First of all, this is a point I’ve responded to several times, and I feel like you haven’t really given it a proper response, you’ve just continued to restate your original argument. I’m starting to feel that you, like Gnsap, have a fundamental misunderstanding of what a skill ceiling is.I feel like you may be confusing the skill ceiling with a skill curve, even though you’ve specifically went out of your way to differentiate the two. A skill ceiling is not relevant to other players, that’s literally the entire purpose of the skill curve. A skill ceiling is how good someone can be at the game. I’m not claiming easier tech wouldn’t make the learning curve smaller, but I don’t feel like that’s necessarily a bad thing. I’ll use literally the same example as before: The Smash Gods would not somehow become worse at the game if techs were easier. Unless we have a disagreement on the definition of a skill ceiling, that means the skill ceiling doesn’t move. I realize I’m repeating myself, but it really feels like you ignored my point entirely.
I'v read that response, and this was my attempt to respond to it. I'll try again though.
A skill ceiling, simply put, is what the highest level of play looks like for a game. It's what the game would look like if it was played with 100% efficiency and perfection. A skill curve is the level of difficulty it takes over time to get to that ceiling, but that's neither here or there.
But you're forgetting that that ceiling is composed of
every aspect of the game. This is where my pillar analogy comes in. Specifically the strategy pillar. Yes if Armada and mang0 and PPMD, M2k, Hbox, Ken, etc. could all wavedash with a push of a button, the strategy pillar doesn't really get lower. It pretty much stays the same (you could make some argument for some change, but it would be pretty small). If they are in the position where they want to wavedash, they still can. If they are in a position where they don't want to wavedash, they still don't have to. The strategy pillar is the same height, because all the techniques you can use in your strategies are still present. That's the argument you're making. I understand it, and you'r right.
But you're forgetting about the other pillars. Specifically the physical feats pillar. The ability to be able to accurately perform 300 actions within a minute is a skill. If you have trained so that you can do 300 over your opponent's 250, then you deserve to be, and shall be, rewarded. This is why physical feats has it's own pillar. Now if you simplify wave dashing, from it's 3 inputs to, let's say, 1, you no longer have to train to get that 3 inputs into 1 second. You just press the single input and be done with it. now anyone can do what used to require training. If that applies for all the techs (they all have their inputs simplified) the physical feats pillar is lowered. More specifically because of the following. Say that you spend exactly a minute performing the most technical string possible within a game, and it leaves you at 400 inputs within that minute originally. If the inputs are simplified, that same string may now be maxed out at 200 inputs. Training for peak condition physical feats is no longer nearly as intense. The ceiling has lowered.
Another thing I disagree with you on is how black and white you’re looking at this. I could just make the same argument towards you and tell you that if you want a game that comes down almost entirely to your physical ability to use the controller, just go play a game that doesn’t require strategy, just pointing and shooting. I fully accept that there are different types of skills which are mostly dexterity and cognitive ability, but I’m asking for a balance, not calling to remove anything resembling reaction. This isn’t a balance that Smash has, hence the fact that people who can do ATs well can absolutely stomp the people who can’t. But honestly, this is a balance most games do have, Splatoon being one of them. I feel almost as if I’m arguing for the minority opinion here when I’m actually not. I can’t think of any game that has such an artificial wall in the middle of its skill curve like Smash does. Even other competitive fighting games don’t require the ridiculous stuff Smash asks for, and that isn’t advantageous to Smash in anyway.
In an attempt to get us out of the circles we’ve been going in, I’d like to attempt to reword this entire discussion. We’re essentially arguing over whether games are better with easy or difficult controls. A game having hard controls is one of the biggest signs of artificial difficulty, which I think we could agree isn’t a good thing. Artificial difficulty is the reason people think Superman 64’s difficulty is part of what makes it a horrid game, despite praising games such as Dark Souls for their difficulty. This is the essential problem I have with tech’s being hard, is that it is entirely artificial. It adds a nasty speed bump in the progression of your skill in the game, that could go away entirely while not affecting the skill ceiling.
Well the difference is that I'm not asking for any of the pllars to be at a certain height. I'm willing to accept splatoon's pillars at whatever height they may be. If the physical feats pillar is very high, I'll train to reach the maximum height. If the strategy pillar is very high, i'll just have to train for that as well. you're asking for a pillar to be lowered because you don't like physical feats, all i'm saying is that if you don't like physical feats, you moving to a game without physical feats is the best option for everyone. That wa people who want the physical feats can have them in their game and the people who don't can have them in theirs. Destroying Splatoon's physical feat pillar will change the pace of the game drastically.
