The Rise of the Metagame

[James de Monet]

How do you guys feel about the metagaming or powergaming aspects of the game and GDB, of late?  To my perception, it seems like these things are on the rise, and I don't know how I feel about it.  I am not much of a metagamer.  Min/maxing and the complete expectation that you will do it (and the castigation/judgement/ostratization if you don't) is one of the worst things about all of gaming culture, to me, and the reason I can't play any MMOs to the endgame.  I made my first character on Arm in 2000, and I am finding out things about skill code, branching, bonuses and penalties, etc. at a higher rate now than I have at any other time in my 16 years.  I think that says something.

If I had to look for a reason, I think I would probably point to prevalent references to other sources of information on the GDB and a more relaxed approach to singular references to code mechanics than in the past (whole discussions still seem to be frowned upon, but people making comments like "all burglars only hunt creature X for Y reason" seem to be dropping everywhere, and a lot of times, I didn't know these 'facts' before they were presented as 'common knowledge').  I think some of it also stems from staff comments and code changes (like the ability to see your skill levels), but I don't find this source to be particularly damaging, I just think it facilitates the other kind.

How do you guys feel about it?  Like, dislike?  Surprised by these sentiments, think I must be pretty unobservant to not pick up on code mechanics over such a long period?  I made this a poll so lots of opinions would be represented, not just a vocal minority.

I will say I have had character concepts that suffered because I never managed to branch or improve some skills that were important to the concept, but I also am beginning to get that feeling that if I don't skillmax in Arm, I might get kicked out of my clan in favor of someone who did, and I don't like that feeling.  I don't like it at all.  Thoughts?



P.S. I put this in general discussion instead of the code forum, because it's a thread about knowledge of code, not about the code itself.  (Does that make it the meta-metagame thread?)

[Desertman]

Since the introduction of being able to see your skill levels at all I am of the opinion a lot of players have reached a "Master or nothing.", mindset.

I have had on more than one occasion people even brag to me in-character about reaching master-level in their skills. It is the most jarring shit ever.

"I don't feel like I can learn anything more about using my shield. I feel like I have mastered it.".

I have seen that no less than twenty five times. (Or some version of that.)

Kill me please.

[Saellyn]

I personally don't like it, and I noticed it has begun to increase, but I don't feel there's much I can do about it. It's just a fact of life - these days, all games are about the metagame. People want to win. They want to be the best in PvP (I'm guilty of this but even I know it's a collaborative effort), they want to have the best outfits, the best stuff, the most money... and Armageddon is no different. The difference is, Armageddon has a very permanent way of dealing with PvP that most games do not. It's play for blood, not play to win, in the world of Armageddon.

Yet despite that, I'd still like to see some things more open. I'd like skills to be more visible for newbies (in regards to each guild), and maybe even a helpfile - when you pick Warrior, it gives you the helpfile on Warriors and asks, Are you Sure? Then you can take a look, see if that's what you want your skills to be, and go from there.


I'm with you Monet. I've learned a lot more in the past year than I did on the four leading up to it. I don't know if it's good or bad.

[Desertman]

I'm about to go grizzled old veteran on you too.

Back in the day I don't recall anyone ever really being interested or concerned with the behind the scenes mechanics. I recall some speculation back in the day that I found out over the last few years was actually very wrong. But that's about it.

These days it seems like there's a new thread every couple of weeks from someone trying to make the game "easier" in terms of changes to the mechanics.

Why does the game need to be easier? Why am I reading so many threads about people wanting things to be easier and easier?

Why is the "instant gratification culture" spreading like a "dodge ball is too rough" disease into my Armageddon?

Fucking kids.

[Synthesis]

Pfft, people were always interested in behind-the-scenes mechanics.

There are still old spreadsheets out there that list every skill tree, every spell tree, every psion skill, their starting levels, their maximums, what level they branch at, all the different poisons, all the different tablets, maps of the entire known world with detailed annotation, crafting lists with thousands of items, etc. etc. etc.

I'd say a good 50% of the things I know about the game came from people sending me that stuff.  The rest I've figured out on my own.  Granted, a lot of it has changed, but there's a solid chunk of it that is still relevant.

If you think there was some "good old days" where people just played the game without worrying about skills and mechanics, you were just one of the nerds who didn't have a hookup.

[Lizzie]

Agreed with Dman. It's like we're being expected to "dumb down" so that new players can have fewer, lower expectations of difficulty than we did coming in. Remember, a game is only as good as its worst player. When you set the bar lower, you will attract people who want a lower bar. You can't expect the quality of game we had, if we don't expect new players to comply with the learning curve we had when we were new.

It sounds like players want things easier for them to win. Because to them, winning should be a priority. They want to recreate this game into a PK-game with roleplay required, rather than an RPI with PK accepted. Improvements to the game don't equate with making this easier and that harder.  Easier/harder might be a side effect of an improvement, but it shouldn't be the reason for it.

To Synthesis: Yeah I have the map, the skills lists, the component lists, the Great List Of Vendors And Their Clan-Discounted Prices (which I made myself), the crafting list, and whatever the hell else is out there. But I don't bring that shit into the game. Just because I know what you need in order to max backstab in 4 days doesn't mean I plan on maxing backstab in 4 days. It should be intended as a general guideline. So like - if you're at 10 days and still haven't gotten to advanced yet, you know there's a way to speed things up if it's really necessary. If you're at 15 days, and you still haven't maxed it yet, you could probably send a note along to the staff asking if everything's okay with your pfile.

