Chapter II: Skill Acquisition and Development
What sports science says about skill acquisition, deliberate practice and affordances, and what it means for how you practise Apex Legends.
Scientific Findings: Defining Skill Acquisition
Countless studies have been conducted on skill acquisition in traditional sports and competitive disciplines. The term skill can be defined as a player’s ability to appropriately identify, organise, and execute an action or pattern of behaviour with effectiveness, consistency, and efficiency to solve a task (Williams et al.,2003).
The field of skill acquisition combines a rich body of knowledge from a variety of fields, including motor learning and control, sport psychology, pedagogy and biomechanics, with the overarching aim of translating research into practice (Malhotra et al.,2022). In ecological dynamics it has been revealed that the most relevant information for decision making and the regulation of action in dynamic environments is emergent during continuous performer-environment interactions (Travassos, Araújo, Davids, Vilar, Esteves, & Correia, 2012).
From this viewpoint, neurobiological systems exhibit purposive adaptive behaviour from the spontaneous patterns of interactions between system components. Abundant empirical evidence and mathematical modelling have provided strong support for an ecological dynamics interpretation, demonstrating the existence of key properties of complex, neurobiological systems in coordination of multi-articular goal-directed behaviours (Davids et. Al.,2013).
To summarise, the findings suggest that skill acquisition in competitive disciplines involves the intricate workings of neurobiological systems and their purposive adaptive behaviour to continuous interactions between the performer and the environment. The emergence and acquisition of relevant information during these interactions is crucial for proper decision-making and action regulation in dynamic settings.
Skill development
Research shows that efficient skill development stems from engagement in controlled practice environments. Ericsson (2021) sets out five criteria that helps practitioners develop and integrate deliberate practice within their context:
- clear session intention,
- performer can complete the task individually, and is beneficial to their development,
- provision of immediate and actionable feedback is available,
- the performer is afforded multiple attempts at the practice task, and
- the coach/teacher can oversee the development of future tasks to align with the needs of the performer.
Deliberate practice (DP) has proven to be the most efficient way of improvement due to its purposive direction of focus and effective usage of time. The notion of DP emphasises the effectiveness of practice in controlled environments.
Affordances in Esports: Perceptive Differences Across Skill Ranges
In the dynamic world of esports, athletes are constantly immersed in a plethora of information modalities – optical, acoustic, and proprioceptive – shaping their intentions, coordination, and decision-making during performance, a concept coined as “affordances” by Gibson (1979). This fundamental understanding of affordances becomes the cornerstone for skill adaptation, a critical process through which esports athletes strive to attain mastery in their chosen digital arenas (Renshaw et al., 2019). Skill adaptation, defined as the establishment of adaptive and functional movement solutions between the individual and their environment, is crucial for achieving expertise in a sport.
Affordances in Apex Legends
In the realm of esports, games such as first-person shooters (FPS) like Apex Legends, can vary significantly in affordances due to different maps, characters, and in-game events/mechanics. However, all these games feature comprehensive heads-up displays (HUDs) that provide vital information to players, including details about their character, friendlies, and a minimap. The minimap, for instance, offers real-time information about teammate and opponent locations, influencing strategic decisions and character movements. The perception of spatial constraints through these affordances informs players about potential ally support or opportunities to counter enemy movements in dynamic game environments like Apex Legends.
Affordances in simple terms, can be defined as the necessary information and in-game behaviour/action in order to overcome a certain constraint (explained later in next chapter). Essentially, affordances represent the opportunities for action that the environment (or game) provides to a player, based on their skill level and perception of the game environment. In this context, affordances help players understand how to interact with the game to respond to challenges or constraints effectively. Introducing this simplified definition sets a solid foundation for later elaborating on the concept of constraints in the next chapter.
Defining Constraints in Esports: A Multifaceted Framework
In esports, the concept of affordances is intricately linked to the constraints players face within the individual-character dynamics of FPS (First Person Shooter) or individual-champion dynamics of MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) games. Originating from Newell’s model (1986), constraints split into three domains:
- organism / individual
- task / competitive objective
- environmental / external factors
Constraints in Apex Legends
Illustrated in Figure 1, the adaptation from Ziv (2023) exemplifies how Apex Legends (AL) aligns with interacting constraints, considering the intricate interplay of Legends’ Kit familiarity, individual limits, and dynamic interactions within the game environment. With AL’s complexity heightened by a roster of dozens of Legends, each with unique abilities (individual constraints) and strategic implications for tasks, comprehensive game mastery demands a profound understanding of these multifaceted constraints. In FPS games, where environmental constraints hold prominence due to diverse maps and randomised ring pulls, players must delve into specific competitive intricacies including map layouts, space control, map control & macro rotation, key heat areas such as choke points & death zones etc., underlining the multifaceted nature of constraints in Apex.
Individual Constraints
Clear physical and anatomical aspects are obviously difficult to improve because we have limited influence over them. However, physiological skills such as visual skills and hand-eye coordination/mechanics can also be considered part of a player’s Individual Constraints. This also encompasses a player’s logical comprehension, knowledge, awareness, and proficiency of in-game mechanics (e.g., ring strategy, ability theory, gun skill, etc.). Functional individual constraints pertain to how a player can learn and adapt to skills.
Competitive Constraints
Those limitations are created through the dynamics of competition, often related to variables which opponents have control over. By examining the progression of a fight or match through competitive constraints, we can assess a rough framework of potential options for every team within our observation. We refer to this, among other concepts, as a part of Battle Dynamics.
Environmental Constraints
Environmental constraints refer to the characteristics in the environment that change the level of difficulty of a task or activity when it is performed in that environment. For instance, forming a Line of Sight (LoS) on an enemy might be harder when we are restricted by the need to climb atop a roof first, compared to simply peeking out from our cover.
Continue to Chapter III: Skillset of Apex Legends