To get good, go after the metagame • Hacker News Board

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#161

Post by novok » Tue, Feb 25, 2020, 9:38 PM UTC

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…

I think it depends on the game too. In Dota 2 (and probably LoL) the balance between heros can change significantly per patch, and a lot of winning is having good hero picks compared to the other team. If you don't keep up with the meta, then your win rate will go down, and this is true for amateurs and the pros.

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#162

Post by rlayton2 » Tue, Feb 25, 2020, 9:40 PM UTC

scott_s wrote: post #144

A saying I have related to this is "Rules make sports." The skills and strategies that matter in a sport develop around the rules. Change the rules and you change the sport. The judo example the author presented is actually one of my go-to examples as well. Not only did disallowing grabbing the legs take out an entire suite of offensive options, it took out defensive options in judo. In judo, the main way to win is t…

Another great example is the difference between Rugby Union and Rugby League. While there are lots of rule differences, a key one for me: in Rugby League, defenders must go back 10m after a tackle, while in Rugby Union they do not. This leads Union to be a very close affair with play rarely moving without consistent strong effort, while any fast player in League will get at least 5 of those meters back after every tackle. Very different games strategically, while from an outsiders perspective they are just the same.

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#163

Post by breischl » Tue, Feb 25, 2020, 9:40 PM UTC

clairity wrote: post #93

wilburTheDog wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Charles Ellis wrote a book(1) about that. He asserts that any professional sports competition is a winner's game - you win by successfully executing difficult plays and being better than your competition. But amateur sports is usually a loser's game - you win by not making as many mistakes as your competition. The book is about finance but the observation is universal. 1. https://www.amazon.com/Winning-Losers-Game-6t…

not having read the book, that seems insightful on the surface but isn’t particularly useful or actionable. all it seems to be saying is that to become better, make fewer mistakes, with an implied exhortion to practice. is there more to it than that?

In the original context (finance/investing) his point is that virtually nobody actually manages to consistently beat the market average (net of fees). So it's a "loser's game" and most people would do better avoiding mistakes like paying high fees than trying to beat the market.

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#164

Post by Spellman » Tue, Feb 25, 2020, 9:47 PM UTC

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...

Yup. It could.

However, the key isn't necessarily video recordings. It's deliberately practicing individual things you are bad at in isolation until you are good at them.

We need to record LoL and StarCraft games because it's tough to pause and redo something in the middle of a match. Similarly recording baseball swings or people dancing or swimming is useful for reviewing the complete action.

But when you practice piano, you can pause and redo a measure or line until you get it right, then slowly reincorporate it as part of the whole piece.

The WORST thing you can do is keep playing and think "I'll fix that later." Because inevitably you'll play a piece again, probably do the same mistake, and now you're actually practicing the mistake and ingraining it into your memory.

A video recording and reviewing it of a whole piece can help you go back and isolate your mistakes though. But it's just a tool for the goal of identifying and fixing mistakes.

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#165

Post by zerocrates » Tue, Feb 25, 2020, 9:58 PM UTC

pretendscholar wrote: post #129

When did meta come to mean strategy? It can't really be 'meta' if its about one specific game or implementation.

The "metagame" describes the competitive/race aspect of testing and discovering new strategies from match to matches, adjusting for changes to rules and the strategies you see others employing. I'd say it's this change over time across many individual matches and rulesets that justifies the "meta" part of the term to differentiate with adjustments you might make or try to make within one match.

The term "meta" is often colloquially used to describe a currently dominant strategy... in other words, whatever's winning the metagame. "Meme-game" could be a less flattering but also pretty accurate description of how "the meta" often plays out with a kind of herd mentality.

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#166

Post by jonas21 » Tue, Feb 25, 2020, 10:09 PM UTC

So, is learning to identify and excel at metagames is the meta-metagame?

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#167

Post by mc3 » Tue, Feb 25, 2020, 10:10 PM UTC

Yes there is a general trend that a new "market place" opens up. It could be adwords, or it could be udemy. There is then a race to the top/bottom where the marketplace becomes popular and crowded out. The "crowd" progressively gets a worse deal (except for the winners of the crowd) and the owner makes more money.

For example adwords:

1. Crowd gets worse deal: average bidder pays more for ads, hard to make a profit, might break even if you are lucky. Might be OK in a new niche if lucky.

2. Winners: people with sharp marketing teams who can bid on the right keywords and have an excellent sales funnel to take advantage. They can outbid the crowd and make a profit.

3. Owner: Google makes a tonne of money from ads of course:

Udemy:

1. Crowd gets worse deal: I saw a 80 hour course for $20 on there. Most are 20-30 hours course for $20. Course maker gets a fraction of that. 100's of similar course means the platform doesn't necessarily give you much traffic.

2. Winners: Some people sells thousands of units of their course on these platforms. Again those with good funnels to get them to buy off the platform probably win (I am guessing).

3. Owner: Udemy does well.

Same applies to the app stores!

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#168

Post by z3t4 » Tue, Feb 25, 2020, 10:11 PM UTC

It's interesting that in the early days of Google Adsense it did cost 100x less to advertise, and publishers got 100x more. I'm not that good at math, but does that mean Google takes a 99.99% cut!? Or more likely they rigged the market in the beginning in order to gain publishers and advertisers, eg. they subsidized advertisers and over-compensated publishers. Making the market explode with advertisers and people looking to monetize web content...

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#169

Post by wongarsu » Tue, Feb 25, 2020, 10:16 PM UTC

WhompingWindows wrote: post #159

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…

I disagree slightly. The metagame is relevant whenever you're facing opponents of similar skill. If you're way better than your opponent, you can use highly sub-optimal, non-meta strategies and win through sheer experience and skill. For instance, I could kill 50% of Starcraft opponents lower than me by building only one unit and even announcing which unit I'll mass up. However, if you're making a similar number of e…

I agree, but applying this isn't always easy: When discussing meta and strategy, it's usually discussed in the context of high level esport play. But the optimal strategy often drastically changes with skill level. For example in a shooter when everyone has bad aim and bad teamwork/communication you need a different strategy then in high level esport in the same game where everyone is great at aiming and lives in the same flat as his teammates.

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#170

Post by sdenton4 » Tue, Feb 25, 2020, 10:16 PM UTC

ska wrote: post #107

clairity wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not having read the book, that seems insightful on the surface but isn’t particularly useful or actionable. all it seems to be saying is that to become better, make fewer mistakes, with an implied exhortion to practice. is there more to it than that?

I think the idea is that if you aren't operating at "pro league" level in anything, you should focus mostly on getting the basics right and not making mistakes. But if you are operating at that level, this is table stakes and you need to do more, or your competition will overrun you. I suspect most people/organizations operating at the highest level understand or have internalized this, but many in the other category…

There's also an argument that a some areas just don't really HAVE a pro league, so focusing on not making mistakes is plenty... This can be the case if a) everyone is a beginner, because the field is new, and/or the fundamentals aren't cleanly understood, or b) no one really cares enough to become a pro (perhaps because it's an area that isn't rewarded by available incentive structures).