I wonder if someone outside the US made that poster if it would be the same.

it's a joke

I think a lot of people underestimate the complexity of decision making and communication in team games while you have to partake in the game at the same time. You must constantly execute basic mechanical tasks to perfection, keep an eye on the enemies', your team mates' and your own state and position, choose the corresponding strategy for that information set and accurately but minimalisticly convey that strategy to your team mates in due time while keeping in mind the fact that your team mates might only be giving you partial information about the part of the game you can't directly observe.

On top of that, in a lot of games you also need to constantly have a back-up plan in case random mechanics(crits, for example) or human chance interaction(for example, missing all your shots because your opponent just happens to randomly elect to move in the evasive direction every single time) end up screwing you over, even if you chose the correct strategy at the time.

And it goes without mentioning that before the game even starts, you need to put in time to learn to recognise the consequences of all of these different parameters in the first place. This is what makes some in-game leaders absolute geniuses, in my opinion.

SCBW and WC3 were tough because they only let you select 12 units at a time. Fuck, in SCBW you couldn't even select more than a singe building at once.

Regarding micro in WC3, it was more necessary because you had fewer units, but units also had heavier but less frequent hits, leading to more micro potential. SCBW had more units with faster fire rates, so micro wasn't as intense. Macro was tougher though.

Also micro was more of a pain, and therefore less effective, in SCBW because of awful pathing. WC3 pathing wasn't perfect but it was infinitely better.

Both were difficult in different ways. SC2 isn't bad necessarily, but it's more accessible, which makes it easier at first. I think it has a higher skill cap though. It's a tough question.

At the highest level, I'd say Starcraft: Brood War, Melee, DotA 2, and Quake. No specific order.

Honorable mentions for fighting games are definitely Guilty Gear and probably any Marvel vs Capcom game.

off topic, but thanks again for GXL that shit was the bomb

have 2 suggestions that haven't been mentioned due to obscurity.

BFME2

It's like Starcraft/Warcraft on steroids. Take the constant clicking and make it faster. Never really went anywhere, but watching old demo files really shows the insane mechanics. Imagine Starcraft with 6 (or 7, depending on version) races, each with more units than starcraft, and with an even faster gameplay.

Civilization IV

The game is more of comparing players single player campaigns against each other with a normalized score than multiplayer head to head. That being said, the game is highly competitive. This year, 10 years after it's release had the biggest competition ever, Hall of Game Major Gauntlet 137, and it took 3 months to complete. The challenge is in the thinking as there is no technical skill involved, but only few can keep up with the best. There are probably 50 top players in a dedicated and practicing playerbase still in the tens of thousands, most of which can't even touch the top 200 players. Back in 2010 this game was even more jam-packed with players and a great competitive enviroment.

It's fucking hard because it's like hyperchess.

http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/94400/header.jpg?t=1447357988

i got copies of nidhogg if anyone wants

http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/0/1516/252933-backf02.jpg

melee

quake cpma

this is the correct answer

fuckin' hell yeah man, hmu

gimme!

Quake, hl, painkiller, UT

False, in WC3 the unit selection unit is much higher ;)

I'd say Quake and BroodWar too. Both are mechanically intense in their ways. Quake requires to think more and take more little decisions IMO, so it would be my hardest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnOKhyTgMsA

Also In my opinion today games are more popular precisely because the skill cap isn't as high, thus it creates more room for upsets which spectators find exciting. When you watch Quake games, BW games or even tennis, you know almost for sure the top 10 players won't lose to an underdog, and even amongst the top themselves the hierarchy is respected most of the time.

What do you mean? In WC3 you can only have twelve units selected at a time. You could circumvent this using control groups (up to 10) and rallying units to each other, but you could only directly target twelve units at a time. SCBW also had control groups.

You couldn't even select more than 12 units at a time for a single player using triggers. You'd encounter something called the selection bug, where the player can issue orders to units that aren't selected and can't control the ones they have selected. Also happened when trying to select units too quickly (macro-tier speeds, with either tools or triggers). Once the selection bug pops up you literally need to restart the entire game to fully fix it.

