There will always be A META.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
The problem is a combination of what you described under A B and C – the problem is that non-meta players have asked for a change in order for them to better fit in the game and be taken along in parties and Anet has delivered a “solution” that will most likely have the opposite effect.
Non-meta players are non-meta for a reason – there’s enough reason to believe that if a player was part of the non-meta group at the height of the “zerker meta” that player will continue to be non-meta after the “post-raid HOT-meta” emerges.
So in a sense what Anet has done is replaced one meta with another one -but has not fixed the core issue : people’s complaints for lack of inclusion.From what I’ve seen PHIW players overlap very heavily with non-meta players. I truly believe a meta-abiding player that also wanted to play a tank or healer is a rarity.
Yes – we might have enforced tanks and healers with HoT and thus we’ll need to take some tank and healer loving people along but if those people don’t abide by the meta and run “meta tank builds” and “meta healer builds” then those people will be excluded just as before.
The core aspect I believe is that the “exclusion” people complain about does not stem from roles or lack of roles but from mindset and goals – meta players exclude non-meta players.
That won’t change with HoT and it won’t change if the meta changes. As long as “PHIW” players continue to “play how they want” and refuse to adhere to a standardized optimal way of doing things there’s no reason for meta players to take them along.
This whole thing reminds me of that onion article that claimed all forms of parenting raised up miserable adults.
Players are a bit more complicated than being non-meta or not. I assume when you say “non-meta” here, you are referring to playing as groups with class composition and roles. Because when I divide players into more categories, I get different stories:
A)Players who play zerk now but would prefer healing/tank roles. These are probably rare, but also still exist. I’ll touch a bit on that later. But these people will be meta-staying meta.
B)Players who play healing/tank roles no matter what anyone says. These people will be happier because now they won’t get as much discrimination from the community. With the perceptions shifting, they will become non-meta becoming sort-of meta, depending on what kind of healing/tanking needs to be done.
C)Players who don’t play dungeons/fractals because there aren’t any healing/tank roles. These players might become interesting again if their desired playstyle is encouraged, but they also might be discouraged from past experiences. For raids, these could be considered prospective players from nowhere becoming meta.
D)Players who only play in their own guild who reinforces their desire to use healing/tank roles. These probably fit the non-meta archetype you’re talking about, since they aren’t likely to be paying attention to the meta in the first place. However, it is possible that with their roles desired, they would become more open to extra-guild activities. It is also possible that they’ll just stay in their guild.
E)Players who don’t know what is going on, and just happen to play healing/tank roles. These guys probably won’t be meta in the sense that it is unlikely that one will happenstance into the kind of builds and tactics that would be desired. But, this group tends to shrink and diverge off into one of the other categories.
F)Players who don’t play, period, because they think the combat is homogenized without tank/healing roles. These non-players might come back to the game if they hear things have changed, and thus can easily become meta. If they come back at all.
G)Players who play their own idealized version of their class, which may include healing/tank roles. These players aren’t likely to do anything for anyone, so the chances of each one individually becoming meta is unlikely.
H)Players who refuse to play meta out of principle. This group depends on the principle. Some hate the zerk meta, and other hate the idea of a meta in general, and others hate going with the flow. The first can become meta since they will leave this category, the second two not so much.
The inclusiveness problem will still exist. But it is theoretically possible to include more people than we are now.
Touch note: it might be all too late. You’ve touched on this a bit, too. An unfortunate fact is that a lot of the people who would’ve liked to have a tank/heal/DPS meta are gone. They left precisely because there was no holy trinity here. Thus, while their complaints echo throughout the internet, they aren’t coming back. The dominating nature of the current meta is caused in part by everyone who disagrees with the meta leaving the dungeon scene.
The introduction of F2P and HoT is the motivating factor. With an influx of new and returning players, Anet gets a chance to re-sell their combat system. To appeal to the classic MMO player who wants their tanks and their healers. If it brings in more money, what zerk meta players think won’t matter. The dollar is louder than the voice.
What’s wrong about grouping people? The line for me is simple : people who play like me and in a standardized way and everybody else.
Of course people that don’t play like me matter less (or at all) since I rely on them as effective teammates.
