You must log in or register to comment.
This is why I thank gods there are guides etc. for Genshin… I’d never be able to get that this character works better using only their skill instead of using their sword, etc etc.
Life♡
Picking Billy rather than Jimmy in Double Dragon.
I’ll never forget an old MTG article about the 3 different types of players. I’ve found that it applies to most games and a lot of life too. There are Spike, Timmy, and Johnny.
Spike players just want to win. They don’t care if the way they win isn’t fun or interesting. All they care about is the W.
Timmy players are all about style. They don’t care if they lose as long as they do something big, flashy, and cool.
Johnny players are in between. They want to win with style. They want the big flashy move to win them the game.
All three players are having fun but they define “fun” in their own ways. Games should try to have ways to satisfy all three types of players.
I’m definitely johnny. I find a playstyle/character/build/whatever applies I like and then I’ll minmax the shit out of it. But I won’t just switch to what’s meta.
Almost everyone is Johnny. Spike and Timmy are caricature types - the uncompromising extremes. If Johnny was on the list you’d have to choose if you are more similar to Spike to more similar to Timmy, but since he is there - representing the entire range between the other two - you, a complex real-life (I hope?) person and not a shallow 1D character, are bound to meaninglessly identify as a Johnny.
This is a great thread. I’ll add Jesse.
Jesse is there to hang out with his buddies and wants to just BS.
The game is just common ground for a Jesse or group of Jesse’s to shoot the shit for an hour or two at the end of a long day. Previous generation would find your Jesse hanging out at the bar, or sports ball games. Jesse’s really started appearing in games en masse during covid. They aren’t necessarily good at the game, often bad, but that doesn’t matter.
My gaming group are all Jesse’s.
You forgot the funnest two, Melvin and Vorthos!
Melvin is the mechanics guy, he plays because he loves the complex interaction between different parts. This is the guy building fully automated redstone in Minecraft.
Vothos is the lore master. He might not even be good at the game but he can recite the history of Tamriel in elder scrolls verbatim.
You are forgetting about Steve. Steve doesn’t care about winning, Steve only wants you to suffer. He will play a mono blue deck (or red with tons of removal) full of counters and spells to bounce back permanents to your hand. He will have a single 1/1 flier to poke at you every turn while he stops you from playing the game completely. Go fuck yourself Steve. (also Teemo main in league)
Shuckle is the best pokemon
Jigglypuff flashbacks intensify
Former Teemo troll here, and all I can say is "watch out for mushrooms"😂
That was just CounterPost.
Also Winter Orb and Icy Manipulator.
Isn’t there like a Winston?
Winston is a filthy casual. Complicated rules, paragraphs on the card, any automation, doing too many things in a single turn are all reasons he doesn’t have fun. He isn’t very bright. He is the antithesis of Spike. He has fun by playing the game for a reasonable length of time.
Losing on turn 1 is the culmination of everything Winston hates.
Source: Am a Winston…
Right now Winston stops playing every CGC because of incessant power creep.
What about Mark?
My brother, who is the worst video game player I’ve known in my entire life. Takes games more seriously than any human being I know but is horrendous at them. Every thing he does is defended as the clearly correct choice no matter how conspicuously wrong it is; Continually grieves not being included in groups, complains that he’s not durable or DPS enough, but will reject out of hand the mildest hint, statement, suggestion, instruction, or commandment. Hated by every guild he’s ever been a part of; Only functional carrying characters an order of magnitude of lower power, and that makes him feel like Ultra Eternity King Lord Of All Games.
That’s an Incel subclass
You know what, that completely tracks
Games shouldn’t satisfy people who just crave winning no matter what.
It’s as absurd as saying that some people want art to be beautiful, some want it to be meaningful, and some want it to just be boobs, and that you should satisfy all of them.
Games should have a point, and winning is not a point on its own. People who focus on winning are typically and almost exclusively the ones that make games become shittier and shittier. And not just games but anything that can remotely have a “win”.
Games should have a point, and winning is not a point on its own.
Why not? Is wanting to win not a valid motivator to play a game?
It is, but if it is your only motivator, the games shouldn’t cater to you.
I’d argue there’s room for both - however, the real enemy is capitalism as any game could have a well-balanced casual and competitive modes, but they take time and care which costs money and most games forced to extract money not support fun at the behest of boards, shareholders and c-suites.
Here’s an alternative perspective.
But any close examination will reveal that the experts are having a great deal of fun on a higher level than the scrub can imagine.
Uh, citation needed.
I don’t like that this article seems to be written by a Type-A 22-year-old whining that none of his friends want to play Settlers of Catan with him anymore.
There is a point to be made here about people having a self-improvement mindset, about not letting their frustrations take over, about not jumping to conclusions regarding which game tactics are unfair or not in an obvious bid to cover for some self-made injury to their self-esteem. And I would love to make that point.
But, there is something really important that seems to be missing from this discussion entirely: sportsmanship.
