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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

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.
  - hamilyon2 7y ago
    As people noted elsewhere in thread, metagame in starcraft is pretty important, when skill level is equal (which is often on ladder). When skill level differs even a little bit, metagame becomes non-deciding factor.
    - someguyorother 7y ago
      Is meta opponent modeling? Then it would make sense that it becomes non-deciding when skill level differs - chess engines don't bother with it at all and just aim to destroy the opponent through sheer strength of play.
      - Spellman 7y ago
        By my definition it's meta to do opponent modeling since you are using information outside of the game mechanics. And you're right, for games with high efficiency and public knowledge you can often just grind through optimal play. However, for games with hidden information, you can play theoretical optimally, but you can also gain an additional edge if you can properly model your opponent. I'm thinking like in Poker. There's mathematically correct play, but because you play against folks who don't play mathematically correct you could get an extra edge by properly modeling the faults of your opponent you can exploit!
      - munchbunny 7y ago
        Playing the meta definitely requires opponent modeling, but I don't think it's exclusively opponent modeling. In the example of Splendor, I think meta is best explained as the interaction between emergent strategies. An AI may not need to think of it as a meta as is the case in chess, but an AI may still be playing strategies that match elements of the metagame. I think European style board games are great examples. Euro board games are often designed in a way where there are 3-6 different "currencies" in the game that are vaguely interchangeable in terms of progress towards the victory conditions, but these currencies have situational tradeoffs. It's usually a safe bet to play a T-shaped strategy where you focus on a few currencies but dabble in the rest enough to influence the game conditions to favor you. Scoring mechanisms often explicitly reward being T-shaped and gameplay mechanics often explicitly favor T-shaped strategies, so regardless of whether the AI is explicitly trying to play a meta strategy, it's probably going to look like a meta strategy because the meta is T-shaped.
matheusmoreira 7y ago
What does your friend mean by fundamentals? In 2D fighting games, learning the character's move set is easy compared to learning when and how to use them effectively. People seem to focus on learning combos but a good player can do a lot of damage just by establishing and breaking patterns: throwing when they expect you to attack, attacking low when they expect a high attack, not switching patterns when they expect you to try something else... The metagame of 2D fighting games is actually a series of very fast rock paper scissors games. It's all about beating the opponent's counter to what they think you'll do.
- rc-1140 7y ago
  > What does your friend mean by fundamentals? Your second sentence is mostly it, although it really generalized and lessened what it means to learn your fundamentals; learning your character's options are and what the basic flow of combat will be based on those options. Fundamentals gives you the tools and skillset to play the rock-paper-scissors metagame you've described (Team Fortress 2 also behaved like that). Things that would fall under fundamentals for something like Street Fighter would be: - learning basic ranges on the stage (SF4/5's "grid" stage highlights this really well) - learning the range of your character's moves (i.e., Chun Li's standing heavy punch/fierce has considerable reach, more than 1 square on the grid stage) - using your jab/short to "check" aggression - using your anti-air moves to catch your opponent's jump-in attacks - rudimentary okizeme (after you knock the opponent to the ground, you can catch them with either damage or block pressure) - what general actions beat other general actions (blocks beat moves, grabs beat blocks, jumps beat grabs) The list goes on to some extent before it starts mingling with more refined actions. While it's rarely a 1:1 translation, things like the above have plenty of carry-over between 2D fighters, and the concepts themselves apply to 3D fighters like Tekken. I'd also go so far as to include knowing what bad habits are as part of fundamentals, like mashing fast buttons while still blocking or after getting up from being knocked down. It's been buried in the comments but someone posted a link to Richard Garfield's MTG paper about "metagame" and I like his definition of metagame: "It is how a game interfaces with life". The game of rock-paper-scissors doesn't exist in a vacuum: even at a low or casual level, understanding the fundamentals allows a player to make educated guesses about how an opponent will behave during that game of rock-paper-scissors. It's not concrete, obviously, but noting what fundies the opponent has and which ones they're not good at or are completely missing can change how a player approaches the fight over the course of the game.

