EPTForcing The Metagame - Page 2
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Valefort
France228 Posts
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sikyon
Canada1045 Posts
On February 18 2011 07:10 nodule wrote: The needs of the many vs. the needs of the few. Playing the metagame gives you a temporary advantage over other players until the metagame changes. In that sense it's good for racking up wins in the short term (say, in a tourney), and it might be helpful to the community in terms of metagame evolution. But it doesn't increase your raw skill or make you a more solid player. Until you're at the highest levels, isn't that what you should be focusing on? Absolutely disagree. A big part of starcraft is not just in the mechanics but also in the decision making and reading your opponent. Intellegence is a critical skill - as long as the metagame isn't totally settled, practicing reading your opponents and metagaming them is critical. Also by performing metagame builds you are increasing your skill with those builds, and if they become standard then you will have a solid advantage. | ||
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fatalities
United States91 Posts
On February 18 2011 07:10 nodule wrote: The needs of the many vs. the needs of the few. Playing the metagame gives you a temporary advantage over other players until the metagame changes. In that sense it's good for racking up wins in the short term (say, in a tourney), and it might be helpful to the community in terms of metagame evolution. But it doesn't increase your raw skill or make you a more solid player. Until you're at the highest levels, isn't that what you should be focusing on? I think he's saying not to abuse the metagame for the sake of winning, but rather to stabilize the metagame of SC2 overall asap. | ||
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Azzur
Australia6260 Posts
What I believe is best for the community is the safe & standard builds are tweaked so that it can withstand anything. For example, lets say after GSL someone uses a new build. The build will appear on the ladder as many people will copy it. I don't believe that a player should do something specific just to beat that if what they do is only applicable to that build. What I think will advance the game the most is the player tweaks their build and figures out how to defeat it with their standard play. For example, take oGsMC's VR/stalker variations. A terran player (who normally opens 1-1-1) metagaming may make a viking first. However, that viking is not useful if the protoss didn't go VRs. What I believe is better is if that terran player figures out how to defend while keeping their same build. | ||
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philipov
United States81 Posts
On February 18 2011 07:10 nodule wrote: But it doesn't increase your raw skill or make you a more solid player. Until you're at the highest levels, isn't that what you should be focusing on? The two aren't incompatible because they don't fit in the same "slot". You focus on solid mechanics while playing a match, you focus on coming up with new strategies in between matches. | ||
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falcoiii
Canada43 Posts
What makes SC1 and SC2 so good is that there are manyh different rock-paper-scissors combinations, including multiple races, ground/air, armored/light, bio/mech, expand/tech/aggro, etc, etc... In SC2, we are still discovering what the rock, paper and scissors are. In TvZ MM vs bling/ling: marines > muta > maruader > bling > marines | ||
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Shadrak
United States490 Posts
The metagame is the reason I FE as Z on Steppes of War. Everyone thinks I'm going to rush them at my level (high diamond). | ||
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morimacil
France921 Posts
For example, in ZvT, a properly executed baneling bust is impossible for the terran to scout without using a scan, and looks otherwise just like a pool first build that gets a slightly delayed second hatch. Its also a free win, unless the terran scanned, was going for a 3rax stim push, or walled himself in with production buildings. So if all the zergs would unite, and baneling bust terrans at least 10 times each, then we would end up in a situation where a terran that isnt going for a 3rax stim push needs to wall in with production buildings (making it easier to scout for zergs), or scan (making it easier on zergs due to the terran losing out on money). So as a whole, it would be awesome for zergs if terrans had to take a baneling bust into account when playing. The problem though, is that if only 1 person decides to baneling bust each ZvT game, well that one guy is going to have a really high win-loss ratio, but will be stuck in winning every ZvT with a baneling bust, since he alone wont be enough to actually cause a metagame shift. If everyone does it, we all get a couple of free wins, the bulk of the terrans adapt, and we can all go back to "normal" play, and just have it slightly easier. But if I do it, then Im just winning a lot with an all-in, and not really improving my play. Its similar to actionjesus and his 6pools. If zergs as a whole 6 pooled a decent amount of the time, then it wouldnt be possible for toss to safely open with a 15 nexus. However though, if 1 single zerg 6 pools, then he gets some free wins, true, but it isnt really improving his play, or the metagame as a whole. In conclusion: I dont think that people "playing the metagame" will help improve the metagame at all. It will only really help that specific player, and do nothing to the metagame as a whole. Even if you play massive amounts of games each day, you wont ever come close to actually affecting your opponent's decisions on their builds, since to them, you are just an anomaly, and not something that they actually have to take into account when choosing a build. If you 6 pool only, and thxs to you, protoss now have a 0.000000000001% chance of running into a 6 pool when they 15 nexus, well that wont stop them. The only way to have the metagame actually shift, is to have hundreds of players start to play differently. Thus it only really happens when a prominent caster (such as d9 for example, or idra and artosis making their show about 2base void-colossus being unstopable) makes a suggestion, or when a pro does something cool that players want to imitate, or when someone posts a guide on the forums, and so on. Then, there is a chance for the metagame to shift, because then, and only then, is there a chance for a lot of players to start abusing that hole, and thus they force a reaction from the opponent. TLDR: One person doesnt affect the metagame. If you find a hole in the current playstyles and exploit it, it helps no one but yourself, and it wont cause any shift in the metagame whatsoever, unless it somehow becomes public. | ||
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MooseyFate
United States237 Posts
