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Getting good in almost all games is based on understanding and mastering the fundamentals to the extent that you can make consistently correct (or at least a hi

Getting good in almost all games is based on understanding and mastering the fundamentals to the extent that you can make consistently correct (or at least a high degree of 'correctness') decisions based on them. This is true for all esports titles, and probably all games in general. Mastering the fundamentals will make you 'good' to a level that very few people ever reach. It's not until you reach a level where everyone around you has a mastery of the fundamentals, that the meta comes into play. source: coached and managed professional esports players, in multiple games, who have competed in the world championship of their respective titles.

deleted 7y ago
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wpasc 7y ago
If you wouldn't mind posting a paragraph what coaching an esports team is like and how you feel about the current state of esports, I'd love to hear about it from an insider!
- Proziam 7y ago
  I'm not sure if this is exactly what you were hoping for but I'm happy to answer questions! On coaching: Coaching is probably the best and worst job in esports, depending on the day. It's also a role that is completely misunderstood by the management of most organizations, to the extent that coaches have had their decision-making hamstrung by management. This is getting better as time goes on, and I expect that it will eventually get to a similar place as traditional sports. With all of that out there, coaching is just straight-up fun. It's awesome to be able to see people improve over time and to pull together all your resources to try new things and push to a higher level. Between playing, coaching, and managing, I feel coaching is the most rewarding. On esports: I'm honestly torn about the state of esports at the moment. On the one hand, I'm very bullish on its future and happy to see that it's come as far as it has (it wasn't anything like this back when I first fell in love with it in the early MLG days - about 2004?). On the other hand, I feel like a majority of the money coming in is straight up dumb. The Overwatch League is probably the best example. The moment it was announced, I pulled the plug on the game entirely because it was clear there was no way to make it work the way it was 'supposed to.' However, if people continue to come into the space and invest in solid fundamentals (quality talent, management, and support) rather than fads (cough team Ember...), then the esports industry is going to thrive. In my opinion, it will become the 'new sports' but without the baggage of so much legacy. Esports has the potential to evolve and push the envelope in so many areas that the way we absorb 'sports' entertainment is going to change dramatically over the next decades. (EDIT: To expand on the overwatch question) The math behind the Overwatch Scene doesn't make much sense. If you compare the amount of capital drawn in vs the amount of money the average team can make, it's an extremely high-risk / low reward ecosystem to be involved in. That said, there aren't many organizations that actually turn a profit right now, and the valuation of everything is dubious at best. Almost every Overwatch player I know at this point is looking forward to Project A and praying, but only time will tell how that plays out.
  - FreezerburnV 7y ago
    Can you expand a bit on why you pulled the plug because of there being “no way to make it work like it’s ‘supposed to’”? I’m actively working hard to improve at Overwatch to try and break into the tiered competitive scene, so any reservations about its future are of great interest to me and figuring out whether or not it’s a ship to move from at some point or not.
    - Spellman 7y ago
      As with most eSports, the key metric is how much inflow there is and how much outflow. I'm not familiar enough with Overwatch specifically, but it sounds like there isn't enough income and prize pools to go around. The top team may earn a decent wage and splashy amounts, but there isn't enough at the 2nd or top 10 rung to support a thriving ecosystem longer-term. I'm more familiar with the LoL/DotA scene where there's enough smaller tournaments and the prize pool+sponsorships are enough to cover a wide range of top talent. Yeah, there's a lot of hype about winning the #1 Internationals, but that's only for one team out of hundreds that play. Or compare to how LoL is set up with their leagues where the top X teams get to play consistently and take in a steady income. Plus their broadcasting system to bring in more income to support the scene. Similarly, you can look at stream numbers to get a feel for other income available to the players. In general, without a healthy "middle-class" and "upper middle-class" of players to bring excitement and income, you lack the buzz and support to build top-tier competition longer term. And those don't exist unless there are ways for them to keep playing and monetize their skills. Fortunately, if you're grinding up the FPS ladders, most FPS games tend to have more transferable skills letting you move from game to game more easily than some genres. Ninja is pretty famous for being the best at Fortnite, but he was a pro PUBG player and pro Halo 3 player before that. So it's not uncommon to see FPS pro players shift between the more in vogue FPS game of the time. (Caveat that not all FPS games reward the same skills and all that, CS is not TF2 is not CoD is not Fortnite is not Overwatch)
    - JRKrause 7y ago
      I am no means an expert but my take was that many people from grass-roots esports backgrounds balk at the numbers set by ATVI for OWL team licensing (20mil for a team iirc?) and associated player salaries (reaching upwards of 200K in some instances). Certainly in it's current state, team merch/tickets sales are nowhere close to recuperating these expenses from an investment standpoint. I would argue that these complaints aren't understanding the 'meta' of capital investment in the current climate.
shadowsun7 7y ago
I absolutely agree. However, in my experience, recognition of the metagame comes way before you actually require it.
- dr-detroit 7y ago
  Most people who play these games watch elite pro youtubers and apply the pro meta to bottom-ladder-rank matches
- Proziam 7y ago
  This is 100% true. Unfortunately, it inhibits player growth tremendously. Players who are too focused on the meta lose sight of fundamentals. This can manifest itself in weird ways, like LoL players picking up the flavor of the month picks instead of playing what they're strongest on when they can. When I first started coaching LoL I came in to coach a team where the coaches I replaced suffered from some pretty serious delusions that come from the same place. They had very strong beliefs about playing 'the meta' and the value of certain flex picks at the time. When I took over and took the team back to fundamentals and reduced champion pools by half - winrates skyrocketed. It's really easy to want to copy what you see works for other people, but it's not always the best course of action.
  - kangnkodos 7y ago
    So chasing the latest LoL champion of the month is bad. That makes sense. But at what level does it pay off to take advantage of the meta changing, and change your main from time to time to adjust? I would say players around the border of silver and gold would benefit by paying attention to the meta.
    - Proziam 7y ago
      There are plenty of 'one-trick' players who can make it to extremely high elo even if they aren't particularly competitive. [0]There's a schoolteacher in Korea(?) who streams in a cow costume and plays only Master Yi, on the Korean server. He's Diamond. And then there's players like BoxBox, who isn't exactly a one-trick, but clearly mains Riven. [1]He's at ladder rank 334 at the moment. And as a final example, there's the monster himself, Apdo. [2]Apdo is a famous player in China who has on multiple occasions been rank 1 (or boosted people to rank 1...) using mostly Twisted Fate. He's more than talented enough to play any champion well, but is most known for TF. Similar to BoxBox and Riven, but on a whole different plane of skill. All this is to say that there's no real need to change champions to continue climbing until you're at least above diamond, or if you want to play with a group where a synergistic team composition would be meaningful (like amateur tournaments). [0]https://www.twitch.tv/cowsep https://www.twitch.tv/cowsep [1]https://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=boxbox https://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=boxbox [1]https://www.twitch.tv/boxbox https://www.twitch.tv/boxbox [2]https://lol.gamepedia.com/Apdo https://lol.gamepedia.com/Apdo
jpxw 7y ago
This is definitely true of chess.
- Proziam 7y ago
