Why want "metagame"?

Honestly I feel the whole quest for purpose in videogames is rather silly when you often hear people saying "quit playing videogames and do something useful"

Why would locking a continent bring more purpose than holding land? Why would a Nexus island bring more purpose? I think you might be looking for a different game if you want a clear winner at the end. Or rather, if it's that important the you see the name of your faction flashing on the screen when you are done fighting.

Ok, I am going to nip this in the bud.

People who are saying metagame doesn't apply to this debate are wrong. Metagame arises out of the natural complexity of systems.
The problem is that PS2 has no complexity ITS : zerg or be zerged. The bases are a travesty the combined arms are completely ruined by overpowered AV options. Infantry combat is ruined by maxes.


You cannot just add metagame, metagame must arise out of better systems.

Artificial sense of accomplishment? Wouldn't this definition apply to everything we have in the game now? KDR score per minute?
Those dont mean anything because people come back from the dead, and doing well today means nothing tomorrow?

and couldnt we go further and say all human achievements are artificial?


So you want just team death match? I played when it was just gameplay, it was called the original call of duty death match. It got boring after a few years.

Have you played street fighter 4 ? they talk about metagame all the time.

The problem is that 'beyond game' or 'outside game' is something multiple people have come to to describe behaviours in multiple games. It's not that it was thrown into print once and then people ran off with it and confused the definition. It's that it made sense to start using it for lots of different things in lots of different places.

Picking a few examples where I know the word is used extensively:

Poker - I disagree with the assertion that metagame is not re-raising despite having a good hand because you've been playing aggressively until now etc. That in my mind is just the game in itself. Metagame is outside of that. It can be knowing who your opponent is and what their normal behaviour patterns are and adapting to this, for example you might have noted a player has all-ind a lot with bad hands in his last few tournaments hoping to strong arm the pot. You might take more of a chance on a 'call' if it's them all-ining than someone you know has been playing very safe. It then extends into the realm hinted at in the stuff posted, where he might be metagaming your metagame and taking advantage of having been on a safe streak for a while to take a big win at high risk.

Chess - Metagame is a term that I first heard at chess tournaments. It's anything that isn't entirely related to the game being played. 'Chess' the musical has some great examples of this. It ranges from 'death stares', taking excessive breaks, impromptu noise disruptions (from the crowd or from players), right through to throwing a tournament in order to seed lower for a coming tournament.

Horse Racing - Some ultimate 'metagame' here; probably one of the oldest still-existing types (I assume gladiators etc would be first), though the word doesn't get used much. It's all of your 'runs well in the wet' stuff. A note that when you're talking about gambling on horse races, this metagame then becomes 'the game'.

A Prisoner's Dilemma - 'metagame' is thrown about a lot in the Game Theory community. The simplest example is a Prisoner's Dilemma (wiki if you're not sure on it). Participation is the game; predicting what your opponent will do based upon what you have previously done (prior betrayals etc). The metagame is the observations and strategems that can be planned from this. For example it's well known that to stand the best chance of winning, you shouldn't be the first to betray your opponent in any game.

Then we come to Planetside 2. This definition is much more broad than the previous ones, and is largely an amalgam of uses elsewhere (1/3rd DotA/LoL, 1/3rd Starcraft, and 1/3rd Diablo/WoW/Cell phone games etc). So let's look at those three...

DotA/LoL - When people throw around 'Pudge is king of the lowbie meta', or 'Wisp's an autoban in this meta', they're talking about character selection, and then its inferences on play throughout a round. What's being got at is that Pudge is dominant when people don't know how to counter him, so he's probably a bit of an auto-pick versus inexperienced players. Wisp's the most banned character in tournaments because he scales too well and has super irritating abilities (same for Batrider). If tomorrow DotA was patched and Pudge saw a nerf to a crucial ability or two, he might become 'irrelevant in the meta' (Disruptor, for example, is pretty irrelevant in the current meta - it basically means there's no point in picking him because there are other characters that will do a better job of his role).

Starcraft - The metagame in Starcraft is about predicting what your opponent is likely to be doing, based upon current trends. So before you've managed to scout his base, you are already making judgements based upon his rank, his clan, whether you know him or not etc. The metagame play out in strategy games is why almost all strategy games are dominated by rush tactics. If you don't bank on your opponent rushing (and thus counter-rush), if he's not rushing, fine, you both play out a nice turtle game, but if he is rushing, you're ******, because you didn't have a rush to counter his rush with. So both players rush every time. If they halved the price of defenses, and reduced their build time, the metagame might get altered such that a better strategy is to turtle and then attack later (as most AI do below Hard).

