So, in this forum you can quite often hear a mysterious word for many players - "metagame". And lack of it for now in Planetside. But almost no one want co clarify what they meant by that word. And I want to make it clear. How do you see metagame of Planetside? How would you make it? What should devs add to it and with what purpose?
Most times someone throws around that term they have no F'n clue what they are talking about.... most don't even know the definition of the word.
meta = a prefix appearing in loanwords from Greek, with the meanings “after,” “along with,” “beyond,” “among,” “behind,” I don't think there is a strict definition of what metagame is. I think that majority of players here by metagame mean strategic depth. Since global strategy implicitly isn't part of the first person shooter game one could call it a metagame because it is something that is based on the shooter aspect but yet transcends it.
right now the lack of a metagame is due to the lack of in game goals. I realise this may sound controversial but the fighting in PS2 needs to eventually have a winner. Capping a continent has no meaning, to say nothing of capturing a base. The lattice bandaids the common ground pounder into at least a "fun" fire fight, but that does nothing for a squad and platoon leaders who spend the fight watching the map; in fact it turns them into glorified fieldtrip chaperons.
Well capping a continent gives you resource buff. And I suppose that's the purpose of rising resource costs so those things are more valuable. But meh.... I'd rather have something more interesting, unique, and exiting as your continent cap rewards than just simple resources.
Metagame is when several outfits set a goal for us, agree to cooperate and then we all log in, communicate, coordinate, and have a huge 250 person Harasser zerg race if we succeed with the objective.
I don't think there needs to be a 'winner' to have a metagame, but definitely some rewards and goals to work towards.. Rewards for individuals are already covered currently with certs. Rewards for outfits aren't covered except for ranking. That should change, and that is a good place to start with patching in a metagame.
Meta-Game stands for the game players come up with within the existing rules of the game. People around here actually end up using it fairly incorrectly and really are referencing an "end game" style mechanic such as continent locking. Within Planetside 2's contexts it basically amounts to the ways to play the game as a group. For example your squads will be made up of 8 Heavies, 3 Medics, 1 Engineer because you've found that to be the most effective setup. There's nothing in game forcing you to go that route, it's simply the optimal route you found for playing the game while running squads. This concept is further expanded upon on how you play the game. For example using our established 8 HA, 3 Med, 1 Eng you may have also come to the conclusion that armor and aircraft die too easily so you start using infantry and sunderers for everything. This, again, is not enforced by the game but it's conclusions on what you have found to be the best way to play the game. As game balance (buffs and nerfs) come into play good groups will adapt their meta game strategies on the best way to play while the bad groups will continue to try to force square pegs into round holes. Eventually you will reach a stage of game play where the way you are playing is the "only" way to play the game because any other way is inefficient or wasteful. What's kinda shocking is how little people have picked up on or reached that stage of game play. A lot of outfits/groups like to mess around with things like mass pulling Armor only to be countered by the strength of AV weapons (MAXes and Infantry). Even mixed combat styles don't end up working because of how easy it is to counter air vehicles leaving your forces dedicated to it being entirely worthless. That said as part of an outfit who did reach that stage, it did get pretty boring as you end up doing the same thing night after night after night because you know there's no other better way to play the game. I mean in any other competitive game you read posts and discussions on the meta of the game discussing builds, team composition and tactics and the usual trolling and crying. Around here we're just left with the trolling and crying.
This. A few examples: Fury/Marauder, Composite Armor, Turbo Harassers, nanoweave builds, resist shields, suicide c4 light assaults, shotgun light assaults, IR/NV builds (though may have changed with recent nerf). As mentioned before, this game does not lack metagame, it lacks end-game type material.
Yep, I understood 'metagame' being the 'game within the game', you know that personal battle against that individual, or that rival clan, that runs under the surface of the main game. All player made, not developer provided. This is like giving a child a set of wooden blocks. Then the child says "give me objectives, things to build".. they missed the point.. just build with the blocks.