  I played a lot of chess as a kid. That's actually where I 'discovered' the real value of fundamentals. Quick wins in chess are universally the result of an opponent making a horrific mistake. Of course, that means the opposite is also true! There is no faking it in chess. You either grasp the game or you get soundly defeated over and over. That is also true of esports titles, which is why I fell in love with them.
  - blackandblue 7y ago
    would you guys mind giving examples of what you are calling fundamentals?
    - gowld 7y ago
      In Chess, you can learn techniques used by players a few hundred points above your rating, but still make game-losing blunders (hanging a piece totally undefended, not knowing how to finish a winning endgame) that are easy to spot (if you are careful). Patiently eliminating blunders will do much more for your rating than learning myriad openings variations and complex combination moves.
      - blackandblue 7y ago
        ah, i see. so fundamentals is like the basics and in these FPS games it's things like aiming, ducking, moving around, etc?
        Spellman 7y ago
        Not quite. In FPS, aiming moving and ducking are like learning how to move the pieces in chess. And sure, those are the basics to even play. But when people talk about "fundamentals" they are talking about the emergent things that come from those skills and are usually unique to the game. In chess, this is stuff like don't hang your pieces, tactics like spotting skewers or forks, understanding endgames, and later general strategic goals like controlling the center or develop your pieces to "good" squares. In FPS games, this often deals with understanding the flow of a map (choke points vs open areas, cover and sniper locations), proper navigation (efficient pathing!), role synergy, and how a match develops (at about 30 seconds I should expect an opponent, if they went straight path A, to show up around this corner). MOBA games moving and attacking and using a skill are the language. Fundamentals involve map awareness, ganking, vision control, wave management, etc. Fighting games move, jump, attack, block is the language. Understanding zone control, the Rock-Paper-Scissors of strike/block/grapple, how to manage your health and special meters, character movesets/matchups are the fundamentals. Picking character X against player Y is the meta. Once you have all of that squared away, you can start doing "meta." That is figuring out optimal picks vs particularly optimal setups, researching your opponent to build a specific toolkit against them, etc.
timerol 7y ago
TFA definitely agrees with this opinion, but also asserts that learning about the meta teaches you what fundamentals are most useful to know. > Note what I’m not saying, however. I’m not saying that I should actively pursue the meta — this is ineffective, because I am not good enough to play. I cannot execute even if I know where the puck is going. But studying the state of the metagame as it is right now often tells me what I must learn in order to get to that point.
gowld 7y ago
IMO, if you get to the point where the metagame matters, unless you are getting paid to play professionally, or you love metagames for their own sake, you should stop or drop down to a lower level league. Replacing every game by its metagame, as some "board game geeks" tend to do, destroys the diversiry and value of inventing different games in the first place. "Scrabble is an area control game with a complicated resource tree" may be fun for some, but informal not-technically-enforceable rules like "only play words you have ever used or seen before in a sentence" keeps it fun and interesting and meaningful for people who play games for valuable reasons (like learning, or skill development, or humor) other than just the W and L. If you are afraid to make an elegant or humorous play because it harms your chances in the metagame or to win overall, you are shortchanging yourself and your play partners.
- dmurray 7y ago
  That's not the meaning of "metagame" used in this article and typically used in esports.
- bena 7y ago
  Your advice is bordering on "you're having fun wrong". You are coming with the assumption that "fun" is some objective standard that is on a scale with "playing to win" on the other end. For some people, playing to win and finding the metagame is the fun. And there is nothing wrong with that. And too often I find that people who complain about people who are just "playing to win" are really just trying to complain about losing without seeming sore. The pattern is easy to spot, anything that causes them to lose is somehow "playing wrong" or not "fun". There's apparently some intangible, undefinable, nebulous quality being lost. But in reality, the only thing actually being lost is your chance to win.
  - gowld 7y ago
    > > unless you love metagames for their own sake > There's apparently some intangible, undefinable, nebulous quality being lost. Yes, it's called "fun". It's using the game as a platform for creativity and expression, not merely optimization for a fixed arbitrary set of rules. Saying that this doesn't count is you saying "you're having fun wrong". It's also why professional sports evolve rules to stop camping strategies like scoring 1 pt and then sitting on the ball/puck unitl the clock runs out.
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ggambetta 7y ago
> Mastering the fundamentals will make you 'good' to a level that very few people ever reach. Can you clarify this? Is this because most people don't care about mastering the fundamentals in the first place? I can't tell whether I'm missing something and the idea is more complex, or that's what you're saying.
- drchickensalad 7y ago
  Most people consistently make mistakes. They're not really playing to win, and going over all their footage to ensure they have their fundamentals down. It's actually really hard to perfect your fundamentals.
- Proziam 7y ago
  In my experience it comes down to two things: 1. People think they already have the fundamentals 'down' 2. Actually mastering the fundamentals can be boring and make a game feel like work (which, if you don't truly enjoy pushing the limits in a game, it is.) A totally random example from League of Legends. 99% of players go into game after game and literally never review their previous games. They will spam games but literally never go into a custom game to practice last hitting. Or, they'll play a different champion every game, instead of putting in the repetition required to fully comprehend all the matchups they will find themselves in. In short, very few players think of their most time spent practicing fundamentals as a valuable investment. Related, most players never even learn what the fundamentals are because revealing them takes a lot of effort. For example, Starcraft is a game largely driven by economy or 'macro' rather than ultra-fast reflexes. However, the importance of macro is basically hidden from novice players. Their in-game experience is 'the other player always has more stuff than I do!' which they often attribute to build-order or other game decisions. It actually takes a while before a player really gets in tune with the idea that they need to be deploying resources ASAP and balancing the resources they acquire with the unit composition they are going to have in the next [insert window of time].
  - blackandblue 7y ago
    learning so much from you guys lol not even a gamer :) now i think i am going to try to invest into a camera to record my piano practices. i wonder if that would help me get better...
rc-1140 7y ago
Agreed. Since a bunch of people seem to be responding to you about competitive games/experiences, my friend left me with the following pointer when he gave me a lengthy rundown on 2D fighters (cleaned up a bit for HN posting): "Tech and meta aren't things to chase after because they're things that come with learning fundamentals. You practice fundamentals until you die". It was like that when I was playing Quake, when I was playing Team Fortress 2, CounterStrike, etc., and it was like that when I was playing Starcraft.
- munchbunny 7y ago
  In my experience, there's a sort of hierarchy of skills relevant to the game or competition. There are basic skills (like being fast and accurate with aiming, or predicting the opponent's movement), and then there are skills that are dependent on basic skills (leading targets), skills that are only possible once basic skills become automatic (map awareness), or skills that are situational. The "fundamentals" are usually the 80% mark on this graph: it's the generally agreed upon set of skills that are relevant in 80% of situations, so if you have your fundamentals down better than your opponent, you will win in 80% of those situations. The meta might win you the other 20%, but that's capped at 20%.
  - Spellman 7y ago