Cell phone games (modern meta) - Hilariously, whilst it's the least accurate reference to 'metagame' in its first usages, it's also the one coined by professionals. Metagame is a term used by what I'm told (by the software development manager currently sat opposite me) is a majority of game developers to cover motivations. Most people try a game because playing games is a recognised pass time, not necessarily because they're fun (I suggest people try Elarel/Blobbo to see what I mean! ) - we have no way to gauge in advance whether a game will be fun or not (we can infer from studio, concept, prequels, reviews etc, but we can't really guarantee). Some dots moving about on a screen isn't fun. What those dots represent MIGHT be fun, and if people are going to play your game a lot, or even return to it after they first see it, you've gotta get your game fun. How you do that is the metagame. <-- That may be slightly convoluted, since the metagame for a game might be one of creating irritation or necessity, rather than fun; the 'fun' then would be the temporary alleviation of that irritation which releases endorphins and may give a sense of achievement.


To bring this back to Planetside, and to beg forgiveness for the wall of text... The PS2 community's request for metagame is a combination of the three above.

From Cell Phone games, we get the desire to have a reason to play - ideally far deeper than your average cell phone game. A point not made above if that metagame requirements vary based upon product lifecycle. PS2 does currently have metagame in this sense, but it only motivates for a short period, nowhere near the 5+ years players would like to feel the game's shelf life is. So the request is for a more meaningful (and thus longer-standing) motivation/meaning behind actions in game.

From DotA, we get the concept of 'ins and outs', both equipment, tactics and strategy. In the current meta, as can be seen clearly from MLG etc, MAXs are dominant, and Infiltrators are largely irrelevant. The desire here is (at least my desire) to lose this aspect, such that nothing is either 'in or out', and all options are viable dependent upon what's covered in the next biiiiit...

From Starcraft, we get the strategic level metagame. Currently, the metagame is simple (talking MLG, but the same in principle for live, excepting the addendum of 'start on a continent you can steam roll with your platoons'): Fly as fast as you can to the enemy warpgate and lock it down with everything you've got. Now ghost cap your way to the objective. A big thank you to NCU for this remarkable stratagem, that really makes the current MLG meta a joy to watch [collapse in on itself]. What's being asked for here is a more detailed metagame; this would require more mechanics that allow the subversion of each of the current strategic crutches. Resources is one of these things. Continent locking is another.



So, the TL;DR? PS2's usage of 'metagame' is broad, and covers motivations and meaning behind actions in game, the viability of all classes and approaches, and the expansion of viable stratagems past the point of 'zerg the warpgate'.

EDIT: **** that's a long post. I could have got dinner ready in that time -_-

KDR and score per minute is just a measure of how good you are doing, I don't think there are any achievements, medals, badges, or even cookies for getting a good KDR or SpM.

We could or we could not, that is getting into philosophy and if Plato and Aristotle couldn't answer it I'm sure we can't. While when you need a sense of accomplishment in order to enjoy a videogame, which creates a need for "achievements", I can most certainly say that those achievements are what I'd call artificial. Though even that may be subjective, if you consider game achievements actual achievements, then great, everyone has their own truth.

Yes indeed, I would very much enjoy a straight-up deathmatch mode in PS2.

Sadly no, fighting games aren't my cup of tea.

Greek Meta = beyond
Game: Key components of games are goals, rules, challenge, and interaction. Games generally involve mental or physical stimulation, and often both. Many games help develop practical skills, serve as a form of exercise, or otherwise perform an educational, simulational, or psychological role.

Aka it's not about "end game" it's about playing the game for more than just getting your daily quota of kills

Meta game. To as a person interacting with the game go beyond the boundaries of the game.

Example. Vanu is capturing a base. knowing that most will stay in the base spawn room and be camped a few VS will go ahead to the next base destroy guns and terminals and then prepare a camp around that spawn room before the defenders become to many.

The game isn't really designed for this event. Nor does any of the tools in the game help you do this.
for meta game this is an expected or unexpected event that will occur.

