What games/game modes take real skill in your opinion?

I would say Rainbow Six Siege. Even in casual mode, it's competitive and you have to play tactfully to win. You also have to know how to handle your weapon and your abilities well. Despite all of this, it's fun! And one of my favorite games to play.

How about you, SW? What games/game modes take real skill in your opinion?

Escape From Tarkov.

Most fighting games.

Smash Bros series

Halo

Unreal (especially in multiplayer)

Quake

And countless others honestly.

Online racing.

Movie-Games, I mean have you ever tried to chew gum and walk at the same time? ;o

Yeah, that's what I thought. lolol :P

Yea, Quantum Break was a real struggle 😎

The game modes with unskippable and walking cutscenes. 🙃

@SolidGame_basic:

Indeed, you needed nerves of steal hitting that A button to bypass the TV show episodes where you may miss some info provided about the story by doing so and just get right back to the game-play. lol :P

people here will mention BS like Halo, Battlefield, escape from Tarkov etc yet conveniently leave out COD because nerds think its cool to hate COD.

Fact is every single FPS requires skill. quickly aiming for another dudes head (and especially multiple dudes' heads) under heat takes tremendous skill regardless if its the FPS you love or not. COD happens to be the most popular of them so I'd even rank it higher than all of them. (higher population = more competitive / higher talent pool)

You could argue that COD's superior controls and mechanics makes it easier for you to be good, but if its easier for you its easier for your enemies too which evens it out.

But most of all RTS games like Starcraft II. Those Korean dudes who can micro manage units while keeping up 300 APM are absolutely beyond this world.

Well there’s different types of skill, mainly physical based skills and mental based skills. Typically playing against human opponents will require the most skill. You could name a whole slew of FPS, TPS, RTS, and fighting games here. There’s certainly a slew of single player games that require a good level of skill and knowledge of the gameplay mechanics to play at a high level. Could name a bunch of games like Ninja Gaiden, Bayonetta, Devil May Cry, etc. Shooters especially “bullet hell” shooters would be in there as well. Certainly a good number of puzzle games would task one’s mental acuity. Really there’s tons of games that could be listed.

There are a few maps on forza 5, where you need to make those hairpin turns. There are skilled people who can pull it off using e brake plus drift around the corner.

There's the dota players who reach the top leagues. The skill they have and talent is unimaginable. Actually any competitive export is like that...these people put tens of thousands of hours perfecting their craft but it also takes a ton of skill.

I take your point but disagree, Battlefield I wouldn't really include in this list of all the mainline FPS's it just feels like it plays differently requiring a somewhat different attitude. to the point you can choose to sit almost apart from the action and still pick up kills, COD (MP) has such a fast TTK that any reaction or effort on the person who takes damage first is mostly pointless as the fight simply doesn't last long enough for counterplay to develop, Quake, halo, Unreal and even COD warzone all tend to enable a fight to develop more either through slower TTK or higher speed movement etc. I.E a person on the backfoot through some sort of mastery beyond a fast reaction time can turn the tables and either win a fight or setup a kill for a teammate.

What I'm getting at is for me to judge a game as skilful a certain level of decision making has to be apparent in combination with good mechanical ability, COD mp often feels like a game of "I saw you first", similarly the high level RTS players have good mechanical knowledge and control of their games, the skill part comes in reading what an opponents doing and formulating a response.

If you've ever watched competitive Pokemon again same thing there, the mechanical understanding of how the game works will get you so far, but the skill part comes in the ability to anticipate and react to your opponents moves.

Hunt: Showdown is one of the toughest first person shooters to play, imo, especially when you go for bounties and try to extract. Extremely high learning curve combined with 1 life death unless revived by a teammate, while attempting to thwart multiple teams at times.

Others here have said Warzone and Apex and stuff, and I disagree with those simply because the learning curve isn't nearly as high. Not saying they aren't tough games, because they certainly can be, but Hunt is on another level.

I would say Tarkov, but the fact that Tarkov doesn't put everyone on a level playing field all the time, combined with loot being randomized, and no strict bounty that everyone goes after, means that you don't always run into other people. There are other maps that are smaller where that is the case, so those specific engagements can be difficult, for sure.