    I break the tiers down into 3 categories. 1) Literacy. Can you move and shoot in the FPS? Know how pieces move in chess? Basics of the how to play. You must master these and make them reflexive to move forward. 2) Fundamentals. The emergent gameplay that arises from those basic rules. But importantly these are all contained within the game. I usually break these up into Tactics and Strategy. Tactics are the moment-to-moment events. Strategy are longer-term goals that help guide you towards victory, and understanding how overlapping or even conflicting strategies can work in synergy and in trade-offs. For example, in chess tactics are things like recognizing forks and skewers. Strategy involves "controlling the center" or "develop your pieces to good squares." In MOBAs, last hitting, skill combos, space control are the tactics. Strategy can involve knowing when to push, when to group to gank vs split push, or farm vs gank decisions. Interestingly some game types have more tactics/strategy components. Twitch FPS games tend to be almost all tactics with a bit of strategy (gun X better in situation Y). Starcraft rewards strategy more heavily (do better macro!). These are, as you mention, skills that will apply to the vast majority of games because they are baked into the rules of the game. 3) The Meta. Once you are near the Fundamentals skill cap, you can use information outside of the game to get an edge against similar opponents. I'm about to play player X, and they usually like to do Y, so I should prepare a counter strategy Z. A lot of players seem to really like character A because of these advantages, perhaps I should learn A and how to counter the most common tactics using my character's skillset. Note knowing the Meta also helps prune what information (Fundamentals) you need to learn and maintain. If no one plays character Foo, then you (probably) don't need to understand their kit as intimately. But then someone could use it as an off-meta pick to surprise you! So you should be at least familiar enough to refute it just in case.
inerte 7y ago
I sometimes entertain myself watching "knowing the rules" sport videos on YouTube, for example https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=football+knowing+the+rules https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=football+knowin... Not to mention when organizations have to write new rules to prevent someone exploiting unintended consequences of the existing ruleset. It's fairly common not only in sports but source of many regulations and laws in any sector.
- dfxm12 7y ago
  It's fairly common not only in sports but source of many regulations and laws in any sector. Regulation is more of a pay to win game.
  - inerte 7y ago
    I don't disagree, but I think that view is complimentary to regulation being created and discussed and implemented. People see organizations doing bad stuff, create constraints, which a lot of times the organizations welcome since raises the barrier for competitors to entry.
  - Thriptic 7y ago
    It's more complicated than that. Largely, it just seems that way because most people never bother to understand the rules past a cursory Google whereas big companies have teams of very experienced regulatory professionals from the agencies themselves who are all about it and therefore know every way to tweak inputs so that they trigger certain regulations rather than others. I was working on a regulatory compliance product for a bit and the first thing I did was pull every applicable regulation, standard, and rule governing the space and read them. This took about a month and made me much more knowledgeable than the vast majority of people in the field who didn't even try. Being an expert is about taking the time to sit down and read the RFCs, basically. We don't have many experts because no one wants to do it.
    - roel_v 7y ago
      This is so true. I got a law degree as a hobby while working as a software developer. The actual substantive knowledge I got from that hasn't been very useful so far (apart from the occasional online flex...), but the skills I learned to do what you describe have been a real USP for me. Now law school didn't explicitly teach me those skills; there was never a course where someone taught 'how to go deep on any subject'. It was more learned through osmosis, and maybe some aspect of seeing the meta as well. Seeing a few times how rules are never what they seem at first, and that you need to understand the full landscape to really understand, apply and abuse them is the underlying experience/skill. (come to think of it, maybe this is exactly the meta but just looking at it from another side... hmm...)
mercer 7y ago
I've noticed this to be true for table tennis and other sports too. When I play against a less experienced player, it's quite frustrating to notice that most of the points I score are clear mistakes on their part, rather than any kind of skilled moves on my part.
- wilburTheDog 7y ago
  Charles Ellis wrote a book(1) about that. He asserts that any professional sports competition is a winner's game - you win by successfully executing difficult plays and being better than your competition. But amateur sports is usually a loser's game - you win by not making as many mistakes as your competition. The book is about finance but the observation is universal. 1. https://www.amazon.com/Winning-Losers-Game-6th-Strategies/dp/0071813659 https://www.amazon.com/Winning-Losers-Game-6th-Strategies/dp...
  - clairity 7y ago
    not having read the book, that seems insightful on the surface but isn’t particularly useful or actionable. all it seems to be saying is that to become better, make fewer mistakes, with an implied exhortion to practice. is there more to it than that?
    - ska 7y ago
      I think the idea is that if you aren't operating at "pro league" level in anything, you should focus mostly on getting the basics right and not making mistakes. But if you are operating at that level, this is table stakes and you need to do more, or your competition will overrun you. I suspect most people/organizations operating at the highest level understand or have internalized this, but many in the other category have not, to their demise. I've certainly seen organizations get themselves in trouble by trying to execute on something trickier than they were ready for. And others fail at something through an accumulation of clearly (at least, in retrospect) avoidable mistakes. The corollary being that you are very likely to be in the latter category, like it or not, and it's best to realize it. I haven't read the book though so could easily be misinterpreting.
kingkongjaffa 7y ago
This rung true for competetive Halo. The novice was focused on aiming good and getting accurate with the bread and butter weapon (magnum or battle rifle depending on which halo you played) The top players were great at the standard weapon, and a the power weapons, and the meta became: - instead of individual kils - teamwork to double team a single opponent - map positioning to control where the enemy would respawn when killed, - timing when the power weapons on the map would regenerate. key skills became teamwork, coordination and communication when everyone is a good aim.
simonebrunozzi 7y ago
I would be really interested in reading a long blog post about your experience. I'm sure it would reveal many details that most people (including me) wouldn't easily guess.
WhompingWindows 7y ago
I disagree slightly. The metagame is relevant whenever you're facing opponents of similar skill. If you're way better than your opponent, you can use highly sub-optimal, non-meta strategies and win through sheer experience and skill. For instance, I could kill 50% of Starcraft opponents lower than me by building only one unit and even announcing which unit I'll mass up. However, if you're making a similar number of errors as your opponent, then the meta does come into play. Regardless of the raw error rate, where pros make few and amateurs make many, if this rate is similar to your opponent, then it still matters if your opponent has a strategic/meta counter to your strategy.
- wongarsu 7y ago
  I agree, but applying this isn't always easy: When discussing meta and strategy, it's usually discussed in the context of high level esport play. But the optimal strategy often drastically changes with skill level. For example in a shooter when everyone has bad aim and bad teamwork/communication you need a different strategy then in high level esport in the same game where everyone is great at aiming and lives in the same flat as his teammates.
  - Proziam 7y ago
