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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.
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
Former Teemo troll here, and all I can say is "watch out for mushrooms"😂
That was just CounterPost.
Also Winter Orb and Icy Manipulator.
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
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.
Yes they should. Playing competitively and with a focus on winning is just as good as any other reason to play games.
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~
Heavy scout. One of my jams
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.
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!
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…
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!
The best/optimal items to beat the game.
That’s pretty much what I thought from context, but where did the term come from?
Edit: thanks for all of the excellent replies!
It comes from the word metagame, i.e. the game beyond the game. I think it originally comes from game theory (the field of mathematics), later it began to be used in both game development and game playing (with slightly different meanings).
Eureka! Now I’m definitely familiar with that concept as a part of game design theory, I just haven’t heard that term before.
This is exactly the answer I was looking for. Thank you.
Not sure, but it has been around for a long time (20+ years).
I guess because the “ideal” way to play is usually found out by theorycrafters so they aren’t playing the actual game, but the “meta game” of finding out how to best play the game.
Not only have I been gaming for 40+ years, I’ve written a bunch of games. I’ve never heard this term.
But I’ll take your word for it ;)
Been hearing this term for a long while. It’s specially prevalent in games where there’s a strong competitive scene or in games where you can practice min-maxxing. You won’t use the term (normally) in a game like The Sims or any other game where there is no “goal” to achieve; but if there is a goal (even just a boss fight) and there are multiple alternatives to tackle it, you will hear the term eventually.
Maybe that’s why I haven’t heard it… I do my best to avoid multiplayer games. Is it something one would only see/hear in multiplayer games? My interest is in the origin of the term.
In relation to gaming it gained popularity in 1995 (Magic the Gathering).
I remember it from early StarCraft, where balance patches would often “shift the meta” making some build and strategies so good (or bad) that you basically had to use them (or couldn’t use them) if you wanted to be competitive.
So, it was actually in the game? The term “Meta” in this context?
I’m curious about the origin of the term, so if it came from star craft, that would be the answer I’m looking for.
So, it was actually in the game? The term “Meta” in this context?
It’s more like knowing that “people online will do that, so I have to do this”. The mind game between the players. But I think you already got some better answers.
I don’t think it originated from StarCraft, that’s just where I recall first hearing it.
The concept of “the meta” arises from the idea of players playing a metagame in which they’re picking strategies which work well against the strategies other players pick. The idea I think was that it wasn’t necessarily the best strategy, but it was one that reliably worked against those strategies others pick, so it highlights the possibility that there are unexplored strategies.
But because it identified popular strategies it became used just to mean that even in single player games where there is no metagame at all.
When I heard it used back in the days if collectible card games, it seemed like it was describing the abstract ‘game’ rather than a particular game between two players. So a particular card (or weapon or ship) can be good within a game, depending on your opponent or play style. But sometimes a card or strategy is found by the community to be highly effective so in the ‘metagame’ it comes to dominate.
New cards would come out and change the meta. Even if you don’t buy then or use them, knowing that they exist and are effective changes how other players build decks and so you might need to change your play style to adapt to the new metagame.
In another comment, someone referred to it as “the game beyond the game” that the term was actually short for a “metagame”.
While their explanation was more concise, you both definitely answered my question. Thank you.
Ah yes, concise is not my strength. I avoided getting into the etymology of ‘meta’ and how it comes from an ancient librarian dealing with untitled manuscripts… So thought I was doing well!
i’m actually quite familiar with ancient Latin and Greek. So I understand the etymology of the term. There’s a fine line between descriptive and verbose.
And nonetheless, thank you very much for your answer. And, in no way, was I making a criticism.
Btw, “meta-“ is the Ancient Greek prefix meaning “after” or “beyond”
Just one more aspect to add to the other replies that I didn’t see mentioned: the most common use of this is with online multiplayer games like Mobas (lol, dota2) or ability/arena shooters (overwatch, valorant), where the developer will actually make changes to the balance, or add/remove items, heroes, … Here “the meta” will often shift with any major patch. As an example, they might adjust the items that give health and/or armor because front liners aren’t effective enough, and maybe they overtune it a bit, leading to a “tank meta” because now tanky characters can fulfill roles they weren’t even intended for (just as a random example).
