Ok, this I can agree with.

I don't deny that Quake & UT are games that award skills. Of course they are. Those games are made to separate the wheat from the chaff.

My main point was that I like realism in games. And the side effect of 'dumbing' down just happens to be that shooters become more realistic.

But now that you adress the topic of skill, I wanna comment that I actually like the fact when games try to level the playing field and increase the chances for bad players. You see by nature humans have very different skills so I think it's cool that games try to compensate for that so that the competition becomes more exciting. It's got nothing, or at least very little, to do with my personal skills. Back in the day I was average at fast paced shooters including Quake 2&3 online. I was well above average in Return to Castle Wolfenstein/Enemy Territory. I am average at ET: Quake Wars. At the moment I am average, or slightly below average, at Bad Company 2 on PC. So it's got nothing to do with my 'personal gain' frag-wise.

Alright! Someone who sees sense and I can talk to.

You know, I hadbn't fully thought about the fact people have different skills and I fully understand where you are coming from. I play CS and BC2 right now because I just can't handle the fast ones 24/7. Constant adrenaline can't be good for my system, but damn it feels great.

The thing that annoys me is that, someone will say they have more FPS skill in BC2, because they had a better score than me in BC2. Which is simply not true. I can sit behind a tank and repair it for a long while and once gained over 500 points form a single tank like that. Meanwhile to get those points by just killing people would mean that I need to kill about 10 people without a headshot or any def/att killls. That's when it greatly irks me, because there's a large chance I'd sweep the floor with said engineer when we play when nothing matters but the one basic skill in FPS games, shooting.

Generally though, if I wanted to use the skill of strategy or tactics instead of shooting, I usually boot up DoW2 or Total War. They require a whole lot more tactics and strategy than even BC2 or CS or any shooter. You are also not rushed, but don't have unlimited time as well to formulate and execute.

Edit: A little more thinking and I realized that the consoles don't have strategy games. Their limited control schemes just cannot handle a proper strategy game even if they wanted to, not even half-assedly like the way they handle shooters. If proper strategy games, not JRPGs because that is as close to a strategy as you will ever get on a console,  started coming out then a big chunk of the shooter base may rethink its priorities. This is another way I blame the limited control scheme of consoles. Because they can't handle strategy games, they have to slowdown and implement strategy into shooters and consequently make meh shooters seem great.

Heh, but it's so obvious in BC2 that Engineers easily get incredible scores from just repairing. I would not use score as an argument when comparing player skills, I thought no one did in BC2. K/D is much more important, but even that is hard to use as a metric since there's some overpowered guns and tactics in BC2(the Carl Gustav-guys, and the M60 & also the noob-tube to some extent). Also, you can be a very sneaky and cautious player in BC2, avoiding getting killed and thus getting a high K/D, but it don't necessarily mean that you are skilled.

I understand your craving for the adrenaline kicks. It's not good for your health in the long run though.

I have played Bad Company 2 and Crysis on the PC. I am fairly certain they aren't dumbed down ;)

I know I have a really low K/D since I usually just go in front shoot up a bunch of people, then I end up dead but get several kills. Then I die twice because some guy was hiding behind a rock and got lucky enough to see me as I sprint right past. If I get hit in UT or Quake from behind, there is a really good chance I can still color the floor red with their gibs, not so much in this game.

Also, UT and Quake had really nice weapon balance. Yeah the lowest number weapons weren't all that hot, but even the biorifle and the shotgun could do some damage, meanwhile all the later guns were all equal yet different and only depended on the person's skill in how effective they are. In modern games, like BC2, I just run around with my 40MM or that one medic gun and just kill huge amounts of people. If you are going to have a game based on startegy and not skill, then you REALLY need to have a balance and I can't name any game that hasn't failed in it in some way.

I'm pretty much the same, my K/D ratio on any FPS is usually pretty low. However, in a lot of the more tactical games stealth in itself is an important skill. I used to love crawling around in CoD and taking people out.

I mean really? I'd like to play you on Quake Live to see just how "easy" it is for you.

He probably wouldn't get past the training level.