Metagame occurs when the game becomes more than just attacking each base and losing it over and over. when it's not just about the fighting it self and when the players utilize options that where not intended but are still allowed. When the player base it self start to reshape and balance using the things they are given within the game.

This part of the wiki to meta game is also a good example and should have been included from the start
Metagaming might also refer to a game which functions to create or modify the rules of a sub-game with the purpose of maximizing the subgame's ruleset. Thus, we might play a metagame of optimizing the rules of "chess-like" games to maximize the satisfaction of play, and perhaps arrive at the rules of standard chess as an optimum. This is related to mechanism design theory in which the metagame would be to create or make changes in the management rules or policy of an organization to maximize its effectiveness or profitability. Constitutional design can be seen as a metagame of assembling the provisions of a written constitution to optimize a balance of values such as justice, liberty, and security, with the constitution being the rules of the game of government that would result.

One could say that Metagame is when the game has enough content to allow the gamers them self to balance things out trough learning and countering rather than asking the developers to tinker with the objects statistics. Sadly the game is lacking to many things for this to work.

Also the Dev's choice to release an unfinished product and then let us play and complain like this is also a kind of metagame to XD

yeah this is very complicated darnit OP why did you have to ask

Why don't you make your own and stop relying on videogames to tell you what to do, then?

Because spunkgargle weewee

People use "metagame" fast and loose. My understanding of the word has always meant "the game within the game."

For example. in League of Legends, and other MOBAs, the point of the game is to beat the enemy team by forcing a surrender or destroying their home base, but there are a lot of different strategies to doing this that need to be learned and countered and adapted to. There are several lanes of attack, many different characters, several crucial roles, important assets, money generation, gear combinations, defensive towers, and special abilities that all come together to split the large singular game/goal into a series of smaller games and goals. You learn strategies to use all these different assets for specific and important reasons, injecting a large amount of strategy and tactical thought into the experience.

As a specific example, League of Legends has neutral monster camps that, when killed, grant special abilities, gold, and experience to the team that captures them. One of them, the "Baron" is considered extremely important, because he offers a huge offensive boost, spawns infrequently, is in a relatively central location, and takes all or most of the team (generally) to kill. Killing the Baron is an obvious objective, so that when you notice the enemy team gathering to try and kill him, you need to respond or risk them getting the buff. You could respond by gathering your own team and fighting them at the Baron where the enemy team will be at a disadvantage until he is killed, returning to your own base to mount a defense after they've gotten the buff, push a strong offense in an attempt to cause as much damage as possible while the enemy team is fighting the Baron, or any number of other strategies. Likewise, you can use the Baron as a ruse or an ambush location. If your entire team disappears from the map, the enemy team might assume you're at Baron and rush in to attempt you from killing him, only to run directly past the location where you're hiding, catching them with poor positioning, killing them and allowing you to capture the Baron or push towards their base unopposed until they've respawned. The Baron has a huge strategic value within the game that cannot be ignored. He's not the main objective, but he is invaluable towards capturing and defending yours.

See? A game within the game. The existence of the Baron is a secondary objective that opens up huge strategic options that have a dramatic impact on the game. It gets very involved, and introduces a lot of high and low-level strategy that transforms a game from a simple experience into a complex and engaging one.

Planetside 2 lacks this at the moment. There aren't any notable objectives or strategies. You can capture bases, but they don't serve much purpose other than giving you some certs and a few more resources and allowing you to move forward to the next base, and the strategies behind capturing those bases almost always amount to "throw a bunch of people at it." The objectives and rewards are arbitrary and generally meaningless. Furthermore, there's no end-game. If you've pushed the enemy team back to their warpgate, then what is there to do? Camp it until you get bored and log off for the day?

This is what people are talking about when they say that they want a meta-game in Planetside 2. Hopefully I explained that well enough, because it's kind of a broad concept.

Not..really, in my eyes metagame fits the UD definition. I've learned what it is mostly from starcraft, where metagame refers to the most commonly used playstyles, build orders and such. When someone invents or pioneers a certain build order that counters the current popular meta, to which then people who normally use the current meta builds respond with builds designed AGAINST that build, would be "shifting the meta". These changes take place over quite a time. Example would be PvZ in sc2, where protoss players would typically open with a 3gate expand (as far as i recall, that was a long time ago), but after a while zergs found out how to exploit the weaknesses of this build, so protoss players started using FFE (forge fast expand) which was a much safer option compared to the original builds, and prevented zergling harassment from very early game much better. So you could say the PvZ metagame shifted from 3gateFE to FFE.