    The optimal strategy for winning the game you're in is the most-winning strategy that your skill level allows you to execute. The optimal strategy for the game itself requires you to develop your skills to allow you to execute it. One of the problems when you discuss strategy and meta is that most people blur the lines between the two. If you plan something based on opposition research (like at the pro esports level as an example), you are approaching that game with a specific strategy in mind. Your chosen strategy should keep the meta in mind but the strategy and the meta are distinct. The meta comes from knowing the various strategies that are effective against other teams/players who utilize the same general pool of strategies. Each strategy in the pool comes about because it works with reasonable reliability against the other strategies in the pool. That's why unexpected plays, 'cheese,' or 'hard-counters' come into play at the strategic level (often saved for specific opponents or situations). The meta is more about knowing what situations you're likely to encounter. You know the meta, then you optimize your strategic approach for your unique situation (such as the skill-set of the various players on your team, specific tendencies of the opponent you're preparing for, or even choosing not to optimize to win your next game to keep a strategy hidden (among other reasons). Ultimately, the strategic evolutions of iterated games is a ridiculously deep and nuanced topic, making it difficult to really get into the meat and potatoes in forums. Maybe I should make a blog post or something, but I don't know how interesting it would be.
novok 7y ago
I think it depends on the game too. In Dota 2 (and probably LoL) the balance between heros can change significantly per patch, and a lot of winning is having good hero picks compared to the other team. If you don't keep up with the meta, then your win rate will go down, and this is true for amateurs and the pros.
- thereare5lights 7y ago
  I don't agree with that. It goes back to > It's not until you reach a level where everyone around you has a mastery of the fundamentals, that the meta comes into play. At any given MMR bracket, everyone around you has a similar mastery of the fundamentals so the meta is relevant. However, put someone with the fundamentals of a 6k+ MMR player into a 3 or even 4k match and they'll demolish everyone else even with a disadvantage relative to the metagame.
  - rifung 7y ago
    I believe you're in agreement. The original comment said > It's not until you reach a level where everyone around you has a mastery of the fundamentals, that the meta comes into play. and you said > At any given MMR bracket, everyone around you has a similar mastery of the fundamentals so the meta is relevant. which refutes the original comment. > However, put someone with the fundamentals of a 6k+ MMR player into a 3 or even 4k match and they'll demolish everyone else even with a disadvantage relative to the metagame. I don't think anyone disagrees with this; I think the issue I (and the person you're responding to) have is the idea that you should ignore understanding the meta until you're 6k MMR as you say. Both are important and you should develop both at the same time if you want to improve.
    - Spellman 7y ago
      Perhaps the best use of the meta, as noted in the article, is to help guide you to understanding what are the fundamentals to learn, and they help filter down what fundamentals you need to learn. Zeus is never picked? Great! Don't need to learn that kit. Or perhaps digging into why Zeus isn't picked can help inform why another character is more useful especially in conjunction with others in a team.
namelosw 7y ago
It really depends on the game. Getting specific on the skill works very well on simple FPS games, just like bots are easily beat all of the top players. Basically this is true for the games that rules are extremely simple, there's no place left to play the metagame. While a lot of games with sufficiently complicated mechanisms where people cannot process accurately, meta could come into play. For example, people spend quite some time making the computer beat human in the chess game, when human only have some not accurate meta experience. Also, meta is probably the most useful skill for learning new games. A decent RPG player would infer the plot and mechanism in new RPG games, whereas a strategy game player could quickly find out what's the trade-off between all the viable options much quicker than others. A player with all genres experiences can adapt any games real quick.
tikhonj 7y ago
This probably says something interesting about have design—but I'm not sure what exactly! One thought is that there are some games where the metagame becomes important at earlier skill levels. Magic the Gathering comes to mind: fundamental skills are certainly important, but understanding the format—even in formats where you don't need a pre-built deck—is important even at a middling skill level, well short of any competitive level. I feel this pretty keenly because that's the level I play at online!
- Proziam 7y ago
  The truth is, (and this applies to games like MTG, Hearthstone, Poker, etc.) piloting the deck you have correctly matters more than people really like admitting. If you copy a 'known-good' strategy, you can crush with it at every level except the very top of the game. This applies even if your known good strategy is off-meta. The main issue at the middle level is that people don't push to the next level of thinking, despite often thinking that they do. The reality is that most people have the thoughts but not consistently. Or, they have the thought, but don't apply it (well) to their decision making. (I'm going to butcher this concept for this example) Level one - You play your cards. You look at what you've got; you do stuff that has a big effect based on what you have in your hand. Your opponent's counter-play options aren't considered. Level two - You now consider that your opponent might counter the cards you play in some fashion, and you adjust accordingly. This is the level most people are at. ('If I play BIG CARD and he just kills it with EASY COUNTER that would be bad...let's hold off on it until there's a lower chance of that happening...') Level three - You now consider that your opponent is making the same kind of decisions you are. The game becomes more about information. You know that when X card is played, it indicates certain other possibilities. And, you are aware that your opponent might be making the same considerations about you, so you consider the plays you make in the context of how they might be perceived. (A lot of this becomes near-autopilot because of the sheer volume of games put in - often thousands -> tens of thousands). This is the short version of the concept, but it applies to all games that have incomplete information, MOBAs, Card Games, RTS, and so forth.
  - pimmen 7y ago
    This is illustrated with the deck Affinity. It sweeps beginner players consistently even if the pilot keeps making mistakes but once you meet tougher opposition all of the options the deck presents become overwhelming and you know that you need to maximize the value of every play to beat a good opponent, especially if they have boarded in counters for your deck.
beaker52 7y ago
It doesn't have to be _everyone_ - I've played many an online FPS where I really appreciated that _one_ player for the meta battle going on between us whilst the rest of the game unfolded around us. I really play games for those moments where you communicate with a player/players _on the other team_ through the meta. And then you dance around the strategies trying to set/catch each other offguard. And you _know_ when you're playing against someone that gets it. And you can tell certain players apart, or classify their level of meta-ability by they way they're playing. Sometimes in chess, you're embroiled in a really intense battle in one area of the board, but the game is developing on some other level and is primed for a swift turn, and knowing your opponent is aware of that same notion is really beautiful. A great, quick and easy card/boardgame for revealing this kind of meta (but it's kinda one dimensional when you "get it") is "The Mind". https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/244992/mind https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/244992/mind It's great for giving people a taste of the thrill of meta.
- pingyong 7y ago
  The thing is in common esport titles this will only ever really happen at relatively high levels (top ~0.1%) of play. Or at least, that's where it would actually matter. Below that, games are usually just decided by who is better at fundamentals. It doesn't matter how great your smoke setup is in CS:GO if I can just wait or flash my way through and insta headshot everyone because I'm just better at movement/aim. And the same is even more true when you compare pre-set strategies with rigid holding positions to people who instinctively know when they have to get counter-frags when a teammate dies and how push in a way that doesn't allow these set strategies. (The same is true to almost the same degree in LoL/DotA/SCII).
gentleman11 7y ago
Not a coach or a pro, but I was very briefly coached by somebody who coached pro teams. I eventually made top 0.1% mmr at a certain esport too (in the more casual “play with friends” mode - why play a multiplayer game in solo queue?). I can confirm that it’s all about the fundamentals. You have to realize that, no matter how good your fundamentals and “mechanics” are, they are actually not good and that if you improve them you will just climb and climb. It’s a bit tricky to figure out what these fundamentals are when you start out - not everything is equal.

