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where does skill come from?

ok so i was wondering where you guys think skill comes from do you guys think it comes from practice, or maybe you think it comes from knowledge of the game
 

Shock

Administrator
Premium Supporter
Skill is a combination of many things and can be applied to many games.

Knowing character strengths, weaknesses, generic player pattern recognition, adaptability to players who show no obvious patterns, not falling into your own patterns, not be predictable, tactical persistence, combo/juggle execution, zoning, placement, set ups, traps, risk-reward ratios, frame data.
 

dreemernj

Ambassador
I think skill comes mostly from practice against good players and an understanding of how the game works.

But those things aren't enough. To be really great, I think someone needs to have a head for the game. I've met people that can pick up and get good at fighting games with frightening speed. Even just being good at a wide variety of games I think requires a particular kind of player.

I believe no matter how much I play really good players and how much I know the game I'll always hit a limit just because of the way I play, and the way I think about the game.

In my book:
Good Competiton + Understanding + Practice + God Given Talent = Skill
 

Konqrr

MK11 Kabal = MK9 Kitana
I've always been the "Mario" of video games, being average at everything I play (except Geometry Wars, I suck at that badly). I can't see patterns in peoples game, never have been able to...I think this is why I can't get better, and is why I was never elite in 3-D MK.
 
skill comes from a combination of experience, understanding of the game and genetics. Yes thats right, your DNA plays a role in how good an MK3 player you will be. Its called aptitude, how well you "pick up" on playing the game. Aptitude is basically determined largly by a genetic component. Some people may disgree and might get mad that Im saying this, but those people obviously have not been very educated. Take a course In psychology and then come back. The "blank slate theory" is dead. Our behavior, not just playing video games is a a consequence of both genetic and environmental influences.

For example, some people can just sit down and play the game and get very good at the game without much experience or any analyzing of the games strategy or any of that. Others will practice for years, and study the game hard and the strategy involved in it, and no matter how much they put in, they just cant seem to get good enough as some other gifted people who have put almost nothing in to it but are extremely good at it.

While mortal kombat is definitely a strategy game with strategy involved, but knowing the optimal strategy and actually implementing it correctly are two different things. A good strategy in MK3 will probably require very good reflexes and a good intuition to "feel" when it is the correct time to do a certain move. Developing these traits has a genetic component, so unfortunetly, not everyone will be a good MK3 player no matter what practice they put into it. And also, its task specific, so you might be good at playing Halo 2 deathmatch, but that doesnt neccesarily mean that youll have a good aptitude for 2D fighting games. again, theres also task specifity involved in our aptitudes.
 

dreemernj

Ambassador
Just to cut through the bull shit of Kombat Veteran's post:

1. The "some people" he is referring to is me because I chewed him out for the baseless, ignorant claims he made in a previous thread.

2. Saying that our behavior in general is based on genetics and environmental influences is mostly correct, but "Aptitude is basically determined largly by a genetic component" is not. That's asserting that genetics play a huge role in how people apply multiple combinations of high level thought processes towards abstract problem solving. That's also asserting that a person's aptitude towards playing a game is based on where they lie on a single imaginary axis. Everybody processes and stores information about video games differently. Genetics would probably play a noticeable role in how people process and store information about video games, but not in their aptitude for them, since their aptitude for them is based on so many different aspects of how they solve problems. 2 people can display equal aptitudes for playing a game. It says nothing about their genetic make up. Genetic predispositions may influence how they learn to play the game, but not whether or not they can. That's the great thing about the human mind. Genetics get it started, but what its actually capable of is based on how it is trained. That's why someone with ~60% of their brain destroyed by disease can still function in normal society and perform complex, high level thought processes. Because if a person is in an environment that raises them to value completing a task they can find a way to complete it regardless of genetic make up.

3. If anybody disagrees with Kombat Veteran it is because they are uneducated even though he makes false claims about aspects of the human development he doesn't understand, can't communicate clearly, and is all around an arrogant person, most likely to cover his own shortcomings.

I told him before, take a social science class or something and really try to learn from it. He has adopted this suggestion to give to others, which is fine. But he should probably follow the suggestion first and then come back when he has a basic understand of what he is talking about.

The last time I heard this much ignorant, wrongful application of genetics was talking to racists explaining their claim to be a master race.
 
You gotta be intuitive and you gotta have good instincts, and be able to perform those thought out actions on a drop of a dime. Practice helps build the tactics, experience helps build the strategy.

If you can't actually execute the strategy with the tactics, the strategy is no good. And you suck.