But also things like tabletop games (Warhammer) have seasonal rulesets where this can apply.
It can even apply to Singleplayer games like Baldurs Gate 3 (as a recent example). In these cases the meta often refers to very efficient, good working character builds (class selection, level order and items) that have usually been figured out by the community over time. In that case the meta is generally more fixed or stable, as the game doesn’t receive maybe balance updates every few months.
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.
While Million’s explanation is good, I’d like to try my own phrasing:
In this context, setting up your character’s armor by ‘the meta’ would basically mean picking the armor with the best stats, that maybe synergize with each other and/or the playstyle/class build that is the most overpowered, most broken.
You could maybe call that ‘optimizing the fun out of the game’.
What this person, OP, is saying is… nah, I’m just gonna pick the armor/clothes I think look the best, knowing that will make things harder for me than just choosing the ‘optimal’ armor, and I’ll either git gud at the game, or die trying.
Its… kind of like how DBZ characters wear weighted clothes.
Its an intentional, chosen handicap, in a gameplay mechanics sense, that makes things more difficult, so training / playing the game is harder… but if you can handle it, you’re probably going to be better at the game.
OK, see, I understand that. I think the disconnect comes from the fact that I avoid multiplayer games, and even when I played them, I never talk to anyone else who’s playing.
I’m certainly familiar with this concept as a part of game design theory, and certainly in all of the games I’ve played. I’ve just never heard the term, and I think it’s just because I don’t talk to a lot of other gamers.
Thanks for the explanation!
Yep!
Its mostly a thing with multiplayer rpg type games, but, the term ‘the meta’ most broadly, at this point, basically just means ‘best strategy’.
You could have a meta in a shooter game, for gun/armor loadouts that go well with certain tactics, maybe fast ninja with smgs and flash bangs always beats tanky bomb diffusal armor with a mini gun, for some reason.
You could have it with dark souls type games, a single player (basically) game with a bunch of possible skill tree builds and classes and weapons and such.
But, linguistically, its also kind of weird because ‘the meta’ can also refer to… all of those possible strategies, at once, within one game… or even a similar class or family of games!
Or ‘a meta’ or ‘the XYZ meta’ could also refer to a singular strategy within a game, or maybe a family of related strategies within a game.
… It makes more sense if you just regularly hear people using the term outloud.
As a longtime gamer, I’m definitely familiar with the concept. I had just never heard it referred to as “the Meta” before
Thanks!
The kind of corrolary to this is that any game that is stagnating eventually becomes just a fashion show of cosmetic competition.
With MMOs, you can see that by the end stage of its lifecycle, no one is even really playing the game for the sake of playing the game, the community is probably insular and ossified, and is just literally competing in terms of style.
With MTX games full of cosmetics from day one?
Yep, the game is functionally dead on arrival, expect little to no meaningful free game updates, lots of stuff will just be broken and probably never really fixed…
…because the whole point of such a game is just to be a platform, a marketplace, for selling you ‘digital goods’, and it just uses the form of a game, and often all the dark patterns, to lure you in and keep you addicted to it.
EDIT:
Upon further reflection:
A Gacha game very much is, imo, a psuedogame, in the same way a pseudoscientist is fundamentally an impostor, only superficially behaving as the true thing behaves, which it fundamentally is not.
I think that’s only part of it. Take a game like any monster catching one. There is going to be a meta, a “tier list” that tells you that these monsters are the best of the best. And that’s fine. But the problem is when the game is poorly balanced so if you don’t play the meta, you can’t complete the game. If I can’t beat the game using what I like, the game is just telling me that I shouldn’t play it.
This is true as well.
I just tried to give a bit further, linguistic type breakdown for watson in another comment.
Yeah its… kinda hard to nail down precisely how this term truly, fully works in English, at the moment.
