I wanted to ask that for a long time, but right now seems as good as any other moment:

Can we agree on a definition on what skill floor and ceiling mean?

The reason I ask is because there are two ways it is understood, and I've encountered both. The difference is the point of view, and which variable is the dependent one (input (skill) or output (strength)).
Interestingly, the understanding of ceiling seems to be much wider acknowledged and agreed upon.

Low skill ceiling means that better skill can't be leveraged for more output, while high ceiling means you can leverage your own skill much more and achieve much more output.

Understanding 1: skill floor as entry barrier
Low skill floor means that a pilot is very easy to play, you do not need to be good to get a strength of X. Even a bad player can field GhostFenn and get much out of it.
High skill floor means that a pilot/ship/list is hard to play and you need to be good to get a strength of X. You can't just throw down Inquisitor in a bomb meta without knowing what you're doing because one mistake and he's dead.

Understanding 2: skill floor as minimal result
Low skill floor means that using a pilot puts you at a low strength level if you do not have the necessary skill. Putting a difficult ship with a low floor on the table means you won't get much out of it unless you know what you're doing.
High skill floor of a pilot/ship/list means accordingly that you can be very bad as player, but using GhostFenn will still get you good results.

One of those two understandings is consistent with the explanation of skill ceiling. Think of it this way:
you have a player skill of X on a scale of 1 to 100. Let's say 40.
A very low ceiling of 35 will push that output from the player skill down to 35, because you can't leverage the additional skill. That means your output is not your skill but moved in a direction by the floor/ceiling.
Accordingly, if you have a skill of 40 and the floor is 50, then you are pushed up to an output of 50. That is consistent with the Understanding 2. Let's say you are a bad player (skill 10) but GhostFenn has a high floor of 50, then you will still get the result of 50.

How do you understand skill floor?
I don't particularly care either way, but it would be nice if we could agree on one understanding.

I always understood skill floor to mean how bad a ship can be in the hands of a noob.

Genji in Overwatch has a very low skill floor and a very high skill ceiling; if you don't know what you're doing, you won't be helping your team, but if you've mastered him, no-one can touch you.

Just now, StriderZessei said:

I always understood skill floor to mean how bad a ship can be in the hands of a noob.

Genji in Overwatch has a very low skill floor and a very high skill ceiling; if you don't know what you're doing, you won't be helping your team, but if you've mastered him, no-one can touch you.

So that‘s number two.

Understanding 2.

The big issue with skill floors and ceiling that people don't seem to get is:

A high skill floor does not mean something has a low skill ceiling. And a low skill floor does not mean it has a high skill ceiling.

I have seen the argument "it has a high skill floor so it's for new players and good players won't get anything out if it" just because something is good even if someone sucks does not make it bad for skilled players by default.

For me:

Skill floor: the lowest level at which the list can function, independently of player skill.

Skill ceiling: the highest level the list can function, dependent on player skill.

So, a list with a low floor is one that is easy to run and meet a certain baseline of competence with regardless of your skill as a player. Quad TLT, Fat Han, etc. Lists that require minimal mental effort to do consistent damage, or which can make many meaningful decisions with perfect information.

A list with a high floor is one that is difficult to run. Either requires lots of practice to do well with, or is just plain BAD. Something where list building holds you back, if you're of average skill as a player. 6 naked HWKs, say, but also Brobots.

A list with a low ceiling is on that is difficult to excel with. Where you can meet a baseline minimum competence level, but not move much above it - again Quad Y TLT Y Wings fit here.

A list with a high ceiling is one that is possible to excel with if you're very good at running it and/or at playing the game, generally. Brobots, say.

So, examples:

Low/Low: Quad TLT Y Wings. You're going to roll a lot of dice, and you're going to plough under a lot of lists with the sheer weight of them, but good players will be able to shred you by PS kills, outguessing you to control range, etc.

Low/high: Dash/Poe. Both fundamentally strong, tough ships with good damage output and good action economy. But to get the best out of them needs skill and patience and good abilities to outguess your opponent.

High/Low: non-fucntional lists, bad ships. U Wings, Punishers, etc. Possible to do well with with luck and good matchups, but not without those.

High/High: Brobots. Very difficult in inexperienced hands, easy to misplay, misplace, etc etc. But in the right hands, magic.

I think? Of course, a lot if it is meta dependent and matchup dependent anyway.

3 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

So  , a list with a low floor is one that is easy  to run and meet a certain baseline   of     competence with regardless of your sk  il  l as a player.

That is understanding 1 then.

I'd never really thought about it before now.

Looking around for a 'published' definition, seems to centre on:

"Skill floor usually refers to the minimum skill required to play X decently. Skill ceiling refers to the skill required to play X to it's maximum potential"

such that, if you're scoring a player's skill out of 100, if you don't meet the skill floor, you're basically tournament piñata. If you meet the skill ceiling, you're at a point where you start reaching 'there's not much else I could have done' situations - that's not a guarantee of a win, but it means you didn't lose by screwing up, and at that point you start noticing either scissors-paper-stone matchups and/or dice variation.