Speedrunning.

I wouldn't say Battlefield requires lots of skill but it requires coordination. Just having a vehicle with dedicated repair person and communication can do so much, instead typically if one tries to aid a random vehicle in a battle the people take off into the thick of it to die or reverse too fast when taking damage leaving their engineer to get slaughtered. Just having a recon source with someone offering ammo resupply nearby can do wonders to spot enemies on the battle line and keep the area lit up.

Fighting, RTS

Old school Battlefield games the ones without the regenerating health where you had to learn how to fly jets and choppers teamwork was actually vital having a good squad leader made a huge difference along with having a commander that knew what they where doing.

Doom Eternal on Nightmare difficulty. test your skill. you took a deep breath after one arena.

Super Meat Boy

which would explain why you've never played it, sniper4321

Shoot 'em ups, like Ikaruga.

Dota, CS:GO, Siege... Any game with a big esports scene behind it.

Personally fast paced games takes a lot of skills no matter which genre as u actually needs to be good at it. Or games that requires you to macro.

Other games like puzzle or stealth games there usually solutions online for the lazy lmao. For turn based rpg once u get self attk up, enemy def down ur god.

RTS for sure, playing the games are like running a business. (dawn of war, aoe, rise of nations, C&C)

Arena FPS is a good one :(UT,Quake, Halo)

Fighting games (Tekken, DOA, SMash)

Pretty much anything that is super competitive or macro based tends to show off skill

Fighting games

Combat flight sims i.e. the IL2 series.

Funny to see some cocky new startup think they gots skill.

Fighting games like the Super Smash Bros. series that require defeating opponents effectively, especially in higher difficulties.

Real-time strategy games like Age of Empires that require micro and macro management skills. Anyone who does not have these skills will find the games frustrating to play.

And of course games that are into the big esports scene. Players that do not have the right skills will fare poorly against the best professional gamers.

A lot of old 8-bit games usually follow the same formula. No regenerating health, plenty of one hit deaths, few checkpoints if any. And when the games are 2D you can't even blame any bad camera angles for your lack of skill. It is just you and the controller. Heck, often there is a time limit also so you really have to go through levels fast putting further demands on your skills.

Some examples of those kind of games are Ghost'n'Goblins, Green Beret or Super Castlevania.

Games that contain permadeath can usually be found to be difficult and they take great skill. I beat Torchlight 2 on medium difficulty with permadeath. Didn't dare try it on hard.

@ghosts4ever: Sure, you'll die a few times, but completing the game on nightmare isn't that hard. I've done it twice. Not very hard when you compare playing against other people.

To answer the topic, anything competitive really. Quake, UT, Overwatch, Hunt, Starcraft, Street Fighter, Smash.. Too much to list. Then there's just really hard shit like many shmups, for example.

Winning in those kind of games is much more difficult than completing Eternal on nightmare.

Its not that hard but it does test your skill. DLC1 is hard. its ultravoilence is harder than base game nightmare.

Well, these days with skill based match making (which is just a way for the devs to make more money in disguise as a way to "help" less experienced players), just about any online multiplayer game takes skill. You rarely get into rooms where you can just pub stomp anymore unless you intentionally rank down in the matchmaking (here's looking at you 98% of youtubers and twitch streamers).

However, I'm not going to do that. My matchmaking in Vanguard is so high right now and it feels as though it's locked in place. Every match, and I do mean EVERY MATCH I play is completely full of cheaters, sweats, and mouse users. Sure, I could just turn crossplay off but that wouldn't really matter since consoles have a million different cheat devices at their disposal these days and devices to trick the console into thinking they are using a controller when they aren't.

With the amount of macros, cheats, devices, and SBMM I've been seriously considering just hanging up the online multiplayer gloves for awhile until they get things sorted out, and I know a LOT of other people feel the same way. Do a quick search on cheating and SBMM and get back to me if you don't agree. The problem is, players that are in the bottom 60% or so won't ever run into those players... because those players cheat to win, which puts them in higher brackets (well until they reverse boost).