I respectfully disagree. Whilst metagame may have other meanings in different games, the (incorrect) meaning that is used in planetside refers to end game

Well I've suggested that punishments occur for losing an alert I guess that's "Meta Game". But it was immediately shot down as being too harsh and people would leave rather than suffer the consequences for failing.

I don't think endgame means what you think it means. It means the (usually PVP based) content when you get max, or close to max level on your character is MMORPGs.

While PS2 does have a few RPG elements, it doesn't have a stat or item or level progression, where you get stronger each level (ranks don't count, they're just there because potato).

You also need to understand that you can't have an "end-game", because that would require an "early-game", "a middle-game", and a progression between them, which doesn't normally happen in FPS games. Sure you have games like Borderlands, but do you want some people doing 30 damage while others do 5000?

The best post in this thread. Spot on

What if there were an early, middle, and end-game, though? What if instead of one constantly raging battle, we had "sessions" lasting for, say, seven days at a time? At the start of each session, every team starts on a home island with a warpgate to each continent open, no controlled territories, and a series of objectives to accomplish that give points towards the whole? Introduce continent locking, minor continents (battle islands) with major tactical value, reduce the number of small bases on each continent, make the big bases have more meaning and purpose, etc, etc? At the start of the week-long session, all three factions start with equal access and equal footing, and then duke it out for control of the major objectives over the course of the session.

There could even be the possibility of "eliminating" a faction by capturing and locking all of their warp gates. When a faction is eliminated from the race, they can no longer compete for the victor's title, but they may gain special abilities of some kind to still have a large impact on the rest of the session. Perhaps the ability to neutralize objectives, or create "rifts" to allow for spawning and causing mayhem in certain areas, stuff like that? I'm just kind of spitballing here.

At the end, points are tallied, taking into account a wide variety of factors, like:

• Total Kills
• Eliminations
• Resources Earned
• Warpgates Controlled
• Battle Islands Owned
• Total Territory Conquered

Things like that, you know? The reward at the end of it all is nothing major, but something kind of neat. A victor's title, a decal, a cert reward, a hood ornament, blah blah blah.

That would open up a real metagame. Strategy, objectives, tactics-- a game within the game. At the end of the week, the winners are announced, there's a brief staging period, and the next session begins.

When i think of "metagame" from PS1 i mainly remember draining enemy continents of NTU to open them up for capture.
Or stealing vehicle mods to gain Flails (artillery)
Or destroying gens and holding them to deny enemy tech/cavelock etc.
Or engineers setting up tons of deployables to fortify bases about to be attacked.

Too lazy.

Guess I'm hoping for an MMORPG FPS...

guess all I'll get is MMOFPS...

its cool. i guess.

Yes, it's quite important for me to see my faction's name on the screen flashing.

For me, (really, I'm not talking in behalf of anybody) without a real "result", or reward, or punishment, or winners or losers... this game isn't anything more than Battlefield series but with one humongous persistent world.

I don't have a problem with it, but I was, yes, kind of expected - and still expecting - of playing a game with real progression. Real story. Real objective. Real immersion that my action has the illusion that it benefited.... somebody. A real achievement I can brag.

Now, I do realize it really is a grey area. I could, say, RP myself into alerts, or set objectives with my outfit...

But I know, for a fact, there is REAL BIG potential in this game to really have a "metagame". Locking a continent would bring a lot more satisfaction than a piece of facility. It has bigger impact and "feel" more important. Battle island would open up the game to more strategies and a whole new way of playing that can really have longer lasting impact than flipping a facility.

I really am looking forward to that.

For me, that would create an objective. That could make this game a lot more immersive. I would be HAPPIER with this game if that happens. Not saying I'm not enjoying the game now.

What's wrong with that?

outside of my wife, I usually don't hear that.

So I'm very easily satisfied with a "quest" in a video game. I spent enough time in TWL/CAL/CPL for Counter-Strike and BF2. I'm done with crunching numbers and practicing my reflex all for more numbers on a virtual scoreboard.

I want to boot up a game and feel "oh wow, I'm soldier with a laser gun on an alien planet. This is f**kin awesome. What's the story? What can I do to make an impact in this world? How can I be the hero???".