Why want "metagame"?

in very small words:
Other games make tank vs tank better.
Other games make air vs air better.
Other games make infantry vs infantry better.
Other games make TDM better, e.g by not making 95% of them 48vs8.

Planetside Could make combined better, ATM just A unbalanced TDM point and click game.

Metagame is what gives you goals to achieve. And when first goals were achieved it gives you new ones. The thing that drives you forward and keep you playing. Currently PS2 has very few of such goals, mostly because most of your actions have no meaning and sense of acomplishment, no reward and feel that you achieved something or did something good and matters, if not for only yourself, but whole your faction.

Over analysing it, the game is pointless but tries to pretend it isn't.

You do not need 3 continents over x square km, 100s of players, dozens of gun types, tanks and aircraft to have a TDM. COD does that on a 10m by 10m map and I have been playing things like SOF2 since 2002 that did it better.

The pretending bit is that there is more to it than a TDM, when they haven't added anything yet.

It is simply an empty box or a box full of Styrofoam packing chips for no reason. It exists and yet serves no purpose.

Continent locking, missions and base resources being dependant on auraxium transports could transform if over night, and maybe in 6-7 years they might get around to it.

Until then you can use any over analysed term you want to try to describe the non-game it is, it is still a non-game with no objective or point.

I agree. Whole "Strategy on the massive scale" thing is simply a gimmick. But that said what is the point of any MMO? What are the objectives in sandbox game?

I'll try to explain:
Metagame means "beyond the game" so it's generally used in gaming jargon to say: "using out-of-game something to achieve something else ingame"

For example in Tabletop Roleplaying game jargon metagame means using out of character knowledge while roleplaying own character.

In videogames' jargon it means having another layer of complexity.

My personal opinion is the term is just plainly stupid and it's just equivalent to thing. Thing and metagame are so general terms to have no practical utility.

Literally from the wiki page that you posted that first definition from "Within actual entertainment games, the term metagame is used to describe either a game system layered over the game system, to increase enjoyable complexity". In PS2 the game system is FPS, controlling a character from first person point of view to shoot things. What people want is game mechanics to be introduced to give a reason why I'm shooting things here rather than over there, to produce effects that cause battles to ebb and flow to different places for reasons other than "There's more bad dudes to shoot at over there than here. Let's go!", which will produce a game system beyond the immediate one of FPS.

Your imagination is the best metagame you'll ever get. Too bad forumsiders lack it

Why don't you play Battlefield then if they are all the same? Then you would get your team's name flashing over the screen when you win every now and then. Why change this game into all the other games out there? Why can't we who have a sense of imagination and the ability to make our own objectives keep the game a little more sandboxy? It's nice to have a game that is not telling me every single second what to do.

First person give a definition of metagame that made sense.

The reason is why not? We could do this in ps1 and ps2 is supposed to be ps2 on steriods, isn't it?

Another reasons is that the game is a shooter but different in scale to any other (apart from ps1 and it's bigger than that). You can play this as a single player shooter, you can play it as a squad shooter but because the continents are essentially stand-alone maps you can't play it at any level above that and the scale of the game cries out for it.

A further reason is to provide a reason as to why we're fighting beyond the fun of the immediate fight. At present there is no reason apart from grinding xp to get more unlocks and weapons and so on. The global metagame would provide a goal above that of the squad and above that of the outfit.

We know this is possible and we know it works. In ps1 it was certainly possible to second guess and empire's strategy and it was possible for an empire to make strategic mistakes. We had a command channel called cr5 where if you were qualified you would discuss strategic moves, targets to hit and targets not to hit and so on. And of course we also had spies!!!

The problem with all of this is that it requires significant additions (not major changes) to the game. It requires Hossin and the three Battle Islands that have been promised, it requires an inter-continental lattice and it requires some warpgate footholds to be changes to proper working warpgates that can transport fully loaded vehicles to lnked warpgates. More continents and santuaries will make all this better.

I think this is the major gripe ps1 vets have with the game, ie it's not what they put in it's what they left out.

You raise a good point, the long and the short of it is people who use the word on the forums have, on a fundamental level, no clue what it means. Well everyone who uses the word has an idea of what 'metagame' means to them but this is usually warped from its true or original definition as to be beyond compare. That is the use of prio or exterior knowledge to influence your strategy.

It is basically impossible for the true definition of metagame to apply to planetside in any meaningful way. The closest we have come is probably when outfits used to precap important bases for an upcoming alert back when the algorithm was cracked and it was possible to calculate the timing of each alert. I have seen other examples of course, there is an outfit on ceres known for zoe farming biolabs if they get in allatum they will be there all day so we always make a move to block this, for the NC randoms benefit.

So while there is room for subtle nuance of tatic based on extraneous information, it is not going to affect 90% of the playerbase.

what they mean is game strategy. here we just have a three way with a choice of conts.
what if continent ownership meant so much you could;

- divide a high pop emp between two conts because they felt they had to defend both
- dull or break a empire cont drive by breaking into a continent they had to keep, so they had to respond to get you out,
- deny resources, like emp specific vehicles, by sabotaging facilities and keeping them locked down
- lock empires out of continents for a short period
- lock empires out of the game for a short period if they made critical mistakes

I have seen people in the forums saying "doors will add metagame"...

Coz even this game has more "objective-based metagame" than BF. At least the world is persistent and it one huge interconnected world with persistent "flag" (facilities).

I don't WANT this game to be closer to BF or CoD. This game is unique already as it is, BUT I WANT MOAR.

if you want to have a sense of imagination and make ur own objectives, then by all means. i dont need to kill off that "sandboxy" element. I JUST WANT MOAR.