Historically the us vs. them mindset has not been the best one. You’ve got to include diversity in your opponents, or else you rob them of empathy.
Because it has been proven – and because at some point you’ll have to take some things “for granted” – have you personally bothered to check every fact you’ve been told and use on a day-to-day basis?
The interesting thing about “proof” is that it isn’t a consensus
. Anyway, the grounds at which things have been proven and their appropriateness for each individual are all up for debate. While there is a theoretical best performance overall, one size doesn’t always fit all. The meta changes, too, and new records are set regularly. If the dynamic and selective nature of the meta was expounded on more, I’m certain it would be far less oppressive when players take it for granted.
Because this makes no sense – if you’re PHIW you can’t be meta – because if you’re playing *any other build then you are not playing a meta build.
And if you want to play meta builds then why weren’t you playing a meta build way before HoT?
Technicality: Zerk Meta players can be considered “PHIW”, if they do indeed want to play that way. Other players want their desired style of play to also be meta. I go into this more above, but it is very possible from a multitude of angles that a non-meta player will run meta builds, so long as that build’s role is to tank or heal. Also there are different degrees of how exclusionary things are, which is why we have terms like metazerk, metabuilds, metatactics, and metacomps. I imagine the actual number of people who only run ele/ele/war/mes/whatever the last class is parties, all using specific builds is quite rare. I see more demands for all heavies than that.
I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.
I think I’m going to be a particularly difficult individual, and just cut this next post up into little bits. Personally I find it hard not to, given its content and the lack of reference points.
You are a particularly difficult individual, I’ll give you that much.
First of all, no.
You’re wrong.
It should be self evident that, given the existence of a discussion, that one party is assuming the other party is wrong. It’s kind of a given.
The metagame in any MMO is the most mathematically optimal way of clearing content that develops after many hours, of many days of many weeks of many months of testing and developing builds until there is no further way to optimize your play.
That is literally all that it is.
The hilarious thing is how wrong this all is. Traditionally the metagame is a reference to using outside factors to influence how a game is played. In particular this is done in reference to how other people will be playing the game. This is important in the PVP side of things, since a player will make their build choices trying to counter a build the other player is using. Thus it is called “meta” or “abstract”. In PVP, the metagame is a thing. But in PVE, you don’t do this. The most appropriate term is optimum, not meta. But nonetheless everyone throws that term around, so we use it.
I will say one thing: given the intangible nature of the “meta”, the name might be appropriate. If we are to assume that meta is slowly built upon, this comes with the implicit assumption that the meta is always wrong, even in its own goals. It will be either improved upon eventually, or the nature of the game will change and thus it is no longer applicable.
Then we have the application of the meta. The mathematical extrapolations are only as good as their practical use in the real world. The theory is only as valuable as how well it explains reality. All the numbers on all the spreadsheets in the world don’t mean a thing if it doesn’t work. Thus, we have the appropriateness issue: given the skill level and experiences of the average player, what is mathematically the best is not always practically the best. For this individual, the "meta’ objectively does not produce the best results. Thus, there needs to be a necessary distinction: a theoretical optimum, and a practical optimum.
This is important, because the practical optimum is what Anet has to balance around. Things have to be hard but attainable for the average customer, not the top 5%. Otherwise people go away and take their cash elsewhere.
That’s what the term means. You can’t place a new meaning onto this term, base your assumptions and accusations around that meaning and expect it to be taken seriously.
Wrong again, my not-so-good man. Or… I don’t know your sex. Nevermind. Anyway, what I am doing here is not inventing. I am investigating. Analyzing. Discovering how the word is used. Diagnosing inconsistencies and impracticality. Language is dynamic, and glorious imprecise, my good not-so-good woman. English is an art as much as it is a science.
Sorry.
See, you say this, but I don’t believe you mean it.
That’s not how words work.
It’s not something made up – it’s an optimized form of play that has been mathematically proven to be the best (read: fastest, most efficient) way of repeatedly clearing content.
