skill or tactics? I don't think it can really be "skill" if a slight framerate hiccup can kill you.

In TF2 you do benefit from tactics, as much as you can from that kind of gameplay. Rainbow6 and stuff like STALKER, are just annoying for me, overcomplicating and just making the game harder by having your equipment being unreliable (from aiming to jamming) is just unfair handicap to some extent, it goes to skillfully avoiding handicap and not actually getting better at the basic mehanics behind the gameplay.
SWAT4 does take some skill but there's some balance between strategy and actual "regular" FPS come in guns a blazin action. If you organise in co-op and pay attention to what firearms you're using, knowing when to check the situation out before going in...it all offers a place for skill upgrade. Although getting shot in the leg at the begging of the mission and slowly limping till the end, does get annoying.

But every game where teams, AI, gameplay etc. are balanced and reflexes are not that influental, is opened for besting through skill.

Wabblefish said:
I forgot to mention this but probably the most skill requiring FPS besides realistic FPS games, TF2, and Counter Strike would have to be Killing Floor, I wish I could write paragraphs about all the team work and FPS reflexes required in that game but I'm a little busy with homework at the moment.
Killing floor, really? A game where the AI is on the level of Pacman ghosts and ranking up difficulty by spawning more enemies with more health does not take skill.
 

SIXVI06-M

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Jan 7, 2011
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jawakiller said:
Counter strike's difficulty is epic but stalker was fucking ridiculous. (in other words, really fucked up and epic)
I looooove stalker. I always find it thrilling each time I start a new game and have to fight a band of shotgun and rifle toting bandits with a pea-shooter. But I had gotten so good at luring enemies into chokepoints and killing the shit out of them when they poke their head around the corner that I'd taken to raiding the military base with my pea-shooter first before I go and hit the bandits - which by then I'm armed to the teeth with assault rifles and enough ammo to kill them all 10 times over.

The thing is - the game was challenging enough that I'd go and find new challenges. I reckon they can do a LOT more to expand the series with what already exists in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R world.
 

MattyDienhoff

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Jan 3, 2008
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I personally consider the following to be most demanding on my skills:

Operation Flashpoint (the first one)
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl
Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45
SWAT 4

In more conventional shooters like, say, any Call of Duty game, I find myself "running on auto-pilot" so to speak. What (relatively little) challenge there is is not in knowing what to do, but rather just doing it and, if you fail, doing it slightly differently. In single player, for instance, this involves picking the right moment to push forward, when you've worn the stupid respawning enemies down enough (and in the right places), and being lucky enough to avoid the enemy nadespam...

There's not much else to it, really. For example, you rarely if ever even have to navigate because you're usually being led around by the nose and have no responsibility except to shoot things and, occasionally, press F to initiate scripted sequences when someone yells at you to do so.

Obviously I'm referring to single player Call of Duty. I did find Call of Duty 4's multiplayer to be pretty challenging (at least, on the PC a couple years after the game's release, which invariably means playing with a bunch of people who've played it a lot), but not in a very satisfying kind of way. As long as you understand the game modes and know the maps reasonably well, you still don't have to put much thought into what to do (beyond choosing your kit...), just how to do it as effectively as possible.

In a game like Operation Flashpoint, by comparison, knowing what to do is just as important as knowing how to go about it, especially if you're a squad leader. In Flashpoint, a lot of missions dole out a few objectives, then give you a squad, a few vehicles and some support elements and leave you to work out the rest. And "the rest" is a lot of things. For instance:

* Conducting reconnaissance.

* Deciding which direction you should approach your objective from (and how you should get there in the first place)

* Deciding which weapons your men should use (and putting them in the right places so they can make best use of them)

* Adjusting your behaviour and that of your squad to suit the situation (For example, to hold fire unless attacked to avoid unnecessary attention)

The result is a very difficult and challenging game; but a game in which, quite often, you're killed because you made an error in judgement that put you in a particularly dangerous (and usually avoidable) situation, not because you just got blown up by three laser guided hand grenades thrown into the narrow corridor which is your only way forward.
 

minimacker

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Interesting question. It's all about the definition of 'skill'. Does skill mean experience with the game? Muscle memory? Strategies? Load-outs?