Where the "game within the game" element comes from is that players will end up playing the game their own way rather than the way the game was intended/developed to be played. A good example is the Alert system. The Devs might have designed the Alert system so that way it would even out the populations of the continents across all maps because everyone was on a particular continent. However what happened was all the players instead just shift over to the Alert continent for the Alert and then pile back into old continent after the fact. Game developers intend a feature or parts of the game to be played one way, meanwhile players are playing the game an entirely other ("game within the game"). Your wooden blocks anaology is right on the idea. In this case, however, it's like being given half a set of wooden blocks and being told to play with them. Where with the full set you could have done something grand, you're left with half the set and consequently can only come up with something more quaint instead. End game goals and objectives are a very real part of this picture and lacking them leads to no real need to develop a meta game. You don't need a plan for mindless slaughter.
This, they should make your post a sticky for all the whiners who cry "give us metagame" so they finally learn that what they're asking for has to be developed by themselves The #1 in this link is a pretty good definition of it too. The problem is this game is not competitive at all, at least until Outfit Tournaments and Battle Islands come up, then metagame will really develop, the game being competitive is pretty much a necessary condition for metagame to develop. The funny thing here is that while this community keeps crying "GIVE ME METAGAME", it's also downvoting the Outfit Tournaments in the Roadmap
Isn't 'forumside' the true meta-game of planetside 2? Always thought so...Mobilize players from your outfit and faction and play some forumside? Just the right amount of whine and nerf threads can get you and your faction on top. Fight the other factions on the forums, reddit and twitter and make the devs nerf your enemies to the ground.
The reality of the balance situation is often times far more complex than anyone is willing to think about or give credit to. While it'd certainly be convenient to label and say all balance changes are influenced solely by the forums it's rarely the case.
The metagame I want to see on Mattherson is various NC and TR outfit leaders coming to an agreement of terms to put down their arms against each other whenever Vanu pop reaches over 40% and smack the fourth faction out of the barneys until they get put back in their place.
I originally got on this forum to say almost this exact thing. I think the frustration is that people are unable to explain is the fact that there is no lasting reward. You can literally take over a continent (by whatever means) and in about 30 minutes it will be taken back. Indar with lattice at least lengthens this timeframe, but current rewards do not match the effort. Not sure if this changes even with the resource cost nerf. In PS1, there was similar small rewards for taking continents, but there was an additional reward that some are forgetting: you were rewarded after a 3-6 hour battle of not having to fight on that continent for at least an hour. --this won't work without more continents, I see it coming but it will take a while. Some other's frustration was with the Hex system (current lattice isn't perfect, but it's a start). It's simply not fun using a 12 man squad to chase down 3 guys and a sunderer all over the map. It is meta, but that doesn't mean it's fun. While other's think it is fun to generally harass the other factions within the restrictions of the game hoping someone will chase them. The "Let's go pick a fight" mentality. Truth is, this whole game is META. All the content is player created. The only way to add more metagame would be to remove the factions and have outfits fight for territory and resources for themselves. (think FPS EVE:::: NO, DUST IS NOT FPS EVE). The game does however need some sort of lasting rewards that make all the effort worth it. Most people have trouble figuring out how to communicate that feeling.
SOE took any metagame there was, in this context, when adding lattice. Now many of us can't have those little to medium battles and actually get to know our opponents. When one is forced to fight with the Zerg as the whole gameplay, even on my beloved Esamir, metagame if any is out the window.
Actually this is an example of what I was talking about them adjusting the game and players will end up adapting their meta. For example VS was pushing up our western side towards Saurava on Indar. To mess with them and stop that attack front we had the mid lane pushed around Allatum. So we, as a few squads, pushed that lane towards Hvar and drew back the main groups off Saurava. We had smaller intense fights while contributing to the larger over all battle scene. Unfortunately you never hear about that. What you instead hear about how everyone is stuck in one lane at one choke point base where there's no branch options (and even then there's still usually branch options in other lanes). Eventually people will adapt to this change and look for new ways to implement their preferred play style (smaller battles hitting off branches). Other groups will come to the forums and complain about the death of tactical game play.