I've only been playing this game since it came out on XBLA, i mean of course ive played the game before back in the day(i mean who hasnt) but i didnt know what the hell i was doing when I was younger. Me and my friends would just try to throw spears, freeze and uppercuts.
 
I think the player's reflexes sure do matter, and is a part of skill.

Game experience doesn't always cut it, I know this guy that has 15K matches on DOA4, knows all about guarenteed stuff, set-up's, untechable's and whatnot, and I still beat him, and I'm just average and played 200 or so matches.
 
dreemernj said:
Just to cut through the bull shit of Kombat Veteran's post:

1. The "some people" he is referring to is me because I chewed him out for the baseless, ignorant claims he made in a previous thread.
great, someone who wants to argue with me..again. And DreemerNJ of all people! I mean, why couldnt it be someone else? theres plenty of readers of this thread! what are the chances of that, the one guy who wants tp pick my post apart has to be DReemerNJ! still hodling a grudge over my last thread maybe?

When I said "some people" I wasnt neccesarily refering to you, dont get excited. Its very common for people to be against the idea that our behavior is partly dictated by genetics. Ive been in arguments over this in the past, and was anticipating resistance that seems to be ubiquitous especially among uneducated peope on the subject. Some people just dont want to beleive it, its unattractive to them. Somepeople dont want to beleive that its possible to be born with a behavioral disadvantage that nothing can really be done about it, or it might go against their religious beleifs (harcore christians hate the idea that being gay may be genetic), others see it as reminiscant of eugenics used by the nazis. Theres many reason people resist the idea, I was anticipating resistance, its common actually :)

Saying that our behavior in general is based on genetics and environmental influences is mostly correct
mostly correct? try totally correct. Our behavior is a product of both genetic and environmental influences. a 100% true statement.

but "Aptitude is basically determined largly by a genetic component" is not. That's asserting that genetics play a huge role in how people apply multiple combinations of high level thought processes towards abstract problem solving. That's also asserting that a person's aptitude towards playing a game is based on where they lie on a single imaginary axis. Everybody processes and stores information about video games differently. Genetics would probably play a noticeable role in how people process and store information about video games, but not in their aptitude for them, since their aptitude for them is based on so many different aspects of how they solve problems.
So why is it that some people can play a game for years passionetly and get only so good, yet some others plays the game very little, hardly cares about being good at it, yet they are way better than the other guys? So if genetics play no role in ones actual aptitude for playing games (just one task out of many that involve aptitude) then why is it that observations like this are common place? If it was all environmental, I would expect the guy who has more experience and more exposure to be far better, and guys with little experience and exposure to suck at it. Yet, it has been observed that sometimes the guy with little experience is actually better than a person with far more experience. yeah, sounds to me like environment aint the only factor here...theres something else. Hmmm, what could it be?

Genetic predispositions may influence how they learn to play the game, but not whether or not they can. That's the great thing about the human mind. Genetics get it started, but what its actually capable of is based on how it is trained. That's why someone with ~60% of their brain destroyed by disease can still function in normal society and perform complex, high level thought processes. Because if a person is in an environment that raises them to value completing a task they can find a way to complete it regardless of genetic make up.
So your saying if someone is raised to complete a task, no matter their genetic makeup, they will infact complete that task? Okay, if that is the case, then explain why humans are the only orgnisms that have language, before you say "oh its becuase we are highly intelligent with high IQs" look at people with Williams syndrome, they have low IQs avergaing at 60, yet they learn language pretty well. Also, think about the fact that babies pick up on language just by being around other people speaking language, ie the parent wont even have to try and teach their child words or how to speak, they still will pick it up including the complicated grammar involved. Yet a household pet such as a dog, being around people speaking language cannot pick up on this and learn to understand human language yet an human infant can under the exact same conditions. Also note that despite all the different languages among all the different cultures on this planet, all languages follow a common grammar. Also note that as people get older, learning languages becomes more difficult. young children pickup on language very fast, yet adults who try to learn spanish can take a course and get lots of training on it, ans still struggle. its as if a critcal period for learning was there during childhood, but got destroyed somewhere along growth and development. I doubt one will be able to argue that environemtn was responsible for creating this critical period. It also shows that exposure aint enough, otherwise adults would be picking up on learning a new language just as fast as children; there has to be something else involved here. hmmm, it all seems to be pointing to genetics in this learning task. Perhaps if one werent born with the right brain mechanisms, they wont pick up on language. ie, genetics are a huge factor in language learning; they dictate if we will be capable of learning language or not. Obviously 99.99% of humans have this genetic component, were all speaking language.