Anyways though away from that rant, games I feel that have high skill ceilings include: Probably #1 hardest game and levels is Super Mario Maker 1/2 (if you don't believe me then go and play on super expert or check out the kaizo community.. hell post a video of you beating my levels, which aren't nearly as hard as some).

#2 games like Super Meat Boy (and other precise platformers/puzzle games. The first two I listed are WAY harder than false levels of difficulty like the Souls series which are more memory and trial and error like old school games which makes them so fun and have such high replay value).

#3 Online games including shooters, racing, fighters, and sports. (playing at higher levels can be a real test of humility... no matter how good you think you are there is usually someone out there that can or will hand you your ass.. lol)

#4 This is where I put highly frustrating/play over and over to learn the sequence games like Souls, Bloodborne, Sekiro, and old shcool games like Contra, Battletoads, Double Dragon 3, etc. The games aren't entirely overly difficult (although certain points are), the problem lies more with the fact that enemies and levels are designed to be frustrating and have patterns so that you have to learn the sequences, battle progressions, inventory management, and precise timing. They are more a lesson in patience and memory than difficulty in my opinion (and no, that's not to say I'm saying the games are simple by any means).

#5 I'll put all other games that let you pick a high difficulty. Simply put the game on the hardest possible setting. This even makes games like Dynasty Warriors franchise (and associated franchises) feel deep, precise, and full of tactics... I kind of wish they would make the games MUCH harder at a default level, although smashing through thousands of enemies on lower levels can be therapeutic in it's own way.. lol. If you want an ENTIRELY different experience that can often times feel as though you are playing a completely different game (and in some cases you kind of are since you can unlock or play certain areas you couldn't play at lower settings). I'm kind of surprised that with the whole Soul games craze you don't hear of more people saying that cranking the difficulty level is the way to go... it kind of just makes all games feel like you have to slow down and be more methodical which isn't always necessarily harder, you just can't usually run into the fray like Leroy Jenkins.

I know I listed a lot of examples and not as many games, but I just wanted to show others that most games can be played in different ways and in my opinion playing games on their hardest settings is usually the most fun for me. I love a good challenge and a battle of wits both online and against AI even when it feels as though (or they really are) the odds are easily stacked against you.

I've been playing Starcraft and Starcraft 2 all over again, hell of a campaign ... but the MP is by far one of the hardest in any other game and is not even funny how much skill you need to be good at this franchise compared to most FPS.

Don't know about that one chief.

The difference is in movement. There is no interesting movement to hunt, any sort of carrying momentum like Apex between its slides, clamber/declamber, and character specific stuff. Hunt gets more mileage out of recontextualizing the positioning challenge of a battle royale, but purely player skill required is inherently less deep than what the player is expected to do in Apex.

Obviously not all that complicated, but there is a reason the arena shooters of old are seen as having far higher skill ceilings, and it wasn't because they were all aim, no brain shooters like today, they were about rewarding the players who actually had some finesse on the keyboard to go along with the tactics and gunplay.

Anyway on topic

Starcraft 2
Fighting games
Arena FPS like Quake, Unreal, Tribes, Reflex, hat have you
Dota 2

Multiplayer wise, nothing else needs apply. Out of modern FPS games Siege, CSGo, Valorant, then halo. Bin the rest, maybe Gears or Splatoon given their movement.

Single player? bit more nebulous. Action games have the highest ceiling for player expression in games like Bayonetta n DMC. RPGs take none what so ever. It's a brainless genre, and always has been.

Yall hate ghost, but i'd love to see some of you frauds actually cook Doom Eternal in on Nightmare.

Celeste is that done much better.

yeah that too.

Well there are hacking games. That quite literally test your skill as a programmer

@jg4xchamp: The interesting thing about RPGs, is that most of them tend to have a higher skill floor, but the skill ceiling is really low.

This is of course, NO defense of that genre.

hmmmmmmm I don't even think the floor is high, but like since rpgs are more about abstraction, it's not as obvious to a normie. I think a seasoned player tho should pick up on stuff quick, information overload is a lot higher i guess. There are some unique shit in the space tho like Nocturne n Cosmic Star Heroine's system (tho the latter i have yet to explore, but I've read good things about it). The appeal is different tho, not a genre of depth through player skill n expression through mechanics.

