Excellence Is Not A Skill, It’s An Attitude!
I was on the train the other day, where I overheard a conversation between two elderly men, regarding their career choices – the first (let’s call him Bob) was a lawyer, the second (he can be Jay) was a carpenter. Bob admitted that he never expected himself to like working with the law, as he had always dreamed of becoming an artist – but simply did not find himself skilled enough to do so and had instead thrown himself into the books.
This caught my attention – since what does this actually mean? We have a tendency to throw around the judgment of “skill”, as if it is so pre-defined. However, according to Mariam Webster, being skilled is defined as:
“Having acquired mastery of or skill in something (such as a technique or a trade)”
Now, to me that is pretty vague – who decides mastery? Those around you? Your own subjective perception? or is it all tied down to whether you can make a living out of that skill? According to Bob, it all came down to; “what is the safer bet and what brings food on the table”. However, is that not incredibly unfair? That means we end up aiming at the “skill” that provides us the most comfortable living.
This is no news to most and I also understand that we of course cannot all be good at everything, but thanks to our parents, it is often our genepool that plays a definitive role in what we have a natural flair for. You can aim to be the next Jackson Pollock, but be born color blind or you can have a dream to decorate the world with beauty through a career as a botanist, but be super allergic to flowers. Thereby, I am not saying either of these goals are impossible, but it is sure as fuck is harder than for others.
With that said, “Mastery” is allegedly something that can be achieved. Surely some of you have heard this or been educated with it as a kid – that according to the 10k hour rule, created by Malcolm Gladwell, the key to achieving true expertise in any skill is simply a matter of practicing, albeit in the correct way, for at least 10 000 hours – In other words, that is 416 days of practicing.
In the bigger picture, this does not seem like that long – I mean, the average time spent with your face pointed at the phone is 1000+ hours a year, so putting that away and practicing instead, then you would already have found 10% of the time needed. Yet, without simplifying it too much, this does not take into account the involvement and support from fx., friends and family or whether this newly acquired skill is something you can earn an income with.
Personally, I believe that practice makes perfect, but sometimes the circumstances are just not aligned to your dream – which could be the reason why I am working in business development and not a professional golfer.
Others would probably call that an excuse, that if I had put my mind to it, in my younger days, then i would have made it one step closer today – leading me to the second unfairness of the “mastery game”; Often these skills have to be festered and trained in a young age. How some people knew what they wanted from the age of 7 is a mystery to me – I could barely comprehend choosing between Charizard or Squirtle (sorry Bulba, not your fault) and yet alone choose my future skill to excel!
This leads me to the questions of the day! What if you did not have to practice 10k hours or choose while you are young? Or even if you chose, what if you could easily change that skill to something else? The solution to all of these would be the introduction of a “skill tree”, a very well known concept from some of our favorite games.
Where am I going with this?
With the solution right at hand, I have decided that instead of practicing to become a world renown dancer – I guess, that I will postpone that for tomorrow – I would like to spend a few hours on exploring the potential of a life with a skill tree.
As there are many games to use as an example, I will use a bit from several, but focus my efforts on a glorious game, which I have mentioned several times before – that’s right – we are finally gonna be focusing a bit on Skyrim! This message IS NOT sponsored by Todd Howard, as another frugal attempt to bring Skyrim back to life – I just simply happen to like the logic behind their skill tree.
Skyrim
Skyrim was released on the holy day of November 11, 2011, as an action role-playing video game developed by Bethesda Game Studios. It is the fifth game in The Elder Scrolls series, following The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion – set to occur 200 years after the events transpiring in Oblivion. So that you not have to take only my word for it, then as to quote Skyrim Wiki (I know reliable as fuck, but still):
“Upon release, the game received critical acclaim, with praise for its character advancement, world design, visuals, and dual-wielding combat, and it is considered to be one of the greatest video games ever made.”
The Plot
Skyrim is a cold and mountainous region in the north of the continent of Tamriel. The main story focuses on the player’s character, the Dragonborn, on their quest to defeat Alduin the World-Eater, a dragon who is prophesied to destroy the world.