Besides language, you look at other tasks, such as pattern regognition and distinction. I dont think its a coincidence that zebras perform far better on distinction between striped patterns than monkeys in experiments that have been done on this task.
I dont think its a coincidence that different bird species all learn their own species specific bird song, experiments have even been done on naive birds and they found they learn songs faster from tape recordings that are of their species specific bird song as opposed to a bird song from a specifies different than theres. god, I have a boat load of examples that all point to the fact that alot of learning tasks we do are actually genetically influenced. Our genes dictate how well we can learn something or even if its possible to learn a task. and we have genetic variance among the population, so I would expect some people to be learing to play video games at different rates under equal experience, and this is infact what I see!! The "no genes for aptitude" theory you present doesnt seem to be holding water.


and hey, some of my best paths to truth have been from someone who made me made. so if this argument is making you mad, dont let it.
:)

3. If anybody disagrees with Kombat Veteran it is because they are uneducated even though he makes false claims about aspects of the human development he doesn't understand, can't communicate clearly, and is all around an arrogant person, most likely to cover his own shortcomings.
yep, I never understand anything I type do I? I didnt understand my last thread, but you did, even though Im the only one with advanced math skills on this board where the discussion was basically about logic and strategy. math is the lagnauge of logic my friend. but i of all people sure as hell didnt know what I was talking about right? and here, I dont know shit either right?

The last time I heard this much ignorant, wrongful application of genetics was talking to racists explaining their claim to be a master race.
so your trying to discredit my post by equating it to an idea that a really hated person in history praised, who people would of course hate to agree with? comparing it to an idea of Adolf Hitler. I got to give it to you though, good tactic. :) But thats not the case. Im not trying to argue eugenics here. Im arguing facts here, Im not trying to advocate some kind of intervention to exterminate people with "bad UMK3 playing genes".
 
I think some of it is being born with it/god given skill/natural skill/whatever you want to call it. Some people just adapt faster than others.
 

dreemernj

Ambassador
Kombat Vet, you saying these things are somehow facts doesn't make it true when they obviously aren't. And falling back on saying others are uneducated for disagreeing with your made up info is getting old.

You mention no facts, just what somebody made up and told you. You are an extremely uneducated person on this topic which is obvious to anybody that's studied psychology.

There's no point in this because you are staying as closed minded as before. If you want to continue in a discussion form instead of bringing old arguments to new threads, PM me with the studies you are basing your claims on. Especially the studies that suggest aptitude for video games are based largely on genetic make up.

You are spouting a mixture pop culture misconceptions of psychology and outright lies. Take it somewhere else.

Start adding something meaningful to this board or at least start asking good questions instead of just using it as a soap box for pushing your distorted reality on others.

And take a social science class. It's good for the soul.
 

Shock

Administrator
Premium Supporter
"Its very common for people to be against the idea that our behavior is partly dictated by genetics"

I understand exactly where you are coming from when you say certain types of people, meaning their gaming IQ in this instance, because I use that myself, however, what you seem to use this reference for is to make it seem like you are the sole owner of wings here and the only one qualified to determine the outcome. This is far, far from the truth. You specifically are NEVER going to come up with something accurate because you don't completely understand MK. You are not a Kombat Veteran. I understand what you are saying has absolutely no bearing on race but specifically on genetic advantage within isolated people...but then why do Asians seem to have such a monopoly on gaming but MK is so unpopular with them. I've always wondered that and it can't be just because it's an American game. I also relate this to sports and other activities. I'm a professional wrestler on the side, and I see guys who are in the big time because of their bodies, their mic work, politics, etc, but they are awful, terrible wrestlers (in terms of the physical) and will never ever be any good at it no matter how long they do it. I wrestled side by side with a highschool friend of mine who isn't even a single digit % of my ability and he has tried so hard to bring his level up, it's just not there, he'll never do it, he doesn't have the wrestling IQ. I have an advantage over him because even before I was formally trained for wrestling, I was better than he is now, 7 years into the business for him, with extensive training. He wants to be there, but he never ever will.

Now, I think you get the idea that I understand what you are talking about. It is also important to remember this topic has absolutely nothing to do with you coming up with a tier matrix for UMK3. You are going to NEED OUR HELP to do it.

Aside from that, inferring that DreemerNJ is uneducated is simply laughable. I don't want to see you posting any more on this subject until you have something solid, because I'll just start deleting your posts too. I'll be vindictive, I'm by no means above that because some of the things you say are quite frankly irrelevant and you are just typing to type. Nothing you have said is news to me in your comparisons however they are very weak and do not pertain to the subject. I said put or shut up, you've done neither.

