Lol it's so easy on the pc. Either that or the people playing this game on pc aren't very good.
Well, there is propably an influx of nuggets, since it's a free weekend.
I just like it because its really low stress. It's like playing ssbm with items. It's more about having fun and less about pure skill.
That's true, and I enjoy it in small bursts, but I find it rapidly starts to bore me. It can't hold my interest well enough to bother with the big download, just for a free weekend.
Lol it's so easy on the pc. Either that or the people playing this game on pc aren't very good.
Well, there is propably an influx of nuggets, since it's a free weekend.
I just like it because its really low stress. It's like playing ssbm with items. It's more about having fun and less about pure skill.
That's true, and I enjoy it in small bursts, but I find it rapidly starts to bore me. It can't hold my interest well enough to bother with the big download, just for a free weekend.
It's just the multiplayer portion so it's not too big. And yeah some of it does have to do with new players and the free weekend but I can gauge that a players been playing at least for a while by their insignia.
I just like it because its really low stress. It's like playing ssbm with items. It's more about having fun and less about pure skill.
I noticed you said SSBM, but I'll be referring to SSBB as that is the one I'm really good at. And also the one that isn't broken.
Smash with items actually requires a lot more skill. It's just that it requires more strategy, so players who have not mastered the controls disable them to not have to worry about "random luck" and "getting hit by random objects flying around". Of course, it happens that items spawn in a unfortunate locations, but 90% of the time, it's evened out through the course of a minute, and how the players use the items matter a lot more than who had the shortest route to it. That being said, it is also a lot more fun with items.
I just like it because its really low stress. It's like playing ssbm with items. It's more about having fun and less about pure skill.
I noticed you said SSBM, but I'll be referring to SSBB as that is the one I'm really good at. And also the one that isn't broken.
Smash with items actually requires a lot more skill. It's just that it requires more strategy, so players who have not mastered the controls disable them to not have to worry about "random luck" and "getting hit by random objects flying around". Of course, it happens that items spawn in a unfortunate locations, but 90% of the time, it's evened out through the course of a minute, and how the players use the items matter a lot more than who had the shortest route to it. That being said, it is also a lot more fun with items.
Today's Penny Arcade reminds me of an example of a much more basic concept that seems to get missed when people obsess over the metagame first: The current meta is basically a heuristic tool, the same as any other. And if you start from there without understanding some of the lower branches on the heuristic tree (like "a coordinated shared strategy is better than five disparate strategies"), it may not be that useful. Similarly, it's not actually the top of the heuristic tree. It's one of the rungs below it that feeds into the decisions at the top.
It's not that it's not useful. It's that even new players will know (and be told constantly by veteran players) from day one that many branches of play/strategy/character are pointless to pursue.
The Pareto line leaves many aspects of the game "dominated."
It used to be more fluid, with popular strategies shifting on a monthly if not weekly basis.
The thing with LoL now is that champions are designed from the ground up to fit onto the meta, partly due to Riot's business model (rapid deployment of new champions) and partly due to the fact that LoL's streamlined (compared to Dota) mechanics don't give the designers as many dials and knobs to play with.
There's also the tendency for players to report people who don't abide by the meta for feeding / trolling (and to have those reports upheld in the tribunal system since it's others players judging those reports).
ALL games with a serious competitive bent will be that way. Always. They're that way from the start.
LoL just has a separate cultural problem where there is no room for anything BUT competitive play. You're deeply punished for any lack of optimization both in the game AND in the community.
Players who invest in ANY path that doesn't fit into the optimal "meta" will be pushed to abandon their paths. It's foolish not to.
It's telling that LoL players talk about "the meta" as somehow being distinct from the rest of the game. None of that information is "meta," it's literally the game itself. In CounterStrike, the M4 is objectively superior to the Galil. If they have the choice, players prefer the M4. Players using the M4 win more often than players using the Galil. That's just part of the game. It's not "meta".
I'm not saying that the meta is new or inherently bad, just that Riot's design philosophy and tribunal system has calcified it to the point where breaking it is nearly akin to opting not to use line pieces to get tetrises.