But on a general level, I'd say Halo: Combat Evolved. You know, before all the bullshit abilities and shit happened.
 

Midnight Crossroads

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None. They're all pretty easy once you understand the quirks of the game.

Games that are usually mentioned as the ones taking skill are the ones which instruct the player the least on how to play. Of course they seem to take more skill when you have no background in playing the game and get thrown up against veterans who've played for years. Add on to that games which have no respawn and you end up sitting around more than playing as you spectate the last player on your team staring at a wall AFK until someone on the other team shoots him. Those games have you cheering for the other team.
 

Soxafloppin

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Jun 22, 2009
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INB4 "Halo, Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk."

TO be honest though, most FPS's play the same in my opinion! So if you are skilled in one your skilled in all them.
 

MattyDienhoff

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stinkychops said:
For me, Stalker wasn't so much challenging as unweildy and unforgiving.

I really enjoyed the concept, and I wanted to like it, but the execution was poor. For me anyway.

Counterstrike, in my opinion.
I have to admit, my perception of the game is based on the game with mods which alter the gameplay and difficulty (usually to make it harder, but in a more balanced kind of way). It can be much more with mods, but I can see why you feel the way you do.
 

TomLikesGuitar

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Jul 6, 2010
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Sigh...

You guys are pretty sad with all your arguing.

Obviously any sort of learned activity in conjunction with any sort of competition involves skill. If your question is which game has the worst learning curve, the answer is probably CS or something, but that's not really skill, that's just beating noobs. Either way the question is moot and has so many factors that the true answer is probably different for every person here.

Personally, I like games where the skill comes from reaction speed moreso than game knowledge. If you get a midair headshot or something, then you are skilled. If you know exactly where to stand to melee me or know some sort of trick that most people don't, you aren't really good per-se, you just have been playing the game forever. This happened to me all the time when I started CS. It took me a long time to get good simply because I was still learning things almost a month in. A game like Gears of War, on the other hand, teaches you everything up front, then pits you against people who know just as much as you do.

Gears and Halo both give a great feeling of equality and balance between teams, to the point where most fights are 2 people using the same gun and whoever shoots the other guy in the head the most wins.

And that's what FPS's are all about... for me at least.
 

Right

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Apr 7, 2009
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I think it has a lot to do with your opponents. Take BFBC2 and BF2 as an example. There are a lot more "n00bs" in BC2 because its much more popular and BF2 is mainly played by people who fell in love with the game 5 years ago and still cant stop playing it (Or in my case people who dosent have a computer good enough to run anything else than BF2.... I´ve only played BC2 for a couple of hours in total online and I acctually like it better than BF2
 

DeadEy3

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Sep 1, 2010
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cs 1.6 and battlefield both require team work skill.

quake 3 requires fast reflexes.
 

tzimize

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Mar 1, 2010
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Alien Vs Predator 2000.

NOTHING compares to the lightning fast gameplay of alien vs marine. It is FANTASTIC.

Depends on what kind of skill you talk about of course, but if you consider twitch gaming, and aiming/firing at inhuman speeds skill...this is the game for you.
 

supersilva

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Eh well I personally think Call of duty 1 and 2 took the most skill out of any FPS, and all COD games after 2 turned into the games we have now, that dont have the same "level of skill". They added level system, perks, regen health, higher levels with better guns. Go back to COD 1 and 2 When everyone had the same classes to pick from, there was no kill or death perks and you had 100 health per round. Sad thing is if you shows most kids(no offence) a screenshot or video of COD 1 they would say your lying and its not call of duty. That or maybe Golden eye <.<
 

Addendum_Forthcoming

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Feb 4, 2009
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Arcane Azmadi said:
The Tribes series. What's more important than knowing how to shoot? Knowing how to fly!
Theres a blast from the past ... I loved tribes back in it's heyday. What's the community like nowadays?