Note that @Icelom is correct - note that the two are independent and secondly that the two are also independent from what that 'maximum potential' is.

You can have the skill to use turretless HWKs to their maximum potential. That doesn't mean you'll have a chance of winning against anything short of a Rage/Electronic Baffle/Vader TIE phantom that conveniently blows itself up the first time it attacks.

9 minutes ago, Icelom said:

Understanding 2.

The big issue with skill floors and ceiling that people don't seem to get is:

A high skill floor does not mean something has a low skill ceiling. And a low skill floor does not mean it has a high skill ceiling.

I have seen the argument "it has a high skill floor so it's for new players and good players won't get anything out if it" just because something is good even if someone sucks does not make it bad for skilled players by default.

Exactly. One typically expects the ceiling to be higher than the floor.

2 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

I'd never really thought about it before now.

Looking around for a 'published' definition, seems to centre on:

"Skill floor usually refers to the minimum skill required to play X decently. Skill ceiling refers to the skill required to play X to it's maximum potential"

such that, if you're scoring a player's skill out of 100, if you don't meet the skill floor, you're basically tournament piñata. If you meet the skill ceiling, you're at a point where you start reaching 'there's not much else I could have done' situations - that's not a guarantee of a win, but it means you didn't lose by screwing up, and at that point you start noticing either scissors-paper-stone matchups and/or dice variation.

This feels like a better definition to me. SKill floor/ceiling being more about the player than the list - but then, you do have to factor in the list as well. Some lists just don't allow a player to exercise their full skill. I guess there's also a floor/ceiling effect in list building/decision and meta analysis as well.

Just now, thespaceinvader said:

I guess there's also a floor/ceiling effect in list building/decision and meta analysis as well.

Totally correct. One thing I like to maintain is that you can't 'win' in the listbuilding stage (some of the more recent monstrosities notwithstanding) but you can definitely 'lose' there. There isn't a 'best' list, however, but a 'best list' for a given player at a given event, based on:

• Natural playstyle (aggressive/vs defensive)
• Ability to remember all relevant triggers within squad (lower makes massed generics more attractive)
• Ability to pre-plan and eyeball moves and read opponent (lower makes high PS reactive moves more attractive)
• Etc, etc.

2 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Note  that @Icelom is correct - note that the two are independent and secondly that the two are partially indep  endent from what that 'maximum potential' is. 

Floor and ceiling are definitely independent, but the logic between floor and ceiling is inconsistent in one, but consistent in the other way to understand skill floor.

4 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Looking  around for a 'published' definition, seems to centre on:  

In case you also ended up in that overwatch forum, keep reading

1 minute ago, thespaceinvader said:

This feels like a better definition to me. SKill floor/ceiling being more about the player than the list - but then, you do have to factor in the list as well. Some lists just don't allow a player to exercise their full skill. I guess there's also a floor/ceiling effect in list building/decision and meta analysis as well.

I think referring to the list/character/... is more useful because that remains constant between different people and so it‘s easier to determine.

I.e., GhostFenn has a high floor because we know it‘s strong in any hand, but we have no idea how good I am.

But I mostly care that we use the same definition because it is extremely confusing otherwise.

12 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

I think referring to the list/character/... is more useful because that remains constant between different people and so it‘s easier to determine.

I.e., GhostFenn has a high floor because we know it‘s strong in any hand, but we have no idea how good I am.

But I mostly care that we use the same definition because it is extremely confusing otherwise.

My reason for going with that definition (there were several forums, but yes, mostly esports related) is, it's a skill floor, not a performance floor.

i.e. skill floor means 'skill must be at least this much', whilst skill ceiling is 'skill beyond reaching this point becomes irrelevant'.

So a low skill floor means 'requires low skill' and a high skill ceiling is 'the difference between good player and bad player is very noticable'

Taking @thespaceinvader 's examples:

TLT Y-wings.....there is some smart manoeuvring, but yes, ultimately the squad kind of approaches '3 turn to victory and throw red dice at them until they go away'. It is a low floor (because, again, you could put up a fair fight against most opponents with HotAC and a D6) and a low ceiling because beyond 'don't crash' and finessing the distance between your ships (to get everyone in range but no more than one in range 1) there's only so much you can do, tactically.

The thing is, you could make exactly the same argument about Ghost-Fenn; but the latter is clearly the more effective squad. That's not the same as it requiring less or more skill.

I agree with Dash/Poe as a good Low/High example. It is easy to do okay. But the distinction between good and bad player is very noticeable because the squad has some big mid-game tactical and strategic decisions. When to bring Poe in, for example (and thus negating Lone Wolf)

A trio of generic TIE phantoms requires a lot of skill (high floor). And it will be very noticeable the difference between good and bad players (high ceiling). But even in the hands of the best players, it's still a bloody awful squad . You may be using it to its maximum potential but said potential is still probably 'get vapourised by high PS turrets'

List Difficulty:

• Easy
• Normal
• Hard

List Quality:

• Good
• Average
• Bad

Combine as necessary.