deleted 7y ago

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wpasc 7y ago

If you wouldn't mind posting a paragraph what coaching an esports team is like and how you feel about the current state of esports, I'd love to hear about it from an insider!

Proziam 7y ago
I'm not sure if this is exactly what you were hoping for but I'm happy to answer questions! On coaching: Coaching is probably the best and worst job in esports, depending on the day. It's also a role that is completely misunderstood by the management of most organizations, to the extent that coaches have had their decision-making hamstrung by management. This is getting better as time goes on, and I expect that it will eventually get to a similar place as traditional sports. With all of that out there, coaching is just straight-up fun. It's awesome to be able to see people improve over time and to pull together all your resources to try new things and push to a higher level. Between playing, coaching, and managing, I feel coaching is the most rewarding. On esports: I'm honestly torn about the state of esports at the moment. On the one hand, I'm very bullish on its future and happy to see that it's come as far as it has (it wasn't anything like this back when I first fell in love with it in the early MLG days - about 2004?). On the other hand, I feel like a majority of the money coming in is straight up dumb. The Overwatch League is probably the best example. The moment it was announced, I pulled the plug on the game entirely because it was clear there was no way to make it work the way it was 'supposed to.' However, if people continue to come into the space and invest in solid fundamentals (quality talent, management, and support) rather than fads (cough team Ember...), then the esports industry is going to thrive. In my opinion, it will become the 'new sports' but without the baggage of so much legacy. Esports has the potential to evolve and push the envelope in so many areas that the way we absorb 'sports' entertainment is going to change dramatically over the next decades. (EDIT: To expand on the overwatch question) The math behind the Overwatch Scene doesn't make much sense. If you compare the amount of capital drawn in vs the amount of money the average team can make, it's an extremely high-risk / low reward ecosystem to be involved in. That said, there aren't many organizations that actually turn a profit right now, and the valuation of everything is dubious at best. Almost every Overwatch player I know at this point is looking forward to Project A and praying, but only time will tell how that plays out.
- FreezerburnV 7y ago
  Can you expand a bit on why you pulled the plug because of there being “no way to make it work like it’s ‘supposed to’”? I’m actively working hard to improve at Overwatch to try and break into the tiered competitive scene, so any reservations about its future are of great interest to me and figuring out whether or not it’s a ship to move from at some point or not.
  - Spellman 7y ago
    As with most eSports, the key metric is how much inflow there is and how much outflow. I'm not familiar enough with Overwatch specifically, but it sounds like there isn't enough income and prize pools to go around. The top team may earn a decent wage and splashy amounts, but there isn't enough at the 2nd or top 10 rung to support a thriving ecosystem longer-term. I'm more familiar with the LoL/DotA scene where there's enough smaller tournaments and the prize pool+sponsorships are enough to cover a wide range of top talent. Yeah, there's a lot of hype about winning the #1 Internationals, but that's only for one team out of hundreds that play. Or compare to how LoL is set up with their leagues where the top X teams get to play consistently and take in a steady income. Plus their broadcasting system to bring in more income to support the scene. Similarly, you can look at stream numbers to get a feel for other income available to the players. In general, without a healthy "middle-class" and "upper middle-class" of players to bring excitement and income, you lack the buzz and support to build top-tier competition longer term. And those don't exist unless there are ways for them to keep playing and monetize their skills. Fortunately, if you're grinding up the FPS ladders, most FPS games tend to have more transferable skills letting you move from game to game more easily than some genres. Ninja is pretty famous for being the best at Fortnite, but he was a pro PUBG player and pro Halo 3 player before that. So it's not uncommon to see FPS pro players shift between the more in vogue FPS game of the time. (Caveat that not all FPS games reward the same skills and all that, CS is not TF2 is not CoD is not Fortnite is not Overwatch)
  - JRKrause 7y ago
    I am no means an expert but my take was that many people from grass-roots esports backgrounds balk at the numbers set by ATVI for OWL team licensing (20mil for a team iirc?) and associated player salaries (reaching upwards of 200K in some instances). Certainly in it's current state, team merch/tickets sales are nowhere close to recuperating these expenses from an investment standpoint. I would argue that these complaints aren't understanding the 'meta' of capital investment in the current climate.

shadowsun7 7y ago

I absolutely agree. However, in my experience, recognition of the metagame comes way before you actually require it.

dr-detroit 7y ago
Most people who play these games watch elite pro youtubers and apply the pro meta to bottom-ladder-rank matches
Proziam 7y ago
This is 100% true. Unfortunately, it inhibits player growth tremendously. Players who are too focused on the meta lose sight of fundamentals. This can manifest itself in weird ways, like LoL players picking up the flavor of the month picks instead of playing what they're strongest on when they can. When I first started coaching LoL I came in to coach a team where the coaches I replaced suffered from some pretty serious delusions that come from the same place. They had very strong beliefs about playing 'the meta' and the value of certain flex picks at the time. When I took over and took the team back to fundamentals and reduced champion pools by half - winrates skyrocketed. It's really easy to want to copy what you see works for other people, but it's not always the best course of action.
- kangnkodos 7y ago
  So chasing the latest LoL champion of the month is bad. That makes sense. But at what level does it pay off to take advantage of the meta changing, and change your main from time to time to adjust? I would say players around the border of silver and gold would benefit by paying attention to the meta.
  - Proziam 7y ago
    There are plenty of 'one-trick' players who can make it to extremely high elo even if they aren't particularly competitive. [0]There's a schoolteacher in Korea(?) who streams in a cow costume and plays only Master Yi, on the Korean server. He's Diamond. And then there's players like BoxBox, who isn't exactly a one-trick, but clearly mains Riven. [1]He's at ladder rank 334 at the moment. And as a final example, there's the monster himself, Apdo. [2]Apdo is a famous player in China who has on multiple occasions been rank 1 (or boosted people to rank 1...) using mostly Twisted Fate. He's more than talented enough to play any champion well, but is most known for TF. Similar to BoxBox and Riven, but on a whole different plane of skill. All this is to say that there's no real need to change champions to continue climbing until you're at least above diamond, or if you want to play with a group where a synergistic team composition would be meaningful (like amateur tournaments). [0]https://www.twitch.tv/cowsep https://www.twitch.tv/cowsep [1]https://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=boxbox https://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=boxbox [1]https://www.twitch.tv/boxbox https://www.twitch.tv/boxbox [2]https://lol.gamepedia.com/Apdo https://lol.gamepedia.com/Apdo

jpxw 7y ago

This is definitely true of chess.

