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To get good, go after the metagame

commoncog.com

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Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#71

Post by DevKoala »

joncrane wrote: post #29
euix wrote: post #24

There is also the ultimate version of the metagame i.e. your personal human condition. Blindly pursuing your career or chasing money without understanding the finite duration of your own physical existence, the scale of the universe, where you want to be in terms of life goals and family.

This is the meta I'm struggling to learn at the moment. I constantly gripe that people making similar salaries in my organization don't produce nearly as much as I do...but they seem happy and I'm constantly stressed out. Which begs the question...who's winning?

What do you mean by “don’t produce nearly as much as I do”?

Are you measuring feature completion or business impact? If your managers are happy with your coworkers that “produce less”, then chances are their efforts have the same business impact as yours.

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#72

Post by gorpomon »

I am the worst (maybe best) person to play board games with because 5 minutes after learning the rules I loudly proclaim what I perceive the meta to be, and unashamedly telegraph my moves in regards to it. I lose almost all of the time, but it makes the night much more memorable and I enjoy the mental exercise of trying to quickly grok a meta. Sometimes for fun I loudly proclaim "I'm going to Moneyball this!", and then often we end up discussing baseball or movies for a fair bit too.

Here are a few games and what their meta is not:

The Climbers - Don't try and get as high as quickly as possible.

Munchkin - Don't try and become a mercenary for hire defending anyone who needs it.

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#73

Post by wizzwizz4 »

blackandblue wrote: post #64
Proziam wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

learning so much from you guys lol not even a gamer :) now i think i am going to try to invest into a camera to record my piano practices. i wonder if that would help me get better...

It would! If you can get past how embarrassing it is to watch yourself play, which I've never been able to do. So many mistakes…

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#74

Post by tdy_err »

alasdair_ wrote: post #14

“The metagame” in MTG was popularized by the game’s creator, Richard Garfield after playing a lot of Cosmic Encounter and other games. He wrote a great paper on it here: https://edt210gamestechsociety.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/2...

TL;DR: Magic became competitive and players influenced Magic by demanding competitive rules.

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#75

Post by 131012 »

EdwardCoffin wrote: post #42
blackandblue wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

I feel that you have summarized the general meta of symetric warfare.

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#76

Post by blattimwind »

Proziam wrote: post #50
ggambetta wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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.)

3. Mastering the fundamentals can just be hard. E.g. movement and aim in most first-person shooters. Mastering these fundamentals can be hard to the point of even professional players having significant gaps, e.g. players that are known to have excellent movement but lackluster aim, or vice versa.

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#77

Post by leetcrew »

richk449 wrote: post #38
leetcrew wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's that loose actually, at least not the way I see it used. usually the "meta" is about choosing between two or more roughly equipotent strategies/tactics based on what you expect your opponent to do. you predict what your opponent will do by observing current trends in the game. the meta certainly changes after balance updates, but it can also change organically over time as people try different thin…

This interpretation seems to unnecessarily constrain strategy. A strategy is not just something you pick at random. A good strategy is chosen with all context in mind - including your opponents choice of tactics and strategy.

that's a fair point; "meta" is probably a subset of what people generally mean by "strategy", especially in military contexts.

in games though, I consider strategy to be something that arises more directly from the game mechanics and perhaps in response to your opponent over the course of a match, while meta comes from understanding the greater community ("meta" because the community exists outside of the game itself).

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#79

Post by streb-lo »

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…

You're using 'meta' as a synonym for popular.

Metagame is the 'game outside the game' ie in rock paper scissors the game is trivial the metagame involves guessing what the opponent will pick.

Meta-software-engineering would be things outside of your software stack that affect the overall process. People, sleep patterns, office layouts, commute time, corporate culture etc.

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#80

Post by edw »

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 process of building things is embedded in various contexts. As is the process of being paid to build things. And those contexts are themselves embedded in other contexts. There are first-, second-, third-, nth-order "smart" moves in a given situation given the specific contexts in play.

In terms of creating web apps or other software, there are organizational, hiring, funding, exit, marketing, and many other meta-games going on — and they're all in constant flux.

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