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I strongly disagree. We haven't seen a MOBA go without patches long enough to test if your theory is correct. Defense of the Ancients ended up at version 6.85

I strongly disagree. We haven't seen a MOBA go without patches long enough to test if your theory is correct. Defense of the Ancients ended up at version 6.85 before develop ceased. League gets biweekly patches. DotA2 get monthly patches. The time scale we are talking about is 5-10 years of fixed metagame development. Which in nearly all games where this happened (primarily fighters and board games) we do continue to see metagame development as long as the game is played competitively. To assume one subgenre is excluded form this ignores the present data, and makes an assumption that the game is incredibly shallow.

oblio 12y ago
Dota 2 monthly patches are generally not actual game play changes. They're mostly additions of cosmetic items and fixes for the Dota 2 platform. The thing with Dota 2 and other Dota clones is that the depth (problem space) is way too big. There's no way competitive teams would have the time to explore all the combinations and still be successful in a reasonable time frame, with the same roster. That's why every 3-6 months Icefrog (the main developer behind Dota/the game design lead for Dota 2) makes game balance changes: slight nerfs on the most popular heroes and generally slightly higher buffs on the least popular heroes. The main intent is to break this natural tendency of humans to "cluster".
- valarauca1 12y ago
  Yes but the natural tendency to cluster is what leads to meta-game develop. As players cluster, better plays will attempt to find what counters this cluster, what its tactics are and what it is weak too. This leads to actual competition and exploration of the game, and competing strategies. The bi-monthy(ish) patch cycle prevents this, and just leads to players chasing patch notes. But I agree with you. The current patch system prevent this from happening. This is why we see such diverse play styles in games like chess, go, and older 1v1 fighters. Since the stagnant nature forces experimentation.
  - oblio 12y ago
    The amount of combinations is way too large for changes to happen fast enough (strategies/tactics/selection of characters). Look how long it took for some of the characters presented in this game to surface (6-8 years for some)- that cycle could literally take decades for some heroes in Dota & co. I actually like patches as a forcing function in this case. Your examples are actually great at proving my point: it took decades if not centuries for the current varied chess and go strategies to emerge. By that point we won't care about Dota & co anymore, we'll all be in the Matrix :)
    - valarauca1 12y ago
      I still disagree. The Sicilian Defense evolved in only a weekend at a single tournament. Where Kings Pawn was such a popular opening, that several players started to counter with what would become the Sicilian. A large amount of the non-dragon/accelerated dragon play of the Sicilian was literally developed over night. If your theory is correct highly complex games like Chess, Dota, and Go this shouldn't possible. Yet we've seen it happen. All that has to take place is clustering, not optimal clustering just clustering.
      - oblio 12y ago
        You are (mostly) talking about 1v1 games. The dynamics are entirely different in team games. Have you ever persuaded your team to follow your strategy (especially a "weird" one, according to canon)? I can assure you it's hard even if you are considered your team's leader. We're also probably attacking the problem from different angles - I'm mostly thinking about completely disregarded strats/characters. For example in Dota push strategies (where you try to overwhelm your opponents very early in the game, a sort of all-in strategy) were valid during a very short period, one of about 6-9 months in 2008, IIRC. Then they were basically impossible until 2012. Also some heroes have been constantly bottom tier ever since competitive Dota started in ~2006 (Spirit Breaker - I'm looking at you!). It's much more easier to experiment as a single player. Once you get more people involved, social dynamics start happening. And there's nothing harder to budge than social inertia, IMO.
  - 12y ago
cheepin 12y ago
Back when LoL was new[er], you could see a player bring out a 'pocket pick' in a tournament, something that no one really played and bring it to prominence. I think a contributing factor for why this doesn't seem to happen much now is that the competitive playerbase is much larger than SSB (and exponentially larger than it's own first seasons) which means there are enough really good players/analysts that everything good gets discovered pretty quickly.

oblio 12y ago

Dota 2 monthly patches are generally not actual game play changes. They're mostly additions of cosmetic items and fixes for the Dota 2 platform. The thing with Dota 2 and other Dota clones is that the depth (problem space) is way too big. There's no way competitive teams would have the time to explore all the combinations and still be successful in a reasonable time frame, with the same roster. That's why every 3-6 months Icefrog (the main developer behind Dota/the game design lead for Dota 2) makes game balance changes: slight nerfs on the most popular heroes and generally slightly higher buffs on the least popular heroes. The main intent is to break this natural tendency of humans to "cluster".

valarauca1 12y ago
Yes but the natural tendency to cluster is what leads to meta-game develop. As players cluster, better plays will attempt to find what counters this cluster, what its tactics are and what it is weak too. This leads to actual competition and exploration of the game, and competing strategies. The bi-monthy(ish) patch cycle prevents this, and just leads to players chasing patch notes. But I agree with you. The current patch system prevent this from happening. This is why we see such diverse play styles in games like chess, go, and older 1v1 fighters. Since the stagnant nature forces experimentation.
- oblio 12y ago
  The amount of combinations is way too large for changes to happen fast enough (strategies/tactics/selection of characters). Look how long it took for some of the characters presented in this game to surface (6-8 years for some)- that cycle could literally take decades for some heroes in Dota & co. I actually like patches as a forcing function in this case. Your examples are actually great at proving my point: it took decades if not centuries for the current varied chess and go strategies to emerge. By that point we won't care about Dota & co anymore, we'll all be in the Matrix :)
  - valarauca1 12y ago
    I still disagree. The Sicilian Defense evolved in only a weekend at a single tournament. Where Kings Pawn was such a popular opening, that several players started to counter with what would become the Sicilian. A large amount of the non-dragon/accelerated dragon play of the Sicilian was literally developed over night. If your theory is correct highly complex games like Chess, Dota, and Go this shouldn't possible. Yet we've seen it happen. All that has to take place is clustering, not optimal clustering just clustering.
    - oblio 12y ago
      You are (mostly) talking about 1v1 games. The dynamics are entirely different in team games. Have you ever persuaded your team to follow your strategy (especially a "weird" one, according to canon)? I can assure you it's hard even if you are considered your team's leader. We're also probably attacking the problem from different angles - I'm mostly thinking about completely disregarded strats/characters. For example in Dota push strategies (where you try to overwhelm your opponents very early in the game, a sort of all-in strategy) were valid during a very short period, one of about 6-9 months in 2008, IIRC. Then they were basically impossible until 2012. Also some heroes have been constantly bottom tier ever since competitive Dota started in ~2006 (Spirit Breaker - I'm looking at you!). It's much more easier to experiment as a single player. Once you get more people involved, social dynamics start happening. And there's nothing harder to budge than social inertia, IMO.
- 12y ago

cheepin 12y ago

Back when LoL was new[er], you could see a player bring out a 'pocket pick' in a tournament, something that no one really played and bring it to prominence. I think a contributing factor for why this doesn't seem to happen much now is that the competitive playerbase is much larger than SSB (and exponentially larger than it's own first seasons) which means there are enough really good players/analysts that everything good gets discovered pretty quickly.