Proziam 7y ago
I played a lot of chess as a kid. That's actually where I 'discovered' the real value of fundamentals. Quick wins in chess are universally the result of an opponent making a horrific mistake. Of course, that means the opposite is also true! There is no faking it in chess. You either grasp the game or you get soundly defeated over and over. That is also true of esports titles, which is why I fell in love with them.
- blackandblue 7y ago
  would you guys mind giving examples of what you are calling fundamentals?
  - gowld 7y ago
    In Chess, you can learn techniques used by players a few hundred points above your rating, but still make game-losing blunders (hanging a piece totally undefended, not knowing how to finish a winning endgame) that are easy to spot (if you are careful). Patiently eliminating blunders will do much more for your rating than learning myriad openings variations and complex combination moves.
    - blackandblue 7y ago
      ah, i see. so fundamentals is like the basics and in these FPS games it's things like aiming, ducking, moving around, etc?
      - Spellman 7y ago
        Not quite. In FPS, aiming moving and ducking are like learning how to move the pieces in chess. And sure, those are the basics to even play. But when people talk about "fundamentals" they are talking about the emergent things that come from those skills and are usually unique to the game. In chess, this is stuff like don't hang your pieces, tactics like spotting skewers or forks, understanding endgames, and later general strategic goals like controlling the center or develop your pieces to "good" squares. In FPS games, this often deals with understanding the flow of a map (choke points vs open areas, cover and sniper locations), proper navigation (efficient pathing!), role synergy, and how a match develops (at about 30 seconds I should expect an opponent, if they went straight path A, to show up around this corner). MOBA games moving and attacking and using a skill are the language. Fundamentals involve map awareness, ganking, vision control, wave management, etc. Fighting games move, jump, attack, block is the language. Understanding zone control, the Rock-Paper-Scissors of strike/block/grapple, how to manage your health and special meters, character movesets/matchups are the fundamentals. Picking character X against player Y is the meta. Once you have all of that squared away, you can start doing "meta." That is figuring out optimal picks vs particularly optimal setups, researching your opponent to build a specific toolkit against them, etc.

timerol 7y ago

TFA definitely agrees with this opinion, but also asserts that learning about the meta teaches you what fundamentals are most useful to know. > Note what I’m not saying, however. I’m not saying that I should actively pursue the meta — this is ineffective, because I am not good enough to play. I cannot execute even if I know where the puck is going. But studying the state of the metagame as it is right now often tells me what I must learn in order to get to that point.

gowld 7y ago

IMO, if you get to the point where the metagame matters, unless you are getting paid to play professionally, or you love metagames for their own sake, you should stop or drop down to a lower level league. Replacing every game by its metagame, as some "board game geeks" tend to do, destroys the diversiry and value of inventing different games in the first place. "Scrabble is an area control game with a complicated resource tree" may be fun for some, but informal not-technically-enforceable rules like "only play words you have ever used or seen before in a sentence" keeps it fun and interesting and meaningful for people who play games for valuable reasons (like learning, or skill development, or humor) other than just the W and L. If you are afraid to make an elegant or humorous play because it harms your chances in the metagame or to win overall, you are shortchanging yourself and your play partners.

dmurray 7y ago
That's not the meaning of "metagame" used in this article and typically used in esports.
bena 7y ago
Your advice is bordering on "you're having fun wrong". You are coming with the assumption that "fun" is some objective standard that is on a scale with "playing to win" on the other end. For some people, playing to win and finding the metagame is the fun. And there is nothing wrong with that. And too often I find that people who complain about people who are just "playing to win" are really just trying to complain about losing without seeming sore. The pattern is easy to spot, anything that causes them to lose is somehow "playing wrong" or not "fun". There's apparently some intangible, undefinable, nebulous quality being lost. But in reality, the only thing actually being lost is your chance to win.
- gowld 7y ago
  > > unless you love metagames for their own sake > There's apparently some intangible, undefinable, nebulous quality being lost. Yes, it's called "fun". It's using the game as a platform for creativity and expression, not merely optimization for a fixed arbitrary set of rules. Saying that this doesn't count is you saying "you're having fun wrong". It's also why professional sports evolve rules to stop camping strategies like scoring 1 pt and then sitting on the ball/puck unitl the clock runs out.

deleted 7y ago

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ggambetta 7y ago

> Mastering the fundamentals will make you 'good' to a level that very few people ever reach. Can you clarify this? Is this because most people don't care about mastering the fundamentals in the first place? I can't tell whether I'm missing something and the idea is more complex, or that's what you're saying.

drchickensalad 7y ago
Most people consistently make mistakes. They're not really playing to win, and going over all their footage to ensure they have their fundamentals down. It's actually really hard to perfect your fundamentals.
Proziam 7y ago
In my experience it comes down to two things: 1. People think they already have the fundamentals 'down' 2. Actually mastering the fundamentals can be boring and make a game feel like work (which, if you don't truly enjoy pushing the limits in a game, it is.) A totally random example from League of Legends. 99% of players go into game after game and literally never review their previous games. They will spam games but literally never go into a custom game to practice last hitting. Or, they'll play a different champion every game, instead of putting in the repetition required to fully comprehend all the matchups they will find themselves in. In short, very few players think of their most time spent practicing fundamentals as a valuable investment. Related, most players never even learn what the fundamentals are because revealing them takes a lot of effort. For example, Starcraft is a game largely driven by economy or 'macro' rather than ultra-fast reflexes. However, the importance of macro is basically hidden from novice players. Their in-game experience is 'the other player always has more stuff than I do!' which they often attribute to build-order or other game decisions. It actually takes a while before a player really gets in tune with the idea that they need to be deploying resources ASAP and balancing the resources they acquire with the unit composition they are going to have in the next [insert window of time].
- blackandblue 7y ago
  learning so much from you guys lol not even a gamer :) now i think i am going to try to invest into a camera to record my piano practices. i wonder if that would help me get better...

rc-1140 7y ago

Agreed. Since a bunch of people seem to be responding to you about competitive games/experiences, my friend left me with the following pointer when he gave me a lengthy rundown on 2D fighters (cleaned up a bit for HN posting): "Tech and meta aren't things to chase after because they're things that come with learning fundamentals. You practice fundamentals until you die". It was like that when I was playing Quake, when I was playing Team Fortress 2, CounterStrike, etc., and it was like that when I was playing Starcraft.