Let me pose to you a theoretical situation. Suppose someone cracked the code and created a new, mathematically best way to play the game. No one could find any errors in this code. Suppose also that no player was able to actually replicate this performance in the game. Whether it be by the structure of the content, the player skill, or completely unknown reasons, not a single person was able to reproduce this predicted result. Would then, that theory be meta? Even if no one can or ever will do it, and other things do better in practice?
When I say “invented” I don’t mean in a Godzilla-and-Barbie-have-tea-with-the-Queen kind of way. The meta is based around, in large part, fact. However, by its very dynamic nature it is necessarily fiction. The meta for fractals isn’t necessarily the same as the meta for dungeons, and each dungeon can have its own meta. Even in its roots, it is a flawed assumption that the mathematically optimum way to play is the “best”. I.E. people might be looking to have fun first and foremost, and not find the number crunched way to be fun. But that’s another topic for another day, my not-so-good eukaryote.
When I say a few, I’m referring to theorycrafters. Particularly PVE focused dungeon/fractal theorycrafters. When you compare the proportion of these that contributed to the meta to the people who didn’t, you’ll find it is quite the relatively tiny group.
Secondly, while you’re absolutely correct in what you said, which is essentially that player skill contributes to performance just as much as statistical optimization, you fail to realize how irrelevant that is.
The meta is the mathematical optimization. The meta gets played out through user performance, and they intersect. That was my point in the opening paragraph. That players who cannot master the user performance necessary to make the most use out of the mathematically optimal statistics, tend to drift away from them.
This just isn’t true. First, the meta is practical use. Math just plays a portion. Second, players who cannot master the tactics don’t drift away. They just keep playing. No one “masters” it. I see rants all the time about players playing with other players who think they’re doing meta stuff, but aren’t. Heck, I still see heavy only LFGs. I’ve seen the words Dunning-Kruger uttered in this game more times than I can count.
The thing with “mastery” is that it is ambiguous. You can’t measure it. You can’t quantify it. The idea that a player who follows the meta in the weakest sense will one day get up and proclaim themselves incompetent and stop trying is absurd. Preference in play is independent of competence in play. This should be self evident.
Thirdly, whether the meta should be considered the default form of play or not is entirely irrelevant and just an attempt for you to, yet again, characterize me as an elitist. It’s boring.
The problem is that this wasn’t a debate. You consider (or at least considered. You might not now that you are observing yourself) the meta as the default, and other people deviants. It ends there. When talking about the topic of this thread it is irrelevant, but when denying your elitism and the oppressive nature of the meta, which are tangentially related topics, then it is important.
Dude… or dudette. Dudine? Whatever. This would be a whole lot easier if you would just admit your elitism, then apologize and change your ways. The discussion on the nature of the new meta is not dependent on you being an elitist. It just so happened that you are a closet one.
Because the meta is the most efficient way to clear content – and this isn’t just GW2, but all MMORPG’s, ever – it is generally understood to be the standard form of play, as most players will generally aim to find the most efficient way to do the content they want to do. There is nothing wrong with detracting from that if someone wants to, nor is there anything wrong with acknowledging the existence of detractors.
This isn’t right either. The aim of most players is to have fun. This is a videogame. It is leisure time. There’s only a couple of different people who aim for optimum compositions. A) The person who enjoys the mental puzzle of optimizing. 
The person who wants to feel superior. C)The person who feels inadequate under the assumption that the optimum is demanded from them. See, this is why I keep calling you an elitist: your ideas are so backwards in how they follow through, that the only explanations are that you are thoroughly brainwashed or you’re the washer. And how you got to be a 1337357 isn’t my concern here.
Next point.
It is entirely your issue if you see faster as meaning better. Personally, for me, I DO find faster to be better, but that’s my subjective experience and as I’ve mentioned previously I understand there are people who don’t want to rush through their content. There’s nothing even remotely close to a superiority complex going on here.
I’m really concerned about the types of human reactions you’ve had to have such negative reaction to literally everything somebody says to you.
You’ve missed the point. You didn’t characterized non-adherents as just people. You denoted them as envious of how fast you are. A quality that you are admitting right now that you consider superior. You are constantly denying the validity of their complaints in the most dismissive ways.
The meta can still be better. Even if it has problems, then what is to say that the game won’t be improved upon even further later? Until it eventually reaches the Meta-Meta? The best way to be the best way?