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.
- hamilyon2 7y ago
  As people noted elsewhere in thread, metagame in starcraft is pretty important, when skill level is equal (which is often on ladder). When skill level differs even a little bit, metagame becomes non-deciding factor.
  - someguyorother 7y ago
    Is meta opponent modeling? Then it would make sense that it becomes non-deciding when skill level differs - chess engines don't bother with it at all and just aim to destroy the opponent through sheer strength of play.
    - Spellman 7y ago
      By my definition it's meta to do opponent modeling since you are using information outside of the game mechanics. And you're right, for games with high efficiency and public knowledge you can often just grind through optimal play. However, for games with hidden information, you can play theoretical optimally, but you can also gain an additional edge if you can properly model your opponent. I'm thinking like in Poker. There's mathematically correct play, but because you play against folks who don't play mathematically correct you could get an extra edge by properly modeling the faults of your opponent you can exploit!
    - munchbunny 7y ago
      Playing the meta definitely requires opponent modeling, but I don't think it's exclusively opponent modeling. In the example of Splendor, I think meta is best explained as the interaction between emergent strategies. An AI may not need to think of it as a meta as is the case in chess, but an AI may still be playing strategies that match elements of the metagame. I think European style board games are great examples. Euro board games are often designed in a way where there are 3-6 different "currencies" in the game that are vaguely interchangeable in terms of progress towards the victory conditions, but these currencies have situational tradeoffs. It's usually a safe bet to play a T-shaped strategy where you focus on a few currencies but dabble in the rest enough to influence the game conditions to favor you. Scoring mechanisms often explicitly reward being T-shaped and gameplay mechanics often explicitly favor T-shaped strategies, so regardless of whether the AI is explicitly trying to play a meta strategy, it's probably going to look like a meta strategy because the meta is T-shaped.

matheusmoreira 7y ago

What does your friend mean by fundamentals? In 2D fighting games, learning the character's move set is easy compared to learning when and how to use them effectively. People seem to focus on learning combos but a good player can do a lot of damage just by establishing and breaking patterns: throwing when they expect you to attack, attacking low when they expect a high attack, not switching patterns when they expect you to try something else... The metagame of 2D fighting games is actually a series of very fast rock paper scissors games. It's all about beating the opponent's counter to what they think you'll do.

rc-1140 7y ago
> What does your friend mean by fundamentals? Your second sentence is mostly it, although it really generalized and lessened what it means to learn your fundamentals; learning your character's options are and what the basic flow of combat will be based on those options. Fundamentals gives you the tools and skillset to play the rock-paper-scissors metagame you've described (Team Fortress 2 also behaved like that). Things that would fall under fundamentals for something like Street Fighter would be: - learning basic ranges on the stage (SF4/5's "grid" stage highlights this really well) - learning the range of your character's moves (i.e., Chun Li's standing heavy punch/fierce has considerable reach, more than 1 square on the grid stage) - using your jab/short to "check" aggression - using your anti-air moves to catch your opponent's jump-in attacks - rudimentary okizeme (after you knock the opponent to the ground, you can catch them with either damage or block pressure) - what general actions beat other general actions (blocks beat moves, grabs beat blocks, jumps beat grabs) The list goes on to some extent before it starts mingling with more refined actions. While it's rarely a 1:1 translation, things like the above have plenty of carry-over between 2D fighters, and the concepts themselves apply to 3D fighters like Tekken. I'd also go so far as to include knowing what bad habits are as part of fundamentals, like mashing fast buttons while still blocking or after getting up from being knocked down. It's been buried in the comments but someone posted a link to Richard Garfield's MTG paper about "metagame" and I like his definition of metagame: "It is how a game interfaces with life". The game of rock-paper-scissors doesn't exist in a vacuum: even at a low or casual level, understanding the fundamentals allows a player to make educated guesses about how an opponent will behave during that game of rock-paper-scissors. It's not concrete, obviously, but noting what fundies the opponent has and which ones they're not good at or are completely missing can change how a player approaches the fight over the course of the game.