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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

#281

Post by Thriptic »

hi_im_miles wrote: post #268
Thriptic wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more complicated than that. Largely, it just seems that way because most people never bother to understand the rules past a cursory Google whereas big companies have teams of very experienced regulatory professionals from the agencies themselves who are all about it and therefore know every way to tweak inputs so that they trigger certain regulations rather than others. I was working on a regulatory compliance p…

I think the fact that it took an entire month to understand how to reach compliance speaks to the "pay to win" nature of regulatory barriers-to-entry.

It's a complicated situation. In our case, the regulations were complicated because:

1. There was no one place that held all the data one was expected to know. Regs were strewn over legislative artifacts, departmental implementatikn documents, best practice documents, and international standards. Also, more than one class of regulations potentially covered efforts in the space. There was also no one site listing the locations of everything.

2. The regulations had evolved from an earlier time where an existing regulatory framework was adopted to try to fit new classes of things, and the mapping didn't work perfectly.

3. The regulations were written in a very high level manner to allow freedom of implementation and to make sure that the regulations didn't constrain tech development. Unfortunately, that meant that there were no suggested implementations which made it difficult for new entrants to the space (especially startups who can't afford to hire consultants) to understand how to actually comply simply.

4. There was ambiguity about what systems fit into which regulatory class as systems were advancing quickly and were changing state over time (ie updates) so traditional regulatory class lines were blurring.

That is where we stepped in. We were making a product that was ambiguously regulated and so we pulled the regs to understand them. Once we figured out how time consuming this was, we tried to make a software system to provide suggested basic implementations to be compliant and which helped companies properly bin their products into regulatory classes. Ultimately the entire regulatory system was changed rendering our product irrelevant, but I hope this shows why the system was as complicated as it was and helps demonstrate that the complexity was not a function of large players going for regulatory barriers to entry but rather a result of natural evolution and technical advancement over time which rendered existing regulations poorly suited for the current environment.

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#282

Post by lastres0rt »

jpxw wrote: post #11
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…

This is definitely true of chess.

My first (and only!) game of GO was ruined by my deep understanding of Chess.

I applied chess-logic (focusing on gradients of control) and demolished my opponent, who refused to believe it was only my first game, and refused to play again.

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#283

Post by ksdale »

gowld wrote: post #210
ksdale wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I played a lot of American football growing up and so heard the quote "Defense wins championships" very regularly and I always disagreed. Teams lose games all the time while holding the other team to a very low score, but almost no one ever loses if they put up 50 points. But then again, I played offense...

Teams also win all to time while a low score and lose if they allow 50pts.

It's easy to score 1 or 2 touchdowns on accident, even against the best defense in the league. No one scores 50 points on accident, especially against solid opponents.

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#284

Post by neycoda »

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…

Understanding the metagame implicitly happens from experience and skills. Even if you played simply, you still used your metagame based on your skill and experience with that unit.

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#285

Post by Proziam »

__blockcipher__ wrote: post #239
Proziam wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The optimal strategy for winning the game you're in is the most-winning strategy that your skill level allows you to execute. The optimal strategy for the game itself requires you to develop your skills to allow you to execute it. One of the problems when you discuss strategy and meta is that most people blur the lines between the two. If you plan something based on opposition research (like at the pro esports level…

> Ultimately, the strategic evolutions of iterated games is a ridiculously deep and nuanced topic, making it difficult to really get into the meat and potatoes in forums. Maybe I should make a blog post or something, but I don't know how interesting it would be. I'm interested, and if you do end up doing so, I would love to give you feedback on it before publishing it, if you want. I played SC2 at a "semi-professiona…

I'll think about the topic a bit and see if I can come up with something! If you'd like to give me some feedback we can connect via twitter (@Proziam) and if I can come up with something I'll send it to you for a first pass.

[0] Pulse Esports (The organization I founded in 2011/2012) had some great sc2 players, mostly because I was playing starcraft at the time. Running a young org took a lot of time, so I decayed in skill pretty dramatically (down to the diamond/master level).

