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To get good, go after the metagame

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Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#41

Post by mangoman »

Interesting. I'm familiar with the meta as it relates to gaming (I follow SC2 pretty closely, though I basically never play anymore). I am curious to explore what the meta is as it relates to building web apps, or building software systems. I guess in web apps, the meta has evolved away from stateful and towards stateless applications, rigid to ephemeral infrastructure, and away from big kitchen sink frameworks towards smaller tools built for specific purposes (here I'm thinking like netlify, react-cli / vue-cli, serverless and aws lambda compatible frameworks and languages). In database land, I think there's a bit of reversal towards a happy medium between Relational and No SQL with the whole NewSQL trend (though I think most people just end up using whatever they're comfortable with).

I think the concept of 'covered ground' is especially fascinating when it comes to thinking about the meta of building web apps. Do you really appreciate the trade offs between MySQL and MongoDB, if you haven't ran into the scaling issues between the two? I don't think "running a bad migration" is covering enough ground to appreciate the differences. Is struggling to wrangle a bug in an Angular 1 directive enough 'covered ground' to understand the meta in building frontend applications?

And I wonder if the meta is moving towards low code and no code frameworks. Dark Lang looks pretty cool, though I've never really used it. Retool proved really valuable for internal dashboards for managing customer support at my last company.

You could explore the meta at a more fine grained level than just 'web apps', or zoom out to software in general and try to understand the meta (just like you could analyze why certain units in SC2 are just broken, or understand why the economies of the different races mean different opportunities for timing attacks for each race)

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#42

Post by EdwardCoffin »

blackandblue wrote: post #27
Proziam wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I played a lot of chess as a kid. That's actually where I 'discovered' the real value of fundamentals. Quick wins in chess are universally the result of an opponent making a horrific mistake. Of course, that means the opposite is also true! There is no faking it in chess. You either grasp the game or you get soundly defeated over and over. That is also true of esports titles, which is why I fell in love with them.

would you guys mind giving examples of what you are calling fundamentals?

My biggest improvement in chess came after comprehending The Theory of Steinitz [1]:

1. At the beginning of the game the forces stand in equilibrium.

2. Correct play on both sides maintains this equilibrium and leads to a drawn game.

3. Therefore a player can win only as a consequence of an error made by the opponent. (There is no such thing as a winning move.)

4. As long as the equilibrium is maintained, an attack, however skilful, cannot succeed against correct defence. Such a defence will eventually necessitate the withdrawal and regrouping of the attacking pieces and the attacker will then inevitably suffer disadvantage.

5. Therefore a player should not attack until he already has an advantage, caused by the opponent's error, that justifies the decision to attack.

6. At the beginning of the game a player should not at once seek to attack. Instead, a player should seek to disturb the equilibrium in his favour by inducing the opponent to make an error - a preliminary before attacking.

7. When a sufficient advantage has been obtained, a player must attack or the advantage will be dissipated."

[1] http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/theory-steinitz

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#43

Post by dmurray »

gowld wrote: post #28
Proziam wrote: post #3

Getting good in almost all games is based on understanding and mastering the fundamentals to the extent that you can make consistently correct (or at least a high degree of 'correctness') decisions based on them. This is true for all esports titles, and probably all games in general. Mastering the fundamentals will make you 'good' to a level that very few people ever reach. It's not until you reach a level where ever…

IMO, if you get to the point where the metagame matters, unless you are getting paid to play professionally, or you love metagames for their own sake, you should stop or drop down to a lower level league. Replacing every game by its metagame, as some "board game geeks" tend to do, destroys the diversiry and value of inventing different games in the first place. "Scrabble is an area control game with a complicated res…

That's not the meaning of "metagame" used in this article and typically used in esports.

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#44

Post by ggambetta »

Proziam wrote: post #3

Getting good in almost all games is based on understanding and mastering the fundamentals to the extent that you can make consistently correct (or at least a high degree of 'correctness') decisions based on them. This is true for all esports titles, and probably all games in general. Mastering the fundamentals will make you 'good' to a level that very few people ever reach. It's not until you reach a level where ever…

> Mastering the fundamentals will make you 'good' to a level that very few people ever reach.

Can you clarify this? Is this because most people don't care about mastering the fundamentals in the first place? I can't tell whether I'm missing something and the idea is more complex, or that's what you're saying.