It's really amazing how dominant the top Quake players are. Anyone who isn't in the top 10 (hell, even top 3) will get just absolutely crushed, with nowhere to go at any turn by the best players.

It definitely feeds into what you noted about more spectator-friendly games though. It's exciting to see who's the best at Quake, but it definitely gets stale seeing the same 2-3 players destroy anyone who even tries to take them down, because they've had at least a 20 year headstart. It'd be nice if all competitive games could have unlimited skill ceilings and actual "Who's gonna win?" competition at the top level, but it's not that possible.

I think it's quite possible, the sport just has to be really popular over a long time. In chess, top super Grandmasters (e.g. 2750+ peak rating) barely ever lose even against other GMs, and still there's many of them and constantly new people reaching this level. If you don't count Carlsen obliterating everybody, it's pretty close to the ideal situation you described.
So I guess all that needs to happen is tf2 to stay popular with millions of players for thousands of years

osu! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv85DGQ_IdA

Osu has zero strategy, it's basically just mechanical skill and practice, but because of the combo mechanic it's super intense in comp because if you make one mistake you will probably lose

i'll take one

Hardest game is Melee, although SC:BW is probably up there and Quake is incredibly hard too.

osu is literally a single player game. I really like osu but it's not a multiplayer game even though you have the option.

no it isn't you are an idiot if you actually think it is

Just to elaborate on why melee isn't hardest and Quake and SC are probably the hardest:
SC takes tons, if not, probably the most in terms of multitasking in a competitive game. It requires:
High knowledge(there is A LOT to know), High responses, High APM(or speed in general of playing), multitasking of macro and micro to the core, and mistakes can become very punishing.
I'm not saying melee doesn't have a lot of those, but I'd definitely say it doesn't require as much multitasking. In the end it becomes "choose a field, two players choose a character, fight". I can understand that you have to somewhat have the field memorize and know certain spots to know about, while also knowing about the enemy character in general and aspects of it. But most players at the highest level already know about that and have it embedded by the time the match starts, so what's left is actually playing the match, movement, predicting your opponent, techs, DI's, and etc. But the thing is, is that the players are pretty much able to completely focus in that one battle between two characters, and don't have much else to worry about.

Quake on the other hand may have you think "Well, Quake is just the same thing but in FPS!". Quake is a lot different from a 2D-like fighter game. Quake requires aim(important), movement(in a different way from melee), knowledge(this knowledge is different), predictions, hearing(hear item pickups/weapon sounds/movement), and one of the most important: item timings. Item timings are absolutely important to keep an advantage in the game and ensuring you are able to withstand enemy damage. Quake has a need for aim(which is somewhat hard already at high levels), hearing, and item timings, and just those 2 last things somewhat add more to the knowledge part of quake that makes the game harder.

Don't misunderstand me though, I would definitely agree that Melee and maybe SF are the most skilled and hardest fighting games, but in terms of games overall? I wouldn't say it's the hardest. If I'm missing anything about melee that should be mentioned, feel free to post as I don't delve a lot into melee. Also I tried using some main aspects of each game to explain this rather than specifics(this post would be even longer). I still respect melee as a game being up there though.

What makes melee hard is the precision required. You and many others can probably look up a how fast is melee video and see that there are quite a bit of 1 frame timings of things. Also the strategy required and the dedication is really taxing on your hands. It's not the same sore feeling you get when you mge for 5 hours straight but it's the pace of the game that makes it so challenging

Definitely StarCraft. So much to multitask and maintain all the time, accompanied by massive mind games.

Woops my bad, it never triggered me/ annoyed me so i thought it was much higher :D

Fuck off reddit, have you ever actually even won money at a local? I am guessing the answer is no. I have played on and off for 4 years, i think i know more than some streammonster documentary kid who prob has never done better than 0-2

In any case melee is not a hard game at its core, and even at top level it isn't even close to as hard as how grueling actual top difficulty esports. In terms of what you are actually arguing, several games require more APM, several games require more 1 frame tech, many games are much faster, and many games are much longer and require you to be thinking constantly for more than 30 minutes