Dominating the board with move choices that are optimal but which do not respect the other players, their time, or the spirit of fair-play
Is rude.
This is sort of fine in an online context where anyone who doesn’t like you can find another lobby, but you would really struggle to do things like “gain a minor lead and then run out the timer” every match in the living room with six of your cousins, and you know exactly why.
Anyway, I strongly disagree with this article, even though we might come to a lot of the same conclusions about the… pragmatism of tournament rules, or whatever.
Who is the guy that shows up on time and just wants to have fun, no matter the outcome; win, lose, or draw?
For reasons I can’t explain I’m certain that’s a Ted… a cool Todd, basically.
You forgot the funnest two, Melvin and Vorthos!
Melvin is the mechanics guy, he plays because he loves the complex interaction between different parts. This is the guy building fully automated redstone in Minecraft.
Vothos is the lore master. He might not even be good at the game but he can recite the history of Tamriel in elder scrolls verbatim.
I am Vothos when it comes to Warhammer 40k. I don’t play the table top, I just like the minis and lore
Same. Affording a set and having a friend to play it with? Too rich for my blood.
See I’m just not super into board games
Edit: but yeah also having friends that are also into warhammer is tough lol. Especially when you live in a rural place like Maine
Here in Kansas people still think dungeons and dragons will get you into Satanism.
Same but i pick the largest fattest slowest guy because i find it funny to kill the lightly armoured fast moving players with a fat slow guy.
she says condiii~
happened to me with one of the Need for Speed games and the Volkswagen Golf R32 even with everyting maxed out I couldn’t finish one of the races so I gave up on the game, I refused to use other car, I really like the R32.
What if the cutest gear IS the meta?! Never say never
Yet somehow still end up as a Skyrim stealth archer.
Never happened to me, but I hate shooters.
Especially in RPGs, you shouldn’t want the most efficient build possible because those are boring. You should instead want something that is fun to play and fits your character.
I immensely enjoyed dual wielding swords and using the time stop shout. Its DPS was so high, they could kill an entire room of enemies before the time stop ended. making them all fall to the ground at the same time while you sheath your swords like a badass.
Or the time I played in VR a stealth conjuration/necromancer. I could just sit on the floor and nobody could find me. While my minions did all the fighting. If an enemy died, their corps would be raised and added to my army.
This time for sure, I’ll throw away every bow I get, just blade and magic this time! Oh wow, you can conjure a sword that does way more damage than the swords I have access to. Let’s see what else I can conj- and I’m a stealth archer with a bound bow, damnit…
The humorous bit to me is I have never even been tempted to stealth arch. I just started flaming people to death from level one and never stop. Why, yes, I will kill alduin with double handed flames, thank you very much!
I always liked stealth, but I was a stealth mace cat person. CLANG!
wtf is “the meta”?
Edit: thanks for all of the excellent replies!
Short for “meta gaming” or “meta game”, which is essentially the identification and application of the various playing style archetypes that work best in any given game.
As others have said, it functionally means picking the most optimal strategies and/or equips, but it’s now somewhat archaic use was more like a scholarly examination/application of archetypes, playstyles, use-cases, and vulnerabilities/bugs/eccentricities that could be taken advantage of and brought together to make consistent winning strategies. There is rarely ever (probaly never, really) a meta that stays unchanged throughout its games history because meta is, in a way, an ever-ongoing conversation between the game, its players and, in some ways, the wider audience that both bring in.
Well balanced games with deep design choices often have sleeper strategies that, while available at release, are not necessarily noticed or honed until later on because they require a measure of abstract thought and/or an understanding of various other elements and the interplay they create under specific circumstances. In that it takes into account both refined knowledge and practical, creative application, “meta” is kind of that sweet spot between science and art that so many people get drawn to in so many other ways.
Edit: should have read more of these comments before jumping the gun. I dont think I’ve added anything that hasn’t already been said in some way or another. Oops
I appreciate the effort anyway. Thanks!
The meta in any given game is “the most effective tactic available” or just information acquired outside of the game to be efficient.
Like you could pick a class like warrior in some game and hours into playing realise that its the most difficult class to play, meanwhile the sorcerer is easy and good out the gate, so people would look up the best class/gear/shortcuts/exploits even before starting a game to be the most efficient, instead of just playing what they like.
pick the meta ? what is the meta ?
It’s a video game term, picking the meta means picking the characters considered the strongest in the present state of the game. (Presumably a game that receives constant patches to achieve balance between old and new characters so that all characters are viable to play)
ok alright, thanks
To dig into the term further, ‘meta’ in a gaming context is short for “metagame” and shares an etymology with other terms like “metadata” in that ‘meta’ means self, or about the self.
In image metadata, for example, the ‘metadata’ isn’t the image pixels themselves; rather it is data /about/ the image; the author, the camera model, or the GPS coordinates where it was taken.
If “metadata” is “data about data” then the “metagame” is “the game about the game”
What this means is looking at the game holistically as a collection of systems or mechanics, and even looking entirely outside the game to optimise how it can be played.