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#46

Post by shadowsun7 »

na85 wrote: post #25
richk449 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The definition of meta used in the piece doesn't match my understanding. Take his final example where he says that adjusting tactics in response to your opponent in ultimate frisbee is meta. No, that just strategy. Same goes for most of the examples he gives. Looks like I'm getting old, and the word has been redefined from out under me: In video games, however, the metagame has its own meaning—and depending on which…

>Take his final example where he says that adjusting tactics in response to your opponent in ultimate frisbee is meta. No, that just strategy. Choice of strategy can be "meta", though. It depends on the context. For example in ultimate frisbee the current meta is to play Vertical offense, and so you see a lot of teams training for how to run it and how to defend against it. Back in 2004 ish, the dominant teams played…

OP here. Exactly this.

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#47

Post by vnorilo »

richk449 wrote: post #34
wkey wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what is your definition? :)

I can think of two definitions: 1) a higher level of abstraction. For example, creating a class is programming. Creating a class factory (a class that creates classes) is meta programming. 2) self referential. The movie Adaption is meta, because it is about itself.

I would not call 1 metaprogramming. Meta means something like "outside of". Metaprogramming usually means higher order programming (programs that produce programs, such as source generation, lisp macros or templates).

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#48

Post by drchickensalad »

ggambetta wrote: post #44
Proziam wrote: post #3

Getting good in almost all games is based on understanding and mastering the fundamentals to the extent that you can make consistently correct (or at least a high degree of 'correctness') decisions based on them. This is true for all esports titles, and probably all games in general. Mastering the fundamentals will make you 'good' to a level that very few people ever reach. It's not until you reach a level where ever…

> Mastering the fundamentals will make you 'good' to a level that very few people ever reach. Can you clarify this? Is this because most people don't care about mastering the fundamentals in the first place? I can't tell whether I'm missing something and the idea is more complex, or that's what you're saying.

Most people consistently make mistakes. They're not really playing to win, and going over all their footage to ensure they have their fundamentals down. It's actually really hard to perfect your fundamentals.

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#49

Post by xixixao »

mangoman wrote: post #41

Interesting. I'm familiar with the meta as it relates to gaming (I follow SC2 pretty closely, though I basically never play anymore). I am curious to explore what the meta is as it relates to building web apps, or building software systems. I guess in web apps, the meta has evolved away from stateful and towards stateless applications, rigid to ephemeral infrastructure, and away from big kitchen sink frameworks towar…

The meta in software engineering in general is people. Once you have sufficient technical expertise, you realize that the largest gains come from working efficiently with others.

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#50

Post by Proziam »

ggambetta wrote: post #44
Proziam wrote: post #3

Getting good in almost all games is based on understanding and mastering the fundamentals to the extent that you can make consistently correct (or at least a high degree of 'correctness') decisions based on them. This is true for all esports titles, and probably all games in general. Mastering the fundamentals will make you 'good' to a level that very few people ever reach. It's not until you reach a level where ever…

> Mastering the fundamentals will make you 'good' to a level that very few people ever reach. Can you clarify this? Is this because most people don't care about mastering the fundamentals in the first place? I can't tell whether I'm missing something and the idea is more complex, or that's what you're saying.

In my experience it comes down to two things:

1. People think they already have the fundamentals 'down'

2. Actually mastering the fundamentals can be boring and make a game feel like work (which, if you don't truly enjoy pushing the limits in a game, it is.)

A totally random example from League of Legends. 99% of players go into game after game and literally never review their previous games. They will spam games but literally never go into a custom game to practice last hitting. Or, they'll play a different champion every game, instead of putting in the repetition required to fully comprehend all the matchups they will find themselves in.

In short, very few players think of their most time spent practicing fundamentals as a valuable investment. Related, most players never even learn what the fundamentals are because revealing them takes a lot of effort.

For example, Starcraft is a game largely driven by economy or 'macro' rather than ultra-fast reflexes. However, the importance of macro is basically hidden from novice players. Their in-game experience is 'the other player always has more stuff than I do!' which they often attribute to build-order or other game decisions. It actually takes a while before a player really gets in tune with the idea that they need to be deploying resources ASAP and balancing the resources they acquire with the unit composition they are going to have in the next [insert window of time].

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