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To get good, go after the metagame

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Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#211

Post by namelosw »

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…

It really depends on the game.

Getting specific on the skill works very well on simple FPS games, just like bots are easily beat all of the top players. Basically this is true for the games that rules are extremely simple, there's no place left to play the metagame.

While a lot of games with sufficiently complicated mechanisms where people cannot process accurately, meta could come into play. For example, people spend quite some time making the computer beat human in the chess game, when human only have some not accurate meta experience.

Also, meta is probably the most useful skill for learning new games. A decent RPG player would infer the plot and mechanism in new RPG games, whereas a strategy game player could quickly find out what's the trade-off between all the viable options much quicker than others. A player with all genres experiences can adapt any games real quick.

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#212

Post by [deleted] »

JackFr wrote: post #145
mercer wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed this to be true for table tennis and other sports too. When I play against a less experienced player, it's quite frustrating to notice that most of the points I score are clear mistakes on their part, rather than any kind of skilled moves on my part.

I used to play chess in college with a master (now grandmaster) player. He would always let me take back moves when I did something stupid (sometimes even a couple). As he put it it was no fun to win on someones goof, what was fun was winning when they were playing the best possible game they could.

[deleted]

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#213

Post by gowld »

jeremysalwen wrote: post #176
blackandblue wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I tried to find the original comment on HN, it was very informative, but some chess master (grandmaster?) commented on here that until you are highly rated (say 2200), the only thing you should focus on to improve at chess is to improve your ability to notice tactics in games. He went into more detail but I can't find the post :(

Not quite. First you need to eliminate your own hung piece blunders and look for opponents'. But that gets you to 1000-1500 then you need to notice tactics.

There is overlap, in that the simplest single-move tactics (forks and skewers) are almost the same as catching immediately hung pieces.

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#214

Post by gowld »

bena wrote: post #92
gowld wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Your advice is bordering on "you're having fun wrong". You are coming with the assumption that "fun" is some objective standard that is on a scale with "playing to win" on the other end. For some people, playing to win and finding the metagame is the fun. And there is nothing wrong with that. And too often I find that people who complain about people who are just "playing to win" are really just trying to complain ab…

> > unless you love metagames for their own sake

> There's apparently some intangible, undefinable, nebulous quality being lost.

Yes, it's called "fun". It's using the game as a platform for creativity and expression, not merely optimization for a fixed arbitrary set of rules.

Saying that this doesn't count is you saying "you're having fun wrong".

It's also why professional sports evolve rules to stop camping strategies like scoring 1 pt and then sitting on the ball/puck unitl the clock runs out.

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#215

Post by gcmeplz »

mercer wrote: post #61
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've noticed this to be true for table tennis and other sports too. When I play against a less experienced player, it's quite frustrating to notice that most of the points I score are clear mistakes on their part, rather than any kind of skilled moves on my part.

For someone who's awful at pool like me, I suspect that optimal play is to avoid ever hitting any ball in to increase the likelihood that your opponent will scratch on the 8-ball.

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#216

Post by sunnydayddr »

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?

This has direct implications in head-to-head games.

In fighting games, this observation leads to the following advice for someone playing against an opponent with weaker fundamentals: "play it safe until you give them enough rope to hang themselves."

Instead of going in as aggressively as normally would be required against a skilled opponent, just sit there and defend, and give your opponent free reign to try to crack your defense. The more they try, the more chances they give themselves to slip up and make a big mistake, which you then take full advantage of.

If their execution is worse than your defense, this is seen as a less risky strategy than going in on the offensive and hoping you don't make a mistake yourself.

Also applies to chess in the same way. Weaker opponents tend to accidentally "hang" their pieces a lot (i.e. move their pieces directly under attack of your pieces) just by poor observation, so it can be a good strategy to just stall, keep to your side of the board, and wait until your opponent slips up and makes a crucial mistake. Once they've made enough mistakes and you have enough of a material advantage, moving in for the win becomes completely trivial.

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#217

Post by gowld »

gorpomon wrote: post #72

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 th…

Is intentionally using meta when you are bad at it a good meta?

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#218

Post by tikhonj »

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 probably says something interesting about have design—but I'm not sure what exactly!

One thought is that there are some games where the metagame becomes important at earlier skill levels. Magic the Gathering comes to mind: fundamental skills are certainly important, but understanding the format—even in formats where you don't need a pre-built deck—is important even at a middling skill level, well short of any competitive level. I feel this pretty keenly because that's the level I play at online!

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#219

Post by kyuudou »

317070 wrote: post #177
_pastel wrote: post #174

Playing a game immediately after learning the rules is my favorite challenge - especially when the other players are all new too. At this stage, tactics are mostly about keeping all the rules in your head and thinking hard before each move. But strategy is really interesting. Everyone is guessing blindly, and you can often win by guessing slightly less blindly. I have two meta-strategies: (1) Game phases While learni…

Yes. I am like you, I love playing first games. My playbook is usually: 1) create chaos. Everybody plays the same game where they pick a boring strategy, which makes the best calculator at the table win. Instead of trying to maximize my points, I try to increase the chaos around the table, increasing the complexity for everyone and pushing them to make mistakes. 2) in games where this is possible, I will try to sprin…

All these are why I think Bobby Fischer was so dominant in his time.

Re: To get good, go after the metagame

#220

Post by Proziam »

wongarsu wrote: post #169
WhompingWindows wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 as an example), you are approaching that game with a specific strategy in mind. Your chosen strategy should keep the meta in mind but the strategy and the meta are distinct.

The meta comes from knowing the various strategies that are effective against other teams/players who utilize the same general pool of strategies. Each strategy in the pool comes about because it works with reasonable reliability against the other strategies in the pool. That's why unexpected plays, 'cheese,' or 'hard-counters' come into play at the strategic level (often saved for specific opponents or situations). The meta is more about knowing what situations you're likely to encounter. You know the meta, then you optimize your strategic approach for your unique situation (such as the skill-set of the various players on your team, specific tendencies of the opponent you're preparing for, or even choosing not to optimize to win your next game to keep a strategy hidden (among other reasons).

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.

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