[0] https://liquipedia.net/starcraft2/Pulse_Esports

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#286

Post by iratewizard »

hamilyon2 wrote: post #260
Spellman wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I break the tiers down into 3 categories. 1) Literacy. Can you move and shoot in the FPS? Know how pieces move in chess? Basics of the how to play. You must master these and make them reflexive to move forward. 2) Fundamentals. The emergent gameplay that arises from those basic rules. But importantly these are all contained within the game. I usually break these up into Tactics and Strategy. Tactics are the moment-to…

As people noted elsewhere in thread, metagame in starcraft is pretty important, when skill level is equal (which is often on ladder). When skill level differs even a little bit, metagame becomes non-deciding factor.

> When skill level differs even a little bit, metagame becomes non-deciding factor.

Which lets top tier players troll high level players by going jokingly off-meta. In L4D and L4D2, we would do what's called rushing against top ESL teams as a way of embarrassing people who played in those leagues.

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#287

Post by takinola »

Poker is a great example where players can be playing very different "meta" levels. You can play the math ("given my cards, what is the probability I have the best hand on the table?"), play your cash ("are the other players willing to lose the equivalent of a month's income if they are wrong?") or play the other players ("I will let you win a couple low stakes games in order to build your confidence and then clean you out once you start to bet bigger?")

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#288

Post by lastres0rt »

zackmorris wrote: post #272
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.

I'm struggling with this as well. Most of the qualities I had as a teenager like passion, drive, tenacity - in general a will to master difficult subject matter like science and technology for the betterment of humanity - let me down in the end. Here I am in my 40s, tired, broke, constantly reevaluating if I even want to do this anymore, and I keep reaching the same conclusion. I just don't know. I'm deeply concerned…

My favorite quote from the Anarchist's Manifesto: "To Fix Anything, start Everywhere. To Fix Everything, start Anywhere."

It looks grim, and we're going to have to use the few things we've gotten right as a species to fix everything else we've allowed to go wrong.

Places like YC, Twitter, YouTube, etc. have been focusing on insignificant things like clicks and conversions and "content" for years. The public sector has been allowed to fester and become corrupted by people who understand they make more money through controlling the system than they do by actually running it as intended. Meanwhile, BOTH systems are run by a precariously small class of VC's and wanna-be VC's who have become further and further insulated from their consequences.

The real solutions will involve fixing both.

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#289

Post by Proziam »

kangnkodos wrote: post #276
Proziam wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is 100% true. Unfortunately, it inhibits player growth tremendously. Players who are too focused on the meta lose sight of fundamentals. This can manifest itself in weird ways, like LoL players picking up the flavor of the month picks instead of playing what they're strongest on when they can. When I first started coaching LoL I came in to coach a team where the coaches I replaced suffered from some pretty serio…

So chasing the latest LoL champion of the month is bad. That makes sense. But at what level does it pay off to take advantage of the meta changing, and change your main from time to time to adjust? I would say players around the border of silver and gold would benefit by paying attention to the meta.

There are plenty of 'one-trick' players who can make it to extremely high elo even if they aren't particularly competitive. [0]There's a schoolteacher in Korea(?) who streams in a cow costume and plays only Master Yi, on the Korean server. He's Diamond.

And then there's players like BoxBox, who isn't exactly a one-trick, but clearly mains Riven. [1]He's at ladder rank 334 at the moment.

And as a final example, there's the monster himself, Apdo. [2]Apdo is a famous player in China who has on multiple occasions been rank 1 (or boosted people to rank 1...) using mostly Twisted Fate. He's more than talented enough to play any champion well, but is most known for TF. Similar to BoxBox and Riven, but on a whole different plane of skill.

All this is to say that there's no real need to change champions to continue climbing until you're at least above diamond, or if you want to play with a group where a synergistic team composition would be meaningful (like amateur tournaments).

[0]https://www.twitch.tv/cowsep

[1]https://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=boxbox

[1]https://www.twitch.tv/boxbox

[2]https://lol.gamepedia.com/Apdo

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#290

Post by gentleman11 »

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…

Not a coach or a pro, but I was very briefly coached by somebody who coached pro teams. I eventually made top 0.1% mmr at a certain esport too (in the more casual “play with friends” mode - why play a multiplayer game in solo queue?).

I can confirm that it’s all about the fundamentals.

You have to realize that, no matter how good your fundamentals and “mechanics” are, they are actually not good and that if you improve them you will just climb and climb.

It’s a bit tricky to figure out what these fundamentals are when you start out - not everything is equal.

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