"But thats not the case. Im not trying to argue eugenics here. Im arguing facts here, Im not trying to advocate some kind of intervention to exterminate people with "bad UMK3 playing genes"."

I am all for bad player genocide. I cannot stand playing people who cannot and will not ever be able to learn how to play a game, I have probably turned a lot of people off to UMK3 already by playing them on XBLA because I am that much better than they will ever be and they don't know it, but their brains know it. The ones who want to learn and can learn come back and practice vs me no matter how many times they lose, but they get closer and closer to winning and some eventually do. The ones who don't practice vs the computer and still never win. My level since 2003 has probably increased 10 fold.

In any event, the main concept you are referring to is "talent" which is found in every art, sport, profession, etc. It's always there. "God given talent". Some people have it but don't know how to tap it on their own, they need to be shown the way.

I have not had the chance to sit down with Ded_ yet and make a counter character guide, or tree, or what have you but we will. It will be based on what is currently known about all the characters which is similar to how the tier list is formed except characters who have potential to defeat higher characters when player ability is unblanaced, with approximated percents, as in Level 8.5 Kabal vs Level 10 Reptile = Reptile wins etc (I'm just throwing those numbers out there to give you an idea of what to expect. It is to be expected that obviously a 100% Sheeva player can beat a 1% Kabal player so we'll try and keep it to at least 75% ability above because there's no point in listing characters used by less than good players. KV, if you do not agree with this approach then you are essentially saying that ded_ and I combined don't know enough about UMK3, or am not good at it, and that you in fact know more and are better, and I might even research with Lex on this a bit. If this is true, you are a God.
 
So are you guys referring to a sort of best to 10 type flow chart?

Meaning Kabal beats Sheeva 8-2 as an example?
Or Kabal beats Human Smoke 6-4?

Yes, IMO charts like this are much better than tier lists. Because a much lower ranked character can sometimes appear to be really good, if all they're fighting is match ups where they have a reasonable chance.

And then there are top tiers that have extremely favorable 7-3 and 6-4 match ups all over the place, but then have a 4-6 or that one 3-7 from like a low tier character that can only win that battle and nothing else.

And then IMO there are characters that have a ton of 5-5 matches and like only a couple 6-4s and maybe one 7-3 which would probably be characters lower than them so they end up being a mid tier character etc. I like characters like that anyhow, cause they generally don't have "hard counters" and they arent hard counters of their own.

Also the one characters that can ONLY fight the top handful, but get countered by anyone lower than them. So their rank actually doesnt even reflect match ups properly.
 

Konqrr

MK11 Kabal = MK9 Kitana
I can see it now:

Sheeva vs Kabal 0-10
Sheeva vs Reptile 0-10
...
Sheeva vs Shang 3-7

Poor Sheeva...
 
Dreemernj,

oh, so I made up all the examples?

so I guess if I cite them for you I made those up too.

this is rediculous. you say Im making this up becuase you dont agree.

and shock, I read your post.
1. I am a kombat veteran, Ive been with it since 93, Ive also been a hardcore fan of it since then. played all 4 in the arcades. Id say that qualifies me as a veteran dont you?

2. You came up with alot of points that are in agreement with my position that UMK3 playing will have a genetic component, and therefore becuase of this, some people no matter what they will never be good players, becuase they dont have that genetic predisposition. But it looks like your trying to make me look like Im wrong. so which is it, do you agree or disagree?

and Ill be continuing this discussion in PM with dreemernj since that how he wants it.

also, your bringing up the character matrix thing, which is pretty much irrelevant for this discussion. I though you didnt want to talk about it anymore or youll bann me? and no, making a character matrix doesnt require one to be an elite mk player. all you need to know is cause and effect of what happens when you do move x in situation y, anyone who is familiar with the game will be able to do this part. and If theyre unsure, they can reference the videogame itself. If you can figure this out, then you have the potential to make a character matrix as long as you know how to correctly go about analysing it all. This is a totally analytical task, your actualy above average reflexes and intuition for when it "feels right" to do a move really dont apply here, these are the only things thet set you appart from someone who knows the game well, but sucks.
 
CheatToWin said:
I think with such a big autocombo, sheeva is going to be 1-9 on all those.
even with the big autocombo i doubt sheeva will win me and shock were doing random last night he got sheeva i got kabal and my kabal is far under par than anyone on shocks list i wouldn't even call my kabal moderate for a kabal so even with a great sheeva and a horrible kabal its almost still 10-0 with kabal prevailing