"A skilled player can beat a player with better weapons"

This is probably one of the most over-used and INCORRECT statements (and variations of said statement, of course) I have ever seen.

Let's just use Borderlands as an example, as I've been playing it recently and have seen many people make this comment.

One can surely argue that in a fight between a player using a level 15 shotgun vs a player using a level 35 sniper rifle that it's possible if the shotgun player is "skilled enough" they can beat the sniper player. But just as well, if the sniper player is just as "skilled" as the shotgun player, who will win?

Some people think "The shotgun has a faster reload speed, and the sniper is limited to a long range duel. A shotgun player with enough skill would win. A skilled shotgun player could weave around the battlefield and easily take out a sniper"

Correct enough idea, I suppose. But how skilled is "skilled enough"? And at what point does one not have "enough" skill? It's such a stupid statement. If two players of equal skill play against eachother, who would win? Would it be a draw, with both players pulling the trigger for the final shot at once? Would it be a tie, because nobody would get a single shot in? Would the sniper have the range advantage? Would the shotgun have the speed advantage?

The simple answer is that the sniper would win. It's just a fact. A level 15 shotgun does significantly less damage than a level 35 sniper. In all honesty, a body shot from the sniper will do about three times the damage of a shotgun. The sniper player could have 6 bullets in their clip, and it would only take three shots to kill the shotgun player.

The only situation in which a shotgun player would win would be if the sniper player has arthritis, or is prone to random, inconvenient seizures. The shotgun player can get as close as he wants, the sniper bullets will still be able to hit him. Sniper rifles don't magically teleport their bullets a quarter of a mile out before shooting them, they come straight out of the barrel of the gun and keep going that direction until they hit something. If that something bleeds, it's dead.



Player "skill" is such an arbitrary thing. If any two players thrown into a game, one will be better than the other. But if you give one of them a weapon or ability that's three times better than the other, regardless of "skill" the odds are in their favor.









Similarly if you win several gunfights using nothing but your bare fists, it's much more likely that your opponents are either half-blind or too hopped up on caffeine to understand what's going on than it is that you are a "skilled" player. If a shotgun player weaves around a sniper and manages to win without a scratch, that doesn't have as much to do with skill as it has to do with the fact that the poor fellow using the sniper rifle is either new to the game or had a really bad itch on his rear end that he had to tend to the entire round.

I don't exactly know how to respond to this thread, BUT I have to agree with what you're saying...
I've played my fair share of MW2, and a 3yo with the most over-powered set up in the game could, most of the time, beat everyone else... That's why so many kids play MW2 -.-"

I play less shooting games but I play a few driving games and I often think the same thing. No matter how good a player you are - can you win in a slower car ?

I agree in that I generally think the answer is no. You can point out extreme examples but I don't think they really represent reality. Basically if you want to judge who's a better player, you need a level playing field. If you start with unbalanced equipment, be it cars, guns, character abilities or whatever, then I think that most games provide an insurmountable advantage to the better equipped player.

In the example you cite in Broderlands, good player or not, the level 35 sniper will eventually get a lucky shot. And then it's game over. And what does that tell us about the player's abilities ? Nothing at all. Stats trump skills.

Depends on the game.

Call of Duty series : Painkiller/UMP45 Campnoob will definitely ruin your nuke-streaks, but still never be better. I understand noob-friendly games, but games that heavily rig all the shitty players to increase sales?

Borderlands: Definitely all about the gun

MMORPG'S: Most of them are all about the level and weapons actually =/

Anything needing some degree of skill, tactics, or strategy: No. But where will we find such a game?