You might choose your character based on the strongest stats on the wiki, or make choices based on completely external factors - for example, choosing the time of day you play online to optimise for more favourable match-ups, or deciding what items you either sell now or hoarde now on the basis of predicting what changes the game developer might make in the future.
To use something like chess as a concrete example, the ‘game’ is moving your pieces on the board according to the rules, and reacting logically to where your opponent moves thieirs. Whereas the ‘metagame’ might be to get into your opponent’s head and to use prior knowledge of their personal playstyle against them, amongst other off-board factors.
All games have their unique metas, depending on the specifics of the game, and the meta always changes over time because it’s fundamentally a human factor that has as much to do with other players and the game’s community as it does the game itself.
oh, thanks for going in depth. That’s nice. I think I never had a word for it.
I appreciate good didactics and this was a fantastic definition. Cheers
This is me in any game too. If the game offers you a bunch of alternatives but makes it impossible/insufferable to play outside the meta, then the game is not worth my time. I should play a game the way I want, not the way the developer decides to force even though they gave me other alternatives.
I see someone using only meta on a shooter as someone who is so untalented naturally they need to have their weapon carry them.
Like, on CoD, in the last 3 games I played (BO6, MWIII, MWII) the meta weapon was always something that had zero fucking recoil by default, so no matter how long it took to kill you could brute force a win on ANY gunfight with sheer accuracy. In MWII it was the TAQ-56, in MWIII it was the MCW, and in BO6 it was the Jackal/AMES. And in BO7 it’s the Dravec 45.
Like, are meta abusers so fucking ass that they need a weapon with no actual recoil at all to kill people? To the point they use it for an entire god damn year?? Bro. Every time I used those guns (for the mastery camo) I just felt so absurdly carried it wasn’t even funny. I could ego challenge a sniper from 60 meters and still win.
The meta becomes the meta because as people start using it, it becomes required to win.
It doesn’t mean you can’t play without it, you just can’t be competitive without it. Some people want to have fun playing games, and some people want to be good at games. And some people can’t have fun unless they’re winning.
It’s only required if you’re a bitch who plays fuck-ass games with Ranked rules where literally everything fun is banned except for laser beam automatic weapons. Meta whores are all carried and won’t even admit it. I had straight up righteous glee when they nerfed the aim assist on BO7 and saw all those “professional” players struggling to hit a single shot at first. Sure, they did adapt later, but them noticing they were straight up aim assist merchants for a good while was extremely funny.
And then those idiots have the NERVE to complain about shotguns or snipers… BITCH! YOU HAD AN AIMBOT FOR 5 FUCKING YEARS!!
I despise the meta fps guns and players. The tryhards bouncing and sliding everywhere with the same guns padding their stats but not really spending any effort on the objective other than finding a spot to raise their KDR by killing players actually attempting to work the objective. Also, they don’t do revives even if medics, they just use the healing for themselves to not die.
Tangentially, fuck devs that stack kits like this. If you make a game with 40 guns and variants, why the fuck make it so that only 4 get used because of some OP factor? Surely a rebalance would help. These kits and tryhards can really mess up enjoying a game and wanting to try different setups.
This shit is why I think ANY movement tech should require some skill and effort put into it to be utilized effectively (like in Titanfall 2), and that ANY type of stim shot should not be too fast. It should put your gun away with NO recourse, AND take a bit to inject, AND not heal super fast. Like, every time I shoot someone in the back in ANY modern FPS game, the piece of shit doesn’t turn around and shoot me, or even 180 dropshots me like I was used to back in the BO2 days. No, they always run/slide away like a little bitch before taking their super fent/morphine/whatever fuck-ass instant healing item they have, AND THEN turn around to shoot. Like, yeah, I get wanting to recover health before shooting back, but uh… either of those things should NOT be a get-out-of-jail-free-card. The mf WAS in a bad position AND should be punished for it.
Ah, if only. The game I’m in the lol-180 kills still happen, you die after taking cover because lag, and if you have a good connection it favors the lagger because the game stacks their shots into a burst that you have no hope of surviving. The rest, all true.
I feel personally attacked. I’ve never played CoD, but that’s 100 % what I would do! That being said I suck ass, I’m 30 and I haven’t played any shooters for me to build skill when I was younger. So now whenever I try FPSes I suck too much for it to be even fun. Only exceptions are offline shooters, that can be fun. Fuck other people.
I don’t mind if a noob uses those types of guns, since I am aware those guns were made specifically for them. I do, however, get insanely tilted if the player using that gun is literally already excellent at the game and yet chooses the literal baby gun for no reason other than “I’m lazy and I don’t want to actually try”.
One of the things I like about Horizon Zero Dawn is they introduced cosmetics so you didn’t have to compromise your visual style for the right set of numbers for your current opponents.
What is meta ~ just enjoy the best.
Play any MOBA with chat disabled.
That’s how I used to play World of Warcraft. Two-handed Shockadin forever!