As someone whose schedule dictates that I spend more time reading forums/ watching commentaries about SC2 than actually playing the game, I can say that the Metagame has a HUGE effect on the decisions I make before and during every game at my level of play. Ill use the old Void Ray rushes that use to destroy me as an example: I use to die to VR rushes all the time, and as a result would always prepare early Spore Crawlers and extra Queens and I would never FE against a Toss because at my current skill, I have issues protecting both bases against this. At the time I was watching a dozen commentaries a day but only playing maybe 10 games a week and I saw this as the best way to protect myself without going to Hydras. Once the VR Nerf hit, and 4Gates became absurdly common against Z, I was still making extra Spore Crawlers and Queens and got ROLFStomped by the first or second wave of Gateway units and lost 5-6 games in a row. It wasn't until I spent more time thinking about the Metagame, reading forums, and watching commentaries that I realized I didn't need to spend those extra resources so early against an attack that was most likely not gonna happen. Most players that have the luxury of playing 50+ games a week don't see this as anything but "learning from experience" but I had to learn HOW to play the game better when I wasn't playing the game. To me that is Meta game : Thinking about the game when you aren't playing the game. And if you do this enough, you can learn as much from playing 2-3 games as you would playing 100 games and NOT thinking about what the other person was thinking as early as the "Map Preference" screen. TLDR: I think the players are always "Playing the Metagame" whenever they make a decision based off of past experiences (either that they have had themselves, or they have read about/ watched in a replay). I also think the best way to move a game forward in terms of the complexity and variety of strategies seen is by players thinking about more than the efficiency of their mouse clicks and keystrokes they made during the game and rather focusing on WHY their opponent made their choices. Metagame makes Checkers into Chess. | ||
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vaLentine88
United States61 Posts
Evaluating the metagame and trying to exploit it is almost a whole third of the game in my opinion, the others being mechanics and strategy (decision making). | ||
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rapier7
United States46 Posts
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Azzur
Australia6260 Posts
On February 19 2011 04:52 rapier7 wrote: How can you force the metagame when you know nothing about the opponent in a random 1v1? There are still trends that you can take advantage of. For instance, right after a GSL match, chances are a particular build may crop up quickly on the ladder. Someone can thus metagame by playing in an approach that directly counters that GSL build. Also, by playing many ladder games, you can quickly get a feel for what openings and builds are currently popular. I made an earlier post in this thread about how I disagree that a player should engage in the metagame. I'll give an example using my own personal experience: In the TvP matchup I play 1-1-1 cloaked banshees with reactored marines. However, there was significant steps before I arrived at its current form: - I used to play techlab-rax for marauders. I find marauders good against 4-gate (better than reactor-rax) but very weak against VR openings. However, if I were to engage in metagaming, I may deliberately play techlab-rax if the VR openings were out of favour on the ladder. However, I don't wish to metagame and thus reactor all the time. - I used to get a raven first before banshee but found that VR openings were good against the raven. If I were to engage in metagaming, I would get a viking (then banshee) if the VR openings suddenly became popular. However, instead, I decided to tweak my build (I go banshee then raven now) which better handled protoss all-ins. Hence, by not metagaming, I feel that I have advanced my build. - Currently, I rarely encounter DT openings. To exploit this, I may just use mules without saving energy. However, I play it safe and save one scan prior to my raven building. This has saved my some games where the protoss did go quick DTs. Thus, I feel that if I had engaged in metagaming and played a guessing game, I would not have been able to tweak my build as effectively as possible. | ||
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tehemperorer
United States2183 Posts
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ZasZ.
United States2911 Posts
I think most P's will agree that when correctly executed, the build is extremely good at countering 4Gate. Most P's will also agree that at the highest level, 4Gate is extremely prevalent, and it is probably a good metagame play to assume your opponent will attempt a variation of it and plan your build accordingly (why you don't see 1 Gate FE or even 3 Gate FE in PvP). Now that the build is out there, people will start executing it and start squashing 4Gates with regularity, and IMO the metagame of PvP will shift away from 4Gating each other to death to more stable play (into Colossi wars /facepalm). While the entertainment value of Colossi wars is debatable, few people would make the claim that 100% of high level PvP being 4Gate is enjoyable, since you either 4Gate to kill your non-4Gating opponent or 4Gate to survive against your 4Gating opponent. Seems like semantics, but I'm confident strategies such as this one will help stabilize the meta game and make for more interesting ladder games in general. | ||
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413X
Sweden203 Posts
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iChau
United States1210 Posts
On February 20 2011 02:18 413X wrote: I agree with the OP. This mindset is very easy to see if you take a look at the 3 gate expand with sentry heavy in the beginning in PvZ, that used to work sooo well against zerg who mainly went alot of roaches, and slowly made hydras and slowly made corruptors. However, nowadays, it works.. but not nearly as effective as it used to be. Zerg know how the protoss will play and react with that strategy, so they become very cost efficient and skip units to get slightly higher tech than they really should get away with. For instance, the jump to hydras can be done soo fast if the zerg choose too. Some protoss react by getting colossus when they see the hydras, but since the zerg knows they will come the corruptors will be there waiting for them in great numbers. Then suddenly all the tech is gone from protoss and it's almost time to type gg. It's wierd, but forces you to start thinking outside the box with going back to strategies that opens up 2 gate and with the addition of a robo or stargate instead. Void ray colossi is mid/end-game, and will destroy super-quick-teching zergs. All the toss has to do it scout, and if he sees hive tech then he can easily reach. Phoenixes are great scouts, and they're almost always checking expansions/hive. I always go 15 nex into stargate into colossi (with 3-5 gateways depending on zerg) and always won because they just massed corruptors, so I got more void rays and stlakers. | ||
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Shado.
United States187 Posts
For example, if that 7:00 minute timing attack is popular, you would focus on scouting and reacting properly to that tactic to ensure you can handle it and come out on top. Once that changes and people rarely go for that timing attack, you can change your scout timing to look for things that are popular. As the timings and play styles change, I believe that by changing your scout timings, that will already put you on top. | ||
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