They are vastly different skill sets (with some overlap) (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Wednesday, February 08, 2017, 20:22 (2657 days ago) @ BeardFade

How can they make accurate crucible changes when they can't play the Crucible at even a moderate level? I get that they have data, but these two are playing really poorly. It makes me feel like they can't get an accurate assessment of the meta anecdatally (one of my favorite new words).

I mean, these guys are playing at practically half speed, shooting poorly, forgetting to reload after an encounter, all things you don't run into in the Crucible. There's been like 4 supers that have gone without a kill.

Granted, maybe SBMM has just skewed what I play against a lot.

So I work at a guitar shop. I spend a lot of my day helping customers choose guitars that'll do what they need, or fixing them/setting them up to suit their playstyle. I've been playing guitar for close to 20 years now, but I'm not a particularly good player. "Serviceable" at best. Plenty of my customers blow me out of the water when it comes to skill with a guitar. But most of them have no idea how to fix their own guitars, or what adjustments to make if something isn't behaving the way they want it to. Most of them have misconceptions about what they need to do in order to fix a problem they are experiencing.
So they bring their guitars to me, because I know how to take care of their problems better than they do, even though they can play circles around me. Because they've spent their time learning to play guitar, while I've spend my time learning to fix them.
That being said, I've never known a truly skilled and trustworthy guitar tech who didn't also play at least passably well, because it informs your work as a technician. Guitar players often struggle to describe the problems they are having with their instruments, but because I can play myself, I can interpret what they are trying to describe and make the necessary adjustments.

So basically, I don't think game designers need to be particularly good at playing their games in order to do a good job making them... but I do think it can help.