munchbunny 7y ago
In my experience, there's a sort of hierarchy of skills relevant to the game or competition. There are basic skills (like being fast and accurate with aiming, or predicting the opponent's movement), and then there are skills that are dependent on basic skills (leading targets), skills that are only possible once basic skills become automatic (map awareness), or skills that are situational. The "fundamentals" are usually the 80% mark on this graph: it's the generally agreed upon set of skills that are relevant in 80% of situations, so if you have your fundamentals down better than your opponent, you will win in 80% of those situations. The meta might win you the other 20%, but that's capped at 20%.
- Spellman 7y ago
  I break the tiers down into 3 categories. 1) Literacy. Can you move and shoot in the FPS? Know how pieces move in chess? Basics of the how to play. You must master these and make them reflexive to move forward. 2) Fundamentals. The emergent gameplay that arises from those basic rules. But importantly these are all contained within the game. I usually break these up into Tactics and Strategy. Tactics are the moment-to-moment events. Strategy are longer-term goals that help guide you towards victory, and understanding how overlapping or even conflicting strategies can work in synergy and in trade-offs. For example, in chess tactics are things like recognizing forks and skewers. Strategy involves "controlling the center" or "develop your pieces to good squares." In MOBAs, last hitting, skill combos, space control are the tactics. Strategy can involve knowing when to push, when to group to gank vs split push, or farm vs gank decisions. Interestingly some game types have more tactics/strategy components. Twitch FPS games tend to be almost all tactics with a bit of strategy (gun X better in situation Y). Starcraft rewards strategy more heavily (do better macro!). These are, as you mention, skills that will apply to the vast majority of games because they are baked into the rules of the game. 3) The Meta. Once you are near the Fundamentals skill cap, you can use information outside of the game to get an edge against similar opponents. I'm about to play player X, and they usually like to do Y, so I should prepare a counter strategy Z. A lot of players seem to really like character A because of these advantages, perhaps I should learn A and how to counter the most common tactics using my character's skillset. Note knowing the Meta also helps prune what information (Fundamentals) you need to learn and maintain. If no one plays character Foo, then you (probably) don't need to understand their kit as intimately. But then someone could use it as an off-meta pick to surprise you! So you should be at least familiar enough to refute it just in case.

inerte 7y ago

I sometimes entertain myself watching "knowing the rules" sport videos on YouTube, for example https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=football+knowing+the+rules https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=football+knowin... Not to mention when organizations have to write new rules to prevent someone exploiting unintended consequences of the existing ruleset. It's fairly common not only in sports but source of many regulations and laws in any sector.

dfxm12 7y ago
It's fairly common not only in sports but source of many regulations and laws in any sector. Regulation is more of a pay to win game.
- inerte 7y ago
  I don't disagree, but I think that view is complimentary to regulation being created and discussed and implemented. People see organizations doing bad stuff, create constraints, which a lot of times the organizations welcome since raises the barrier for competitors to entry.
- Thriptic 7y ago
  It's more complicated than that. Largely, it just seems that way because most people never bother to understand the rules past a cursory Google whereas big companies have teams of very experienced regulatory professionals from the agencies themselves who are all about it and therefore know every way to tweak inputs so that they trigger certain regulations rather than others. I was working on a regulatory compliance product for a bit and the first thing I did was pull every applicable regulation, standard, and rule governing the space and read them. This took about a month and made me much more knowledgeable than the vast majority of people in the field who didn't even try. Being an expert is about taking the time to sit down and read the RFCs, basically. We don't have many experts because no one wants to do it.
  - roel_v 7y ago
    This is so true. I got a law degree as a hobby while working as a software developer. The actual substantive knowledge I got from that hasn't been very useful so far (apart from the occasional online flex...), but the skills I learned to do what you describe have been a real USP for me. Now law school didn't explicitly teach me those skills; there was never a course where someone taught 'how to go deep on any subject'. It was more learned through osmosis, and maybe some aspect of seeing the meta as well. Seeing a few times how rules are never what they seem at first, and that you need to understand the full landscape to really understand, apply and abuse them is the underlying experience/skill. (come to think of it, maybe this is exactly the meta but just looking at it from another side... hmm...)

mercer 7y ago

I've noticed this to be true for table tennis and other sports too. When I play against a less experienced player, it's quite frustrating to notice that most of the points I score are clear mistakes on their part, rather than any kind of skilled moves on my part.

wilburTheDog 7y ago
Charles Ellis wrote a book(1) about that. He asserts that any professional sports competition is a winner's game - you win by successfully executing difficult plays and being better than your competition. But amateur sports is usually a loser's game - you win by not making as many mistakes as your competition. The book is about finance but the observation is universal. 1. https://www.amazon.com/Winning-Losers-Game-6th-Strategies/dp/0071813659 https://www.amazon.com/Winning-Losers-Game-6th-Strategies/dp...
- clairity 7y ago
  not having read the book, that seems insightful on the surface but isn’t particularly useful or actionable. all it seems to be saying is that to become better, make fewer mistakes, with an implied exhortion to practice. is there more to it than that?
  - ska 7y ago
    I think the idea is that if you aren't operating at "pro league" level in anything, you should focus mostly on getting the basics right and not making mistakes. But if you are operating at that level, this is table stakes and you need to do more, or your competition will overrun you. I suspect most people/organizations operating at the highest level understand or have internalized this, but many in the other category have not, to their demise. I've certainly seen organizations get themselves in trouble by trying to execute on something trickier than they were ready for. And others fail at something through an accumulation of clearly (at least, in retrospect) avoidable mistakes. The corollary being that you are very likely to be in the latter category, like it or not, and it's best to realize it. I haven't read the book though so could easily be misinterpreting.

kingkongjaffa 7y ago

This rung true for competetive Halo. The novice was focused on aiming good and getting accurate with the bread and butter weapon (magnum or battle rifle depending on which halo you played) The top players were great at the standard weapon, and a the power weapons, and the meta became: - instead of individual kils - teamwork to double team a single opponent - map positioning to control where the enemy would respawn when killed, - timing when the power weapons on the map would regenerate. key skills became teamwork, coordination and communication when everyone is a good aim.

simonebrunozzi 7y ago

I would be really interested in reading a long blog post about your experience. I'm sure it would reveal many details that most people (including me) wouldn't easily guess.

WhompingWindows 7y ago

I disagree slightly. The metagame is relevant whenever you're facing opponents of similar skill. If you're way better than your opponent, you can use highly sub-optimal, non-meta strategies and win through sheer experience and skill. For instance, I could kill 50% of Starcraft opponents lower than me by building only one unit and even announcing which unit I'll mass up. However, if you're making a similar number of errors as your opponent, then the meta does come into play. Regardless of the raw error rate, where pros make few and amateurs make many, if this rate is similar to your opponent, then it still matters if your opponent has a strategic/meta counter to your strategy.

wongarsu 7y ago
I agree, but applying this isn't always easy: When discussing meta and strategy, it's usually discussed in the context of high level esport play. But the optimal strategy often drastically changes with skill level. For example in a shooter when everyone has bad aim and bad teamwork/communication you need a different strategy then in high level esport in the same game where everyone is great at aiming and lives in the same flat as his teammates.
- Proziam 7y ago
  The optimal strategy for winning the game you're in is the most-winning strategy that your skill level allows you to execute. The optimal strategy for the game itself requires you to develop your skills to allow you to execute it. One of the problems when you discuss strategy and meta is that most people blur the lines between the two. If you plan something based on opposition research (like at the pro esports level as an example), you are approaching that game with a specific strategy in mind. Your chosen strategy should keep the meta in mind but the strategy and the meta are distinct. The meta comes from knowing the various strategies that are effective against other teams/players who utilize the same general pool of strategies. Each strategy in the pool comes about because it works with reasonable reliability against the other strategies in the pool. That's why unexpected plays, 'cheese,' or 'hard-counters' come into play at the strategic level (often saved for specific opponents or situations). The meta is more about knowing what situations you're likely to encounter. You know the meta, then you optimize your strategic approach for your unique situation (such as the skill-set of the various players on your team, specific tendencies of the opponent you're preparing for, or even choosing not to optimize to win your next game to keep a strategy hidden (among other reasons). Ultimately, the strategic evolutions of iterated games is a ridiculously deep and nuanced topic, making it difficult to really get into the meat and potatoes in forums. Maybe I should make a blog post or something, but I don't know how interesting it would be.