Also, those "dials and knobs?" They serve almost exclusively to obfuscate the Pareto line: they do not actually mitigate this "problem."
There are fewer mechanics and less flexibility in LoL characters due to the streamlined skils and items compared to, say, Dota, so can only make a character good / bad at a certain number of things.
Does Magic: The Gathering having 5 colours needlessly obfuscate the Pareto line and would it be a better game if it had 3? Would chess be better if it had half as many pieces?
Players who invest in ANY path that doesn't fit into the optimal "meta" will be pushed to abandon their paths. It's foolish not to.
The current meta in most games isn't necessarily an optimal one. That's the reason the metagame shifts over time unless it's being reinforced by design or the game is solved (save for execution). Basically, the metagame boils down to being a heuristic tool. It's useful... but it's just not what people often make it out to be. The average gamer is not seeing the forest for the trees, essentially. And without the building blocks and foundations to get you to the point where you understand the difference, you're going to have a much more difficult time climbing to the next level and so-on.
Most of those little knobs end up duplicating eachother or being functionally equivalent, and the "meta" evolves regardless.
In each set, Magic colors don't balance perfectly, and mutually-optimal deck combinations appear regardless. Tournaments move on to different sets regularly, so it's moot. As each is explored and "solved," the game moves to a different set.
Five was just a nice sweet spot. More colors and mechanics just makes it more difficult to gather enough data to prove where the line is. In practice, the line will still exist at roughly the same, expected place.
No, I'm saying it doesn't exist as "meta." It shifts almost entirely due to:
a. changes made by developers to the game b. increased low-level skills among a wider variety of players
Say there are three characters in a Battle Balls-esque game: Alpha, Beta, and Shitsucker. In year one, 90% of all tournaments are won by Alpha, 4% by Beta, and 1% by Shitsucker. It's safe to say that it's irrational to even bother trying to play as any character but Alpha.
So, in year two, say it changes drastically. 75% Alpha, 21% Shitsucker, 4% Beta. There are only two possible explanations.
1. The game was modified in some manner that gave Shitsucker a better chance to win.
2. Shitsucker is a better character than both Alpha and Beta (i.e., it dominates strategically), but only if it is played perfectly at the low, tactical level. (E.g., "skill-based movement," "APM," and so forth).
There really aren't any other possibilities. Games don't usually have deep, powerful strategies that somehow go unnoticed by skilled/striving players for any length of time. The fact that Shitsucker is winning more often over time, at the expense of Alpha (but not Beta), indicates that Shitsucker requires more difficult-to-master mechanical skills. We see the win ratio improving as players practice those.
The "meta" in this case is simple to explain. Players who are not willing to seriously invest in mastering Shitsucker are obligated to play Alpha instead, or else they're practically guaranteed to lose. Players who are willing to commit to serious practice are obligated to play Shitsucker, as an optimal Shitsucker will dominate an optimal Alpha, even though a sub-optimal Alpha dominates a sub-optimal Shitsucker.
Aside from the regularly changing list of Magic sets that you can legally build decks from, Magic strategies also shit significantly due to the meta of what decks are hot right now.
A certain deck may get hot because the only good counter to it is an otherwise worthless card. Deck gets you a bunch of victories, gets popular, now everyone is building in defenses to your deck, so you have to move on to something else that will catch them by surprise.
To some extent this is mitigated with sideboarding, but I never did like that aspect of building your deck against an unknown opponent. In other games, such as a video game, I can immediately switch my entire strategy (scout an opponent in StarCraft, alter my build order drastically). In Magic, I can't run back to my binder and swap out my remaining deck with 30-something new cards.
Battle Balls is a bad example as there is as much Dominion style deck building in MOBAs (with item builds) as there is skill-based execution; those suggested items they list for you really are just suggestions.
You can't just be good at Shitsucker's complicated mechanics.
I actually like sideboarding. Without sideboarding there is too strong of a rock/paper/scissors element. If you play best of three, it still gives the winner of the rock/paper/scissors a really good chance of winning that first game. But then both players can adjust for the second and third games.