You mention that the meta provides a societal pressure. That’s true, and that will always exist because the majority of players, and this is factual accuracy not what you will inevitably label my “superiority complex”, wish to play their game in the most time efficient way.
Myopia is a curse. The majority of players left the area for which there is a “meta”. Dungeons and Fractals are abandoned compared to other content. The only reason why it seems like everyone to you is because that’s who you hang out with.
The ironic thing, though, is that the current state of Guild Wars 2 actually very comfortably allows players do play whatever they Gods kitten ed wish to play. It’s as simple as putting “PHIW” into the party finder.
Very bizarre that people still find this difficult.
Except it doesn’t work. You put casual run, relaxed run, all welcome into the LFG and you still get metazerks who will come in and ruin your party, or you get no one at all. It doesn’t matter how theoretically relaxed it is if elitists will still come in and ruin everything. The roles have to be properly enforced, or else you end up with no role diversity.
You remind me of a quote I read earlier:
I’ve never met someone who didn’t justify their prejudices in experience. That’s why bigotry is so pervasive: no bigot thinks they’re a bigot. They just think they’re “right”.It applies to you pretty well.
Prejudice requires having a set of beliefs applied before knowing someone. My issues with you come from what you have provided me. Continually.
I’m gonna finalise this discussion with this final point.
Yay I get last word.
When the new meta develops, I’m going to adapt to it. I’m going to play it, whether that means playing full zerk like I have been, or changing to clerics, or sentinels, or whatever the meta requires because that’s how I want to play. Efficiency is an important part of the way I play my games, and that’s all there is to it.
So you’re a PHIW?
And here’s the kicker – I know you’re gonna love this – there will still be people who refuse to play the meta.
The fun part is, this new content is going to be harder, more challenging, and a lot stricter.
So you’re going to take joy in other people’s malcontent, and are proud of how exclusive raids will be.
You just don’t get it: The zerker meta has an intrinsic problem to it, in that it doesn’t enforce traditional roles. Look, I’m not a fan of requiring tanks and healers myself. I like the self-sufficient action style combat. But I can’t deny that the role homogeneity GW2 has is a problem. I see it everywhere, all around the gaming world. “I don’t feel a sense of cooperation while playing GW2”, “GW2 feels homogenized and stale”, “I don’t the impact of my skills on other players”, “GW2 has a selfish combat system”, “GW2 feels like a single player game next to 5 people”, “Don’t try having no trinity, because GW2 tried that and look what happened”. I don’t even know what people mean when they say “look what happened” and yet the room nods in agreement.
There’s a point where stupidity becomes a sin. Repent and ye shall be saved.
Call me elitist all you want, it means absolutely nothing to me, but I think I’m going to enjoy playing the game a lot more than you.
Well, my not-so-good elitist, if you didn’t care then you wouldn’t have kept bringing it up. Who exactly do you think I am, anyway? Oh wait, final word. My bad. I’ll answer it for you: Queen of England, having tea with Godzilla and Barbie.
I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.
(edited by Blood Red Arachnid.2493)
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.
Mamorou Itou Defense Club.
Protect him at all costs.
Protect him at all costs.
Mamorou Itou Defense Club.
Protect him at all costs.
Protect him at all costs.
Mamorou Itou Defense Club.
Protect him at all costs.
Protect him at all costs.
Mamorou Itou Defense Club.
Protect him at all costs.
Protect him at all costs.
(edited by kolompi.1287)
Reikou/Reira/Iroha/Sengiku/Rinoka/Kuruse/Sakuho/Kinae/Yuzusa/Kikurin/Otoha/Hasue/Mioko
https://www.youtube.com/AilesDeLumiere
http://www.twitch.tv/ailesdelumiere
https://www.youtube.com/AilesDeLumiere
http://www.twitch.tv/ailesdelumiere
(edited by Reikou.7068)
“Those who go mad are merely thoughtful souls who failed to reach any conclusions.”
“Those who go mad are merely thoughtful souls who failed to reach any conclusions.”
“Those who go mad are merely thoughtful souls who failed to reach any conclusions.”
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”