Contrary to Smaug, this guy does not fuck around and starts reviving his dead breatheren all around the land. It is your job as the Dragonborn to stop all of this from happening, while engaging in several factions, fights and assisting in choosing the next leader of the kingdom – or you can just say “not my job” and go dungeon exploring.
How Is This Relevant?
I could use this game for 100 articles and most likely I will, but for now what qualifies Skyrim, is that over the course of the game, the player completes quests and develops the character by improving skills.
The skill tree is quite expansive – not as wild as world of warcraft back in classic – and you can unlock new skills for every level you get, moving from amateur to legendary.
For each new unlock, your character becomes better at the given quality and you can feel the improvement immediately. Imagine that! Waking up on your 30th birthday, unlocking the ability to sing like Celine Dione, where you the day before could barely hit a note.
Gameplay
Skyrim is playable from either a first- or third-person perspective. The player may freely roam over the land of Skyrim, an open world environment consisting of wilderness, dungeons, caves, cities, towns, fortresses, and villages.
You get to play around with an expansive character creation tool, where you can choose, sex, race, and characteristics – and from here on, everything is up to the player! The only thing fixed, is the main storyline of the dragonborn, meaning everyone gets the powers belonging to this title – aside from that you get to choose everything freely, whether you wanna be a flame throwing orc, dagger wielding elf or werewolf!
Your combat effectiveness can be limited or improved by your focus on either Stamina, Magic, or health, followed by a total of 18 different skill trees that are grouped into 3 distinct categories (Mage, warrior, thief).
Each of the trees, then have several options for you to delegate your points in and no one decides what would be a good or bad combination – it is all up to you!
Debate Of The Day
Now would that not be great – the possibility to delegate points into areas where you want to excel? Of course, I am not suggesting that we Copy Skyrims options 1-1 – let us be honest, not many people would benefit from two-handed weapon use today, but good for you if you do.
What I am thinking about, is a never ending set of skill trees, available to humans from birth, with a fixed point system, allowing the user free, but “limited” choice of where to allocate their skills. To make it more responsible and not have a toddler delegate everything into the “act of drooling” or a supersonic scream, this should not be activated until you reach the age of 18. Thus, giving everyone a fair chance to delegate their points accordingly from a “reasonable” age.
The specifics on how this should work is a bit more complicated – whether the points should run according to age with one point every year, a “newly invented” xp system, hard work, or a “paid” trainer, is something that could be up for discussion. Games are using these differently.
WOW classic takes in both the xp and “hard work” system, where you can level up by earning experience points to earn skill points through quests and additionally unlock added points in the “tree” related to the action you perform, e.g., by cooking to become a better chef.
Whereas, Skyrim on the other hands makes use of all three systems, the xp system, the hard work for individual areas and the paid trainer, so if you cannot be bothered shooting your bow 5000 times, but instead got plenty of gold to burn, you can request a trainer in archery to teach you the skill for money.
The reason why I am using these two as good examples, is the vastness of their trees – whereas, if you take world of warcraft today, you only have a limited amount of skills to improve, which assures a more streamlined character, with less options for differentiation. I am not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, on occasion fewer options are good, like how some restaurants should just stick to 5 courses, instead of 25.
The same goes for Skyrim, the many options can bring you down a path, where your delegation does not benefit your progress in the game and moving forward becomes that much harder OR you can focus on one specific area, which makes you over-powered compared to the remaining NPC’s and many areas of the game is left unexplored. I reckon many skyrim players can relate to making a rogue/Archery build, where the 5x sneak damage brings an unfair advantage to dungeon exploring, letting you run through combate easily. However, this build have you neglect development within enchanting – to this day, after 10+ playthroughs, i still have no idea how to enchant weapons effectively.
Anyway, I reckon this specific area could lead us down many fun topics, yet, for this time around, I am just gonna stick to the potential and risks of the skill tree. Therefore, we are gonna explore to what extent, receiving skills like this, is more or less valuable, compared to good old fashioned hard work!