The nuances in between require discussion and use of more words and occasionally full sentences to provide context.

Floor and ceiling are independent of each other. They are also relative to some not necessarily quantifiable minimum or maximum.

The skill floor is how easy something is to not do wrong.

A 360 turret with no doughnut hole has a low floor because it is easy to not lose a chance to shoot (the most valuable chance in the game.)

Something with only a bullseye arc out the front has a high floor because it is easier to lose a chance to shoot. Or this:

2 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

i.e. skill floor means 'skill must be at least this much', whilst skill ceiling is 'skill beyond reaching this point becomes irrelevant'.

So a low skill floor means 'requires low skill' and a high skill ceiling is 'the difference between good player and bad player is very noticable'

So as noted any particular ship and list is going to require a certain minimum level of competency (its floor) and will possess a certain maximum possible result (its ceiling.)

2 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

it's   a skill floor, not a performance floor.   

Good point, that‘s probably better than my input vs output, but exactly what I meant.

The problem is that there is demonstrated skill (what you call performance) and true skill. But we only ever see the demonstrated skill, naturally, and so talking about actual player skill is not really possible.

As I said, the performance understanding is logically consistent with the ceiling because ceiling and floor modify your true skill if you‘d be out of the limit that they set.

A numerical example might be useful. Let‘s take a hypothetical list. This list will always be compared to other lists, that‘s why it does not dictate the number for ceiling and floor.

100

75| ———ceiling

50

25| ——— floor

0

A true skill of 100 can not be leveraged, or as you said: any skill between the LIST maximum of 75 is wasted. The true skill is pushed down to the ceiling. Which is effectively performance.

But if we use the same logic at the other end, we get understanding 2: a true skill of 10 is elevated to the LIST minimum of 25. Again this is the performance.

Any skill between 25 and 75 is unaffected and the player will get exactly as much performance out of it as he can input his true skill.

I hope that was better explained this time.

The way I've always understood/used it is:

Low floor = A bad player with this list will do badly

High Floor = A bad player with this list will do well

Low Ceiling = A good player with this list still might not get great results

High Ceiling = The better the player with this list, the better they will do. There's no 'cap' on potential results if you play well enough.

But all this discussion is making me think again...

I've always understood skill floor as the 2nd definition : what's the absolute worst a list can perform, so high floor is better.

Just now, player2072913 said:

The   way I've always understood/used it is:

Low floor =  A bad player with this list will do badly

  High Floor = A bad  pl  ayer with this list will do well  

That‘s also understanding 2. so far that‘s slightly more popular, but we‘ve only had few voices.

Understanding 1

Just now, Dabirdisdaword said:

Understanding 1

Now it‘s 5:4 in favor of 2

looks like we‘ve all been misunderstanding each other in that regard for some time...

Well, to me, I simply imagine a floor and a ceiling .

So, the floor is the minimum altitude at which you have to be present to even stand in the room.

The ceiling sets the limit of how high you can get inside of the room.

Now, apply Pilot Skill as the measured unit instead of meters. Floor is how skilled one has to be to operate the thing. Ceiling is how far can one get while increasing their skill.

1 minute ago, ryfterek said:

Now  , apply Pilot Skill as the measured unit instead of meters. Floor is how skilled one has to be to operate the thing. Ceiling is how far can one get while increasing the  ir skill.  

So understanding 1. puts it at 5:5

Which is player centric (input/skill), not list centric (output/performance).

1 minute ago, GreenDragoon said:

Which is player centric (input/skill), not list centric (output/performance).

Well, it's the player who possesses the skill . List can only be more or less optimised and/or more or less powerful.

2 minutes ago, ryfterek said:

Well, it's the player who possesses the skill . List can only be more or less optimised and/or more or less powerful.

Yes. But the list is always the same.

Think about it that way: the first understanding asks about the floor „given my true skill AND this list, what can I expect as minimum?“

The second asks „given this list, what can I expect as minimum?“

And this is following the way we use ceiling, where we all agree and which asks „given this list, what can I expect as maximum?“

32 minutes ago, player2072913 said:

The way I've always understood/used it is:

Low floor = A bad player with this list will do badly

High Floor = A bad player with this list will do well

Low Ceiling = A good player with this list still might not get great results

High Ceiling = The better the player with this list, the better they will do. There's no 'cap' on potential results if you play well enough.

But all this discussion is making me think again...

I disagree with your choice there but think it is a useful way to try and conceptualize this.

Low floor = a bad player will not appear incompetent and may do okay or even well.

High floor = a bad player will appear incompetent and will not do okay.

Low ceiling = a good player will do okay but will find it difficult to do well.

High ceiling = a good player will do well.

Thus:

Low floor/Low ceiling = a bad player will do badly while a a good player will do "okay."

X floor / High Ceiling = a bad player will do badly while a good player will do well.