What? Do you HAVE to go to alerts? What makes anyone think I want to make PS2 closer to every other FPS shooters? I want to make PS2 *FURTHER AWAY* from those game by adding these so-called "metagames" that the other games are severely lacking (not that they intended to have in beginning anyway)

having "metagames" gives a sense of objectives to others lacking with imaginations (namely, myself) but it can be implemented to preserve the freedom of PlanetSide.

reading comprehension much?

/sigh

it's the internet. the fault is at my expectation.

Regardless of what the definition of Metagame is, as a PS1 vet, I understand what people are asking for when they ask for more Metagame.

What PS2 needs is more strategic options. The resource system needs to be replaced ASAP with a system that can be affected by the opposing forces. This opens up more strategic options to cut a sector off from resources. This in turn has other Metagame effects by using this tactic to draw forces away from another location to resecure those resources. This is metagameing as you are effecting the gameplay with the intention of encouraging other players to respond to your actions, and thus have the effect of reducing the number of players the enemy is using to attack/defend a given location.

Generators in PS1 cut off the benefits of a facility, and its terminals. This again had a strategic effect on the game, but was not a required objective to enable you to capture a facility. It's was often used to disable a tech plant far behind lines to stop the spawning of MBTs and Reavers.

Again looking at PS1 mechanics, damaging the turrets and terminals within a base would cause the base to automatically repair them over time, using up its stock of nanites (energy reserves). If this reached zero, the base would turn neutral, and could be captured. This was a common way of opening up a continent that you had no direct link to, or cutting off the continental benefit if it was the base linked to the warp gate.

I believe what is being asked for are more mechanics that can effect the overall strategy of the game, not the wiki definition of Metagame. I too am one of those players who would like more options rather than hur dur off to the next base on the lattice, which is why my outfit try to do things like AV ambushes in between bases, or plain and simply make ourselves a pain in the bumbum of the enemy forces to draw them away from a fight, giving our empire the advantage.

TL;DR

More options for strategic gameplay is good and what is needed, irrespective of what metagame means.

There are multiple definitions of metagame. The one used in PS2 context is valid.

It would be nice if Forumside actively demanded the right to exploit, abuse, and cheat in order to succeed in Planetside 2.

To most planetsiders I talk to in game, the meta game is additional goals in game and 'things to do'. In the pipeline for this is stuff like resource revamp, continent locking, outfit base captures and so on. I suppose the only meta game content we have at the moment is 'which faction is best at alerts', but that's pretty weak sauce. Before the alerts, it was which faction can hold Indar (on Miller at least).

Its worth considering that as most factions have only 10 or so organised groups, its probably only going to be a relatively small amount of players that will actually be playing the meta game on the strategic level.

Planetside 2 has 3 distinct parts to it: MMO, FPS, and RTS.

Now, the MMO and FPS parts are kinda hard to miss, but the RTS stuff, well.... it's pretty easy to play the game and not worry about the strategy stuff. C'mon, we've all seen the guy that tries to lone wolf a base against the zerg and just continues to feed us all certs, right? Obviously, s/he's one example of those missing the strategy stuff.

Those asking for metagame USUALLY (but not always) are asking for game mechanics which allow strategic options. Examples of this are continental capping (and thus using your empire's population to maneuver and counter the enemy's - aka herding the enemy), Resource adjustment (thus allowing an empire to counter their enemy's combined arms by depleting resources in a way that actually works), cloaked AMSes (thus allowing for spawns to be used/protected to draw pubbies to a battle - aka herding the friendlies), etc.

Examples of "metagame" already in - lattice (allows strategists to predict and counter the enemy's next moves in a logical way), and um... yeah, um...

In Planetside 2, the metagame which people are asking for (usually) has little to do with stats and flashing names, and more to do with adding another layer to the complexity of the game. Sure, shooting people is loads of fun, yet we still see empire alliances forming in order to deal with the strategy aspect of this game. If we wanted to play on a simple level, we could simply look at the map, find the fight that is closest to balanced, and shoot people. Instead, we enjoy the aspect of conquering territory, and pushing the enemy back - and this requires strategy. Right now, the strategy is a bit too simplistic (either the enemy will follow their lane, or they won't. Either we will taunt them into another, or we will fight them head on.)

And in most situations, the metagame will not effect those who have little interest in it. No one is forced to think about what base to attack to draw the enemy forces away from out tech plant (and thus keep the ability to spawn MBTs) or which lane to hit to disperse the enemy zerg. For those who want to continue the simplistic point and shoot gameplay, adding additional metagame mechanics into Planetside 2 has little effect on them besides the time spent patching.

Metagame is exactly how it reads in the Wiki and UD. In terms of PS2, we used to have it and it was this: my platoon would be sitting and at a base ready to defend because we know they are going there next. We see the first few guys rolling and Identify them before even shooting, why? Because we would look at their outfit tags and from what we know about them we would adjust our tactics. i.e VDRS, get ready for lots of infantry and drop pods; TRAF, get the mines and AV; NUC get the AAA out!

See what I mean? It's these people that make an outfit for just a few guys that don't work with their faction that really kill the Metagame. Who do you think the TR on Waterson call for Air Support?

No. Metagame by definition is about things not explicitly listed in the ruleset, existing in the minds of players: best camping spots, strats/counterstrats, outside knowledge, mind games, you name it. You know the stats of classes and weapons - game, what is the best composition of the squad and why snipers are useless in the big picture? Metagame. Continent locks should they ever be introduced into the ruleset? Game. Why should that matter? Metagame. Long story short - if it comes from SOE, it's not a part of PS2 metagame.