novok 7y ago

I think it depends on the game too. In Dota 2 (and probably LoL) the balance between heros can change significantly per patch, and a lot of winning is having good hero picks compared to the other team. If you don't keep up with the meta, then your win rate will go down, and this is true for amateurs and the pros.

thereare5lights 7y ago
I don't agree with that. It goes back to > It's not until you reach a level where everyone around you has a mastery of the fundamentals, that the meta comes into play. At any given MMR bracket, everyone around you has a similar mastery of the fundamentals so the meta is relevant. However, put someone with the fundamentals of a 6k+ MMR player into a 3 or even 4k match and they'll demolish everyone else even with a disadvantage relative to the metagame.
- rifung 7y ago
  I believe you're in agreement. The original comment said > It's not until you reach a level where everyone around you has a mastery of the fundamentals, that the meta comes into play. and you said > At any given MMR bracket, everyone around you has a similar mastery of the fundamentals so the meta is relevant. which refutes the original comment. > However, put someone with the fundamentals of a 6k+ MMR player into a 3 or even 4k match and they'll demolish everyone else even with a disadvantage relative to the metagame. I don't think anyone disagrees with this; I think the issue I (and the person you're responding to) have is the idea that you should ignore understanding the meta until you're 6k MMR as you say. Both are important and you should develop both at the same time if you want to improve.
  - Spellman 7y ago
    Perhaps the best use of the meta, as noted in the article, is to help guide you to understanding what are the fundamentals to learn, and they help filter down what fundamentals you need to learn. Zeus is never picked? Great! Don't need to learn that kit. Or perhaps digging into why Zeus isn't picked can help inform why another character is more useful especially in conjunction with others in a team.

namelosw 7y ago

It really depends on the game. Getting specific on the skill works very well on simple FPS games, just like bots are easily beat all of the top players. Basically this is true for the games that rules are extremely simple, there's no place left to play the metagame. While a lot of games with sufficiently complicated mechanisms where people cannot process accurately, meta could come into play. For example, people spend quite some time making the computer beat human in the chess game, when human only have some not accurate meta experience. Also, meta is probably the most useful skill for learning new games. A decent RPG player would infer the plot and mechanism in new RPG games, whereas a strategy game player could quickly find out what's the trade-off between all the viable options much quicker than others. A player with all genres experiences can adapt any games real quick.

tikhonj 7y ago

This probably says something interesting about have design—but I'm not sure what exactly! One thought is that there are some games where the metagame becomes important at earlier skill levels. Magic the Gathering comes to mind: fundamental skills are certainly important, but understanding the format—even in formats where you don't need a pre-built deck—is important even at a middling skill level, well short of any competitive level. I feel this pretty keenly because that's the level I play at online!

Proziam 7y ago
The truth is, (and this applies to games like MTG, Hearthstone, Poker, etc.) piloting the deck you have correctly matters more than people really like admitting. If you copy a 'known-good' strategy, you can crush with it at every level except the very top of the game. This applies even if your known good strategy is off-meta. The main issue at the middle level is that people don't push to the next level of thinking, despite often thinking that they do. The reality is that most people have the thoughts but not consistently. Or, they have the thought, but don't apply it (well) to their decision making. (I'm going to butcher this concept for this example) Level one - You play your cards. You look at what you've got; you do stuff that has a big effect based on what you have in your hand. Your opponent's counter-play options aren't considered. Level two - You now consider that your opponent might counter the cards you play in some fashion, and you adjust accordingly. This is the level most people are at. ('If I play BIG CARD and he just kills it with EASY COUNTER that would be bad...let's hold off on it until there's a lower chance of that happening...') Level three - You now consider that your opponent is making the same kind of decisions you are. The game becomes more about information. You know that when X card is played, it indicates certain other possibilities. And, you are aware that your opponent might be making the same considerations about you, so you consider the plays you make in the context of how they might be perceived. (A lot of this becomes near-autopilot because of the sheer volume of games put in - often thousands -> tens of thousands). This is the short version of the concept, but it applies to all games that have incomplete information, MOBAs, Card Games, RTS, and so forth.
- pimmen 7y ago
  This is illustrated with the deck Affinity. It sweeps beginner players consistently even if the pilot keeps making mistakes but once you meet tougher opposition all of the options the deck presents become overwhelming and you know that you need to maximize the value of every play to beat a good opponent, especially if they have boarded in counters for your deck.

beaker52 7y ago

It doesn't have to be _everyone_ - I've played many an online FPS where I really appreciated that _one_ player for the meta battle going on between us whilst the rest of the game unfolded around us. I really play games for those moments where you communicate with a player/players _on the other team_ through the meta. And then you dance around the strategies trying to set/catch each other offguard. And you _know_ when you're playing against someone that gets it. And you can tell certain players apart, or classify their level of meta-ability by they way they're playing. Sometimes in chess, you're embroiled in a really intense battle in one area of the board, but the game is developing on some other level and is primed for a swift turn, and knowing your opponent is aware of that same notion is really beautiful. A great, quick and easy card/boardgame for revealing this kind of meta (but it's kinda one dimensional when you "get it") is "The Mind". https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/244992/mind https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/244992/mind It's great for giving people a taste of the thrill of meta.

pingyong 7y ago
The thing is in common esport titles this will only ever really happen at relatively high levels (top ~0.1%) of play. Or at least, that's where it would actually matter. Below that, games are usually just decided by who is better at fundamentals. It doesn't matter how great your smoke setup is in CS:GO if I can just wait or flash my way through and insta headshot everyone because I'm just better at movement/aim. And the same is even more true when you compare pre-set strategies with rigid holding positions to people who instinctively know when they have to get counter-frags when a teammate dies and how push in a way that doesn't allow these set strategies. (The same is true to almost the same degree in LoL/DotA/SCII).

gentleman11 7y ago

Not a coach or a pro, but I was very briefly coached by somebody who coached pro teams. I eventually made top 0.1% mmr at a certain esport too (in the more casual “play with friends” mode - why play a multiplayer game in solo queue?). I can confirm that it’s all about the fundamentals. You have to realize that, no matter how good your fundamentals and “mechanics” are, they are actually not good and that if you improve them you will just climb and climb. It’s a bit tricky to figure out what these fundamentals are when you start out - not everything is equal.