Comments
Smash with items actually requires a lot more skill. It's just that it requires more strategy, so players who have not mastered the controls disable them to not have to worry about "random luck" and "getting hit by random objects flying around". Of course, it happens that items spawn in a unfortunate locations, but 90% of the time, it's evened out through the course of a minute, and how the players use the items matter a lot more than who had the shortest route to it. That being said, it is also a lot more fun with items.
Some games are high skill AND high luck.
The Pareto line leaves many aspects of the game "dominated."
It used to be more fluid, with popular strategies shifting on a monthly if not weekly basis.
The thing with LoL now is that champions are designed from the ground up to fit onto the meta, partly due to Riot's business model (rapid deployment of new champions) and partly due to the fact that LoL's streamlined (compared to Dota) mechanics don't give the designers as many dials and knobs to play with.
There's also the tendency for players to report people who don't abide by the meta for feeding / trolling (and to have those reports upheld in the tribunal system since it's others players judging those reports).
LoL just has a separate cultural problem where there is no room for anything BUT competitive play. You're deeply punished for any lack of optimization both in the game AND in the community.
Players who invest in ANY path that doesn't fit into the optimal "meta" will be pushed to abandon their paths. It's foolish not to.
It's telling that LoL players talk about "the meta" as somehow being distinct from the rest of the game. None of that information is "meta," it's literally the game itself. In CounterStrike, the M4 is objectively superior to the Galil. If they have the choice, players prefer the M4. Players using the M4 win more often than players using the Galil. That's just part of the game. It's not "meta".
Does Magic: The Gathering having 5 colours needlessly obfuscate the Pareto line and would it be a better game if it had 3? Would chess be better if it had half as many pieces?
In each set, Magic colors don't balance perfectly, and mutually-optimal deck combinations appear regardless. Tournaments move on to different sets regularly, so it's moot. As each is explored and "solved," the game moves to a different set.
Five was just a nice sweet spot. More colors and mechanics just makes it more difficult to gather enough data to prove where the line is. In practice, the line will still exist at roughly the same, expected place.
a. changes made by developers to the game
b. increased low-level skills among a wider variety of players
Say there are three characters in a Battle Balls-esque game: Alpha, Beta, and Shitsucker. In year one, 90% of all tournaments are won by Alpha, 4% by Beta, and 1% by Shitsucker. It's safe to say that it's irrational to even bother trying to play as any character but Alpha.
So, in year two, say it changes drastically. 75% Alpha, 21% Shitsucker, 4% Beta. There are only two possible explanations.
1. The game was modified in some manner that gave Shitsucker a better chance to win.
2. Shitsucker is a better character than both Alpha and Beta (i.e., it dominates strategically), but only if it is played perfectly at the low, tactical level. (E.g., "skill-based movement," "APM," and so forth).
There really aren't any other possibilities. Games don't usually have deep, powerful strategies that somehow go unnoticed by skilled/striving players for any length of time. The fact that Shitsucker is winning more often over time, at the expense of Alpha (but not Beta), indicates that Shitsucker requires more difficult-to-master mechanical skills. We see the win ratio improving as players practice those.
The "meta" in this case is simple to explain. Players who are not willing to seriously invest in mastering Shitsucker are obligated to play Alpha instead, or else they're practically guaranteed to lose. Players who are willing to commit to serious practice are obligated to play Shitsucker, as an optimal Shitsucker will dominate an optimal Alpha, even though a sub-optimal Alpha dominates a sub-optimal Shitsucker.
A certain deck may get hot because the only good counter to it is an otherwise worthless card. Deck gets you a bunch of victories, gets popular, now everyone is building in defenses to your deck, so you have to move on to something else that will catch them by surprise.
To some extent this is mitigated with sideboarding, but I never did like that aspect of building your deck against an unknown opponent. In other games, such as a video game, I can immediately switch my entire strategy (scout an opponent in StarCraft, alter my build order drastically). In Magic, I can't run back to my binder and swap out my remaining deck with 30-something new cards.
You can't just be good at Shitsucker's complicated mechanics.