Also smash does have a great balance in terms of these pillars. That's why its's so highly regarded. You're insinuatig once again that strategy hould be more heavily rewarded than physical feats if you say that someone with a better strategic mind deserves to win. In smash the two go hand in hand. They are about equal height. So let's say your opponent has half the strategic pillar you do, but 10x the physical feats pillar, because he can do all the techs, but you can't do any. That still means that his skill ceiling is much higher than yours. So if both of you perform at your peak, then he will still win. that's why people who are high level smash players have both great tech skill,
and great strategic minds.
The problem here being that more difficult inputs doesn’t, in literally any way, make the gameplay any more enjoyable. If more people can do the game’s cool things, the gameplay in general would be cooler. Having hard inputs allows less people to do these things, making the gameplay over all less cool.
I've saved this for last because it also ties into this:
@WydrA
I definetely liked your long message, and i agree with 100% of it.
"There is another pillar that is hurt by plateaued tech skill, and that has to do with the baseball example, but I feel this comment is long enough already. If someone brings it up, I'll talk about that as well."
I had the energy of reading what you typed, do you have the energy of fullfilling this? I'm very curious about it since baseball is something i know nothing or very little of.
The baseball example. It could also be the football (
real football, not that american trash :p ) example if you want.
So in baseball/football, one of the most essential, and most difficult to consistently perform techs is the elusive "curveball". Not being able to curve the ball puts you at a huge disadvantage in both games, and it's not something that's easy to learn, as any child who has tried hundreds of times without instruction can tell you. Now let's imagine a world, where God, the Original Developer (not trying to make this a religious debate or anything by the way, that was kind of a joke) changed the laws of physics, so that it was easy to perform the curveball. At first this seems like a great thing. Now
anyone can curve the ball. Little league games are fun to watch because "look at these cool curveballs these kids are throwing/kicking!". Except that's
not how things would go.
This is where I introduce the other "pillar"I hinted at before. Although this one is kind of a weird one, because it doesn't really stack with the other pillars. It's more the pillar you put outside the building with a note attached to get people to come in and admire the height of the other pillars stacked together.
The pillar I'm talking about is often referred to as "view ability" and it's a necessity for any competitive game, sport, or whatever to become successful. You can have the most strategically intense, or physically intense sport/game in the world. If people don't watch it the game will fade away into non existence. So how ydo you get people to watch? One of the answers is complexity. People like to watch things they can admire. I watch tennis and football (once again,
real football :p) because I can admire the players' skill levels. I understand myself just how hard it is to actually score a goal, and so when I see others accomplish that, I'm ecstatic. I've just witnessed someone pull of something incredible. this also appliess for curving the ball. I mean become's curve over the wall is one of the most famous goals in history because people could admire how hard it is to curve the ball like that. If anyone could curve the ball the way beckham could, then it's not as exciting. What's so special about what he's just done? My six year old can curve the ball like that. The same applies for video games, as video games generally are closer to sport than they are, say, chess. People generally like to see action
with their strategy in competitive circuits, since everyone originally got into the games for action. This is true fro pretty much every game that ever had a serious competitive community. Even starcraft had some pretty decent action, and the importance of that game's strategy pillar is much higher than it's physical feats pillar.
Some proof that people like to see complicated techs is in the existence of these clips:
First 2 minutes of this. Especially the existence of the shots at 1:22 - 1:27, 1:34 - 1:39, and 1:45 - 1:46,
Sidenote: This is also why some people still prefer Brawl to Smash 4. there's more complicated tech in Brawl, and more reliance on reading, and they would rather watch and learn that.
If everything splatoon pros are doing is easy, and it becomes purely strategy based, then chances are we'll miss out on both viewership crowds. people who like to watch games where the action comes from complex inputs won't want to watch, and then people who like strategy over that will just watch something like starcraft or civ 5. I'm not saying we would never find a crowd of people to watch, i'm just saying it would be harder. Additionally if the crowd can't be excited by what they see they won't feel inclined to take part and learn to play them selves. Creating interest is even more essential because of that.
hopefully I've explained myself well enough. I don't know it can be kind of hard to focus for long enough to write these comments. Even harder to put things that you just instinctively and subconsciously know into words like this.
EDIT: Also thanks a lot for making me link the smash documentary. Now I feel like watching the whole thing all over again :(