Stickmen & John Cena
Before deep diving into the philosophical area of internal fulfillment offered by the feeling of “earning it”, I would like to offer up my biggest argument for the benefit of the skill tree, which is rooted in guaranteed and instant gratification! I do not know about you, but I fucking hate giving it my best, just to learn that the chosen field is not for me – how many times have you not tried joining a sport, with the intention of becoming “the very best”, just to find, after months of hard work, that you are mediocre at best?
Or sat down to draw a masterpiece, only to produce stickman nr 600 eating something that could be interpreted as a steak, as well as a rock. With the skill tree that would no longer be the case, you would insert the earned points in an area of your choosing and instantly feel the improvement. It would be possible to go from an individual who fails to boil rice, nearly burning down the kitchen, to a Michelin chef, who can offer some of the best cousine the world has ever seen – all within the same day.
Should we include the possibility to reset your skills, you could even become the next Picasso, confirm on the same day that this is not for you and reset your points.
From here, it could instead dawn on you that becoming the next John Cena in wrestling is more down your alley and with a simple adjustment of points, you have now found your dream path within 24 hours. In skyrim, you cannot reset your points that easily, so my example above is more specific to other games (sorry to refer to WOW again, but my brain is stuck on that).
However, there are also many downsides to this option, being that your choices have little consequences and the excitement of being the best would diminish, as you could literally be the best at anything, at any time you would like to. Maybe by this standard, there would be no such thing as “mastery”, since being a master is just a matter of preference on the given day.
Being A Master
I am not aiming to remove mastery, but instead I am trying to bring it to us faster and minimize the risk of failing. According to Forbes, the number one reason people fail in a venture is that they give in to immediate temptations rather than staying focused on their longer-term goals. This is caused by an ongoing battle in ourselves between the present and the future, a dramatic conflict between what we know is good for us in the long term versus what we want to do right now.
In video games, this is often less of an issue, as they do not run over several decades, like what our own lifespan do – however, even here, we may fall for the temptation of fighting a boss higher than our level, entering a dangerous zone to get higher xp for each task, or skipping important dialog to reach the conclusion faster. The desire for instant gratification is ingrained to us and our survival – which according to a certain someone (Freud) is simply seeking pleasure over pain, referred to as the pleasure principle.
My point is not to bore you to death, still highlight this perception, helps understand the dilemma with introducing skill points to your life – as it is assumed that delayed gratification involves selecting pain over pleasure, but results in greater rewards (like losing weight), since it fulfills a higher-order and longer-term needs. What this means, is a contradiction to a skill tree, as it fulfills a long term goal of becoming a master in a chosen field, but it does so instantly, compared to the usual delayed gratification.
This setup makes sense for gaming, where your character development is more urgent and limited in time, versus that of your own – it would be pretty boring, if you could not battle Alduin until you had accumulated 30 years of play time. However, in real life, where we are developing over time and are adjusting to our learnings, removing the delayed gratification from that equation, is perceived as a bad idea, as it is ruining the virtue of self-control.
Yet, our society is leading us towards a world of instant gratification – we never have to wait for anything! Want fast food – we got ÜberEats! Want a tv show without commercials – we got Netflix! Want an on demand boyfriend or Girlfriend – you got Tinder! So why not have the same choosing skills? Want to be a pro hacker – you got the app “skill build”.
Aah and finally the point of this whole thing – I am inconclusive – and of course here is why! The most common argument for delayed gratification is that it is the desire to delay pleasure in anticipation of a greater reward later. However, the reward provided from well allocated points, could by today’s standards be just as great, as if we had waited 10 years for it – so why wait for tomorrow, for what you can get today. This brings me to my dilemma, because by doing this, our former “delayed gratification” becomes our new “instant gratification”, posing the question, if our new skills would bring less value?
Since unlocking a mastery skill would be the same as eating a piece of candy today. I am not philosophical enough to come up with a straight answer here, and I am also crazy biased, as I really want to become a legendary brew master within the next 24 hours. That said, there would still have to be a certain waiting time, depending on the method of earning points to spend – unless it is some overpowered mechanism and you start with an extreme amount of points from day one – but come one people, we do not want to break reality too hard!