But customization, narrative manipulation n expression (if its a wrpg), and min max stuff if its a jrpg. There is nothing to get good at most of em, but they engage none the less.

@jg4xchamp: A lot of it is just abstract to the point it becomes counterintuitive. I have seen plenty of people getting alienated by RPGs, thinking they are too complex. No matter how braindead simple they really are.

All they do is provide a mirage of depth, that ends up acheiving nothing but making the game less accessible.

I would also say Engineering games in general. Whether it is Programming (Factorio Technically counts here), AI, Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, City Planning.

Some of these games are even used by professionals.

Just to play off of the point some people tried to make about Rpg's not being difficult, go play just about any handful of tactical RPG's going in blind and without walkthroughs or help of any kind and get back to me on that.

@WitIsWisdom: Been there, done that.

Divinity: Original Sin: Super Easy to cheese.

Fire Emblem: Late Game scales terribly, so you end up being massively overpowered by late game with infinite silver weapons, and a bunch of legendary weapons sitting around.

Valkyria Chronicles: Orders that basically made your scout invulnerable and you could clear most missions in a single turn?

Tactics Ogre: Never even had a single unit KO'd.

FFT: It's cheesiest stuff does not even need a guide to figure out. Outside of maybe the permanent changes to Bravery and Faith. Still mindlessly easy.

Devil Survivor: Magic Protag is basically invulnerable to most attacks. While one shotting things left and right.

NuXCOM: Extremely exploitable AI. Much easier than its X-Com ancestor, especially Terror From The Deep.

SRPGs are a cakewalk compared to proper Turn Based Tactics games. The RPG elements almost always end up going to the player's favor. As the RPG elements always end up favoring the player far more than it does the AI. HP becomes a get out of jail card, and makes mistakes far less punishing.

Also, we are talking about the lack of player expression the overwhelming majority of RPGs have.

Apex has too much RNG for me to consider it completely skill based. There are too many variables that are random that provide pure luck in many situations versus skill, such as circle happenstance, armor findings, and some weapons just being pure garbage compared to others in Apex. Sure, at the end of the match, it certainly is, but that's also a reason I don't think Tarkov is completely skill based, because many times, players go in with different loadouts and find different equipment. Hunt has this to an extent, but it's definitely more controlled.

I would also like to point out, that Apex is largely built on the 3rd party meta. It's pretty rare that gunfights are solely two teams in a battle of wits; usually there's always a 3rd team involved, which also equates to luck in many ways. You can avoid this by avoiding open engagement, but then you're probably going to be just going for 3rd party kills yourself, which is not exactly a skill.

We can agree to disagree, however; Apex does definitely have more skill based gameplay than Warzone, and of course, ranked modes help that as well. Not grouping them into the same category.

Chess

@Gatygun: Interesting answer. And you are right about it, though Chess is not strictly a video game.

@DragonfireXZ95: Rng shit isn’t exactly a non issue in Hunt, albeit dialed back. And a common strat in that game, is to let someone else take care of the bounty monster, and then go in, kill that team and book it to the boat.

But we are talking skill, these games by nature of being wide aren’t gonna have the skill ceiling of a proper 4v5/5v5 team based objective game or death match.

The learning curve is still there for Apex’s movement. Which has more of a ceiling than cod, battlefield, something like Hunts movement, but less so than titanfall which has less than Halo 5 which has less than arena shooters proper.

Hunts positioning game is just way the **** more interesting than typical battle royale, plus less accurate guns. It’s incentives to reward any sort of aggression tho could be better.

That’s something I would argue warzone does better, even if it’s tied to basic bitch cod gameplay.

@SolidGame_basic: Let’s see here….contra, various fighting games, simulation games based upon city building, and strategy games.

@outworld222: remember when Sim City crash and burned in 2013?

@SolidGame_basic: no. Did that really happen?? It’s news to me.

Edit: just read up on the controversy on Wikipedia. That’s quite the story.