Which itself is extremely meta, in a different sense of the word meta.
It’s the same sense of the word. In language terms, meta is self-referential. In gaming terms, the metagame is the game within the game.
Often, games turn into a rock-paper-scissors format where three different strategies fight for dominance to the exclusion of anything non-meta.
pick the meta ? what is the meta ?
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.
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.
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”.
Play any MOBA with chat disabled.
That’s how I used to play World of Warcraft. Two-handed Shockadin forever!
I remember starting a Hunter because they could have pets but got real bored real quick. It felt too easy. After a bit of research, I changed to a warrior. At launch the warrior was the most under powered class.
Solo levelled my way to 60. Took me twice the time to get to level 60 because I kept going on adventures. Made it to Gadgetzan at some ridiculously low level (after many deaths). I also found a bunch of easter eggs before hitting 60 too.
I was allowed to be a DPS warrior in raids and at one point was matching or outdoing Rogues for damage. Used to speed run Stratholme and Scholomance as a fury Warrior because my healers loved the chaotic challenge of keeping me alive.
I had so much fun playing my own way and that probably contributed to why I had such good friends in the guild during that time. I had to quit because the expansions kept adding too much grind and it sucked having all that hard earned gear become pointless every new expansion :(
I was allowed to be a DPS warrior in raids and at one point was matching or outdoing Rogues for damage.
I can’t remember how often I switched between being the guild’s main tank and DPS warriors. I wanted to do DPS but due to activity and skill concerns I was always roped back into being the MT. Upside was I was basically collecting the top-tier gear for both specs. But DPS warriors were always somewhat competitive. Poor DPS Paladins were basically never viable in high-end raids during all of vanilla.
Also the warsong PVP battleground with a raid equipped main tank was fun … well, for us.
Used to speed run Stratholme and Scholomance as a fury Warrior because my healers loved the chaotic challenge of keeping me alive.
Ha, I remember [Righteous Orb] farming there, which eventually just turned into speedruns. Our healer needed them and by the end we were going in with 3 dps warriors, a mage and a priest, just smashing through it. Occasionally we’d only be 4 people and invite some random (conditions is we got the orbs, but we don’t care about anything else). Many though we were mad for going in without a tank. Good times.
My guild had so many tanks and off-tanks that I was always last pick as a tank but I still attended most raids. I made myself useful by getting every alchemy, cooking and first aid recipes along with damage and tanking for “oh shit” moments.
As a warrior, I had access to every gear so I used my first points on onyxia bags for all my bag slots. I carried random gear like the underwater breathing staff, a huge amount of potions (especially running potions), a wedding dress and a flame enchanted broom to beat people with while wearing a wedding dress. I had so many gimmick items to amuse people during any down time.
I had so many points that I suddenly went from a mix of random gear to a mix of really good random gear. It was fun to be a menace in PvP before PvP gear became the norm. Healers loved me because they liked playing with my life and I always quick to protect them. Enemies hated me because I’d get all the heals or I’d be the most annoying mosquito if they attacked my healers.
Lots of good memories from that time but MMO’s never hit the same after that game. The people I met during that time were what made that it all special.
Don’t sleep on the private servers offering WotLK Classic with XP modifiers (x3, x7, etc). Group of friends decided to spin up characters and “donate” like 20 bucks and end up with enough gold to just buy all the mats for most professions. Makes it easy to meme ourselves a good time (all warlock party? Sure why not)
Very similar to my experience. The game was more fun doing what I wanted instead of cookie cutter builds and min maxing.
Ah man, WoW was a rough game to not follow the meta. I always felt so bad about it, because if you had really good friends, they would say that you were still contributing and useful when you were playing your little niche build, but man you had to rely on never looking at the numbers, not playing optimally would end with you holding back just so many people.
Yeah, especially in vanilla most hybrid classes were basically useless outside their “main” role when it came to high-end raiding.
We had a paladin with a thunderfury …
Did somebody say [Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker]?