Make A Choice… And Then Another
Speaking of breaking reality – we are currently living in a society, where most of us are flooded with choices! If we just take a few decades ago, the idea that there could ever be too much choice was, for some, a controversial claim. We played 2d games, with the purpose of bouncing a ball from left to right (Pong), and that was it.
Yet, today our choices are so vast that it creates a choice overload, referred to as the “Paradox of Choice” – With so many choices, we have become paralyzed with the process of weighing options – our skill trees have simply grown so far that once we have made a choice we immediately transfer our thoughts to “What if I made a different choice?” At any given time, we can create our own webshop on Etsy, we can create a video game with Unreal Engine, or create amazing images with Krita.
However, before we invest enough time to see progress, we are on to the next skill (does this resemble some of the stuff i mentioned above?). How does a skill tree play into this? If you go by the model of Skyrim, then there is of course a great variation of choices, but at the same time you are limited to 18 branches.
That is impossible for real life to fit into and even if we increased it to 50, then I believe we would still experience a problem of being to limited. So we want a giant tree, with plenty of options, but without the possibility of being paralyzed in our choice… yea, I think we are gonna have a hard time meeting those criteria.
Luckily, a few smart people out there have done me a huge solid, in stating that overall, choice deprivation was clearly the most common experience, compared to that of suffering from the paradox. Meaning, we just got handed the permission to a gigantic skill tree, without harming “the greater good” (most american sentence i have ever said).
Yet, this also increase the potential margin of error – as a wrongly put point, can affect the greater setup of your build – I have made this mistake quite thoroughly in Skyrim, where building a thief, that could make his own armor sounded cool – until he had spent 28 lockpicks on a advanced chest and remembered the importance for a thief to have the skill lockpicking.
Yea, stupid choice, maybe a bit of an extreme example – but hey if you start making these choices when you are 18, I can guarantee you that it won’t be all of your points that go into knowledge on investments and financial bonds. Instead you might end up more like many university students, with half a degree in “Fine Arts” and a full degree in “Economics” many years later. In itself, it seems that the skill tree might not necessarily be the cure for making wrong investments in skills, but you do find out much faster, whether you made the right choice or not.
Matrix VS Skyrim
We just took a massive detour around the topic, but I must admit that I am still surprisingly hooked on having a skill tree mechanism in my life! With the risk of becoming bored with the option of obtaining my goals without the same amount of work, and the potential of wrongly allocating my points – I find the upsides to far outweigh these!
To be able to move down the path of mastery in any skill you find interesting, without affect from your heritage or genetics, would be ground breaking. Personally, I would let myself engage in the method of “jacking” from Matrix, if it meant downloading skills straight to my brain (I just find that the mental skill tree from skyrim sounds more pleasant, than a jack stick to my brain).
At the end, I do feel like I need to mention a final consideration, being that just because you become a master in thai boxing, does not mean you will become a thai boxing champion – since, in difference from Skyrim, there is not only one dragonborn in real life – here your mastery would be competing with that of others. So attaining your mastered skill would be easier, but using it to become the best and get crazy famous, would still be a fair competition among all.
Are you Sneaky or?
With that i have shared a fair bit from my heart – so maybe you could do the same and bring some honesty to the table? Add in the comments what your preferred method of completing skyrim is (I reckon, some of you must admit thief)? Also take a moment to think about how you would spent your points?
All right, I guess that is all I got in me for today – Thank you for reading this far and feel free to provide any feedback you may have – We would like for you to keep leveling up with us! Feel free to contribute your own content, such as fan art, game reviews, or personal gaming stories, to be featured as Pixelated Wisdom.
[…] part of what makes the game so fun and appealing!Yet, this brings us back to my former post on “ Excellence Is Not A Skill, It’s An Attitude!”, as it fulfills this desire to accomplish achievements. It provokes instant gratification which […]