What is Skill? (Baby, Don't Pwn Me)

I was playing some Black Ops today and things were going well for a change. AUG in hand, I demolished Radiation until my ammo ran dry, then picked up a fallen foe's Galil and continued the slaughter. After blinding my enemies and gazing through the all seeing Eye in the Sky, I soared in as if the very Hand of God, casting down merciless judgment and smiting my enemies.

And they did bleed.

*Picture of slaughter not to scale.

First of all, that sounds much more awesome than saying, "I used my Counter-Spy Plane, SR-71, and Chopper Gunner," doesn't it? We need more flowery language to brighten up our otherwise dull existence, people! Even making a snack is better when you say that you feasted on the flesh of beasts and the fruit of the land, with some Doritos. (What? You can't improve on Doritos.)

Anyway, the next game on WMD went much the same and I was quite the happy monkey. Then I was placed in a new lobby and all semblance of ability fled. I couldn't land a shot, could live for ten steps after spawning.

I put it down to lag and tried another lobby. Same result.

It's no secret that the game is broken sometimes. The lag can be murder, and respawning is all too often suicide in itself. But to fall so far in an instant? Going from Hand of God to Canon Fodder is quite the demotion. How much of my success could I really attribute to skill? To answer that I had to ask, "What is skill?"

Any time you enter a competitive environment you'll hear complaints about this or that weapon or ability being "nooby" or "no skill." Sometimes the complaints are fully justified by broken or unbalanced design. But how many of these complaints come from people who've been on the wrong end of said weapons or abilities and haven't bothered trying to change their tactics to combat them? It's easier to accuse than to improve, after all.

Let's look at Killsteaks. I've seen comments about how those are only for noobs and that really skilled gamers don't use them. In some cases I might agree. Sometimes they just seem badly unbalanced. The Blackbird gives the entire enemy team your team's exact location at all times and can't be destroyed. What's the defense for that? How can my skill get around it?
Or the Rolling Thunder. Unless you just happen to be on a distant corner of the map, you're dead when that gets called in. Even running inside for cover, your only real defense, wouldn't save you in many cases.

But what about the Spy Plane, or the Turret? Could you really say these are overpowered? The Spy Plane, which is easily dispatched, only tells you where someone is generally and a few seconds ago at that. The turret can dissuade you from entering an area, but isn't likely to get that many kills. After all, if you walk in front of it once, that sucks. If you walk in front of it again, isn't that your fault then?

So assuming your temporary advantages, be they Killstreaks, Berserks, or whatever, are balanced, then can you still say they are some "no skill" addition? If you lose to them repeatedly is it because they were unfair, or was it just because you wouldn't change to combat them? Isn't that a part of being skilled?

Is the player who plays a Barebones type mode, one which does away with Killstreaks, Kill Cams, and Perks, inherently more skilled than one who plays a normal match? If you say yes, then why? Because they can win without all those things, right? What happens when we throw them into a normal match then? If they truly are more skilled, then they should make short work of these "noobs" that rely on everything else, shouldn't they? Especially since it's not like they're not equipped with the same Perks, etc now too. But often enough they don't do as well. The reverse is true too, of course. Take a normal match player and drop him into a Barebones game. He'll probably flounder a bit too.

For every complaint by a "Hardcore" gamer that a normal mode person can't win without their precious Kill Cam, couldn't you say that the Hardcore guy couldn't win if they had to deal with it? This makes me think that either player's skill would be decided largely based on how well he adapts to his new conditions.

So, here's the answer I've come up with.
Skill is not just gunplay, though that has its place.
It isn't just tactical thinking, though that's part of it too.

Skill is your ability to succeed with and against all the tools the game provides in the mode you're playing. Your ability to create a solid plan of action in response to your conditions, and execute it while taking new developments into account.

There's no denying that broken game mechanics like MW2's OMA/Noob Tubing, Black Ops' often terrible spawns, or unintended glitches like Wraith Hopping in Resistance 2, will have a negative impact on anyone, no matter how skilled if the game simply doesn't provide you with a way to deal with it. And of course, the old saying is true, "Lag conquers all."

Is that why my games went from gold to garbage earlier? Maybe in part. Or maybe I just lost focus and couldn't bring that same level of skill.