[Beethoven]

I don't care if people powergame, as long as they're roleplaying. I just don't want there to be a metagaming culture, in which you're expected and pressured into metagaming. Like how people roll their eyes at you on some MOBA games because you didn't stick to the meta when choosing your character. Otherwise it doesn't really affect me, I guess, even though I voted for options 1 and 4. Mostly I voted that there's too much metagaming because I'm afraid that it IS starting to be considered "required."

[Saellyn]

Even when I started playing, and I've told this story a few times, I started out and was immediately "branded" by a Red Fang and made to do their bidding. I had no knowledge of the world beyond skimming some stuff, and I ended up being horribly in over my head. It's taken me almost six years to get to the point where I'm actually a "viable" player who tries his hardest to contribute more to the game world at large than he brings in for himself. I play for other people.

I despite solo RP. I despise thinking/feeling because it's something that an extreme few can see, and sometimes it feels ungratifying to do it. I still do it, occasionally.

[Saellyn]

Agreed. It's like we're being expected to "dumb down" so that new players can have fewer, lower expectations of difficulty than we did coming in. Remember, a game is only as good as its worst player. When you set the bar lower, you will attract people who want a lower bar. You can't expect the quality of game we had, if we don't expect new players to comply with the learning curve we had when we were new.

It sounds like players want things easier for them to win. Because to them, winning should be a priority. They want to recreate this game into a PK-game with roleplay required, rather than an RPI with PK accepted. Improvements to the game don't equate with making this easier and that harder.  Easier/harder might be a side effect of an improvement, but it shouldn't be the reason for it.

That PC that got enslaved"" by the Red Fang later was dragged off the Gaur-Pandu, thrown to the edge, and mercilessly killed. That was my 2 hours intro to Armageddon. I was fucking HOOKED.

[whitt]

I think this boils down to meta-gamers are gonna meta-game and RPers are "only" going to meta-game until they get their character to the point they envisioned being able to play at.  The fact you generally need to master one skill to branch another that is deemed needed or very useful only contributes to this.  Maybe branching at early advanced would calm folks down?  I don't know.  I do know there are some skills I only use "a lot" until they get to the point I see if they branch, then I use them very sparingly afterwards.

What I think is somewhat harmful to Armageddon is the number of things that should be pretty common knowledge that are sometimes as difficult to learn as the truly arcane and mysterious.  Seeking out this knowledge is also sometimes considered metagamey.  For example, a map of the city of Allanak, the list of common crafts available to guilds and the tools they might use, and any ability to compare the quality of equipment at least to the level of poor / average / good / wow.

I think IC lore can and should be gained ICly.  Wanting basic OOC mechanics isn't meta-gamey to it's asking for the tools to build a character so we don't have to get months into a character only to learn... oh, yeah, nope.  You'll never get that thing you made as your goal because you thought it made sense (noob).

[Synthesis]

As far as the original concern goes...I've never been kicked out of a clan for "sucking," but then again...I hate sucking, so I usually don't suck.

But, but...if your PC is a useless sack of turds, nobody should feel obligated to pay you coins, give you food, give you water, and give you shelter just because you can speak sirihish, use the Way, and have journeyman cook.  If your PC is legitimately useless IC, they should be treated as such, and that isn't metagamey...it's just fucking common sense.

So, either man up and admit to your boss that you're really only good at stealing shit from backpacks and crafting ropes and baskets, and see if they can find a niche use for you, or suck it up and don't cry when they fire you because they hired you as a hunter and you couldn't skin a chalton if a maxed ranger started the job for you.

[James de Monet]

a map of the city of Allanak

http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,49533.0.html




^I am not saying there are not some aspects of information external (really, any person from Allanak has that map on their head, it isn't external, but you get the point) to the game that aren't almost universally beneficial.  And contrary to your point, Synth, it's not because I didn't or don't have a hookup.  I have certain maps and things.  I have made others (^), made my own tables through research about crafting recipes, etc.  I have a very thorough table of Kuraci goods, prices, etc. that I made when I was playing a master Kuraci merchant.  You know what I did with it?  I kept it to myself.  If someone else wants to make a master Kuraci merchant, they can earn that information with the experience.  And you know what I would do now if a Kuraci merchant told one of my chars that the price of some good was three times what I know it to be?  I would pay it (or not, if I couldn't afford it), but I wouldn't argue, because my current char doesn't know that info.

I'm not saying I embody the standard, but neither am I bemoaning some lost glory days.  Every day is a chance to increase the amount of meta information out there, or try to keep it the same.  You can't put that cat back in the bag once it's out, though.  And I think a lot of people have been choosing the former, lately.  That's what this is about.

[hopeandsorrow]

The mountain we all climb. The arms race.

See I remember not having a clue and getting frustrated often when it felt I was getting knocked down the mountain before I could even smell the air.  I quit over it, like twice, just fustrated feeling veterans players were holding that knowledge over my head. (Younger then).


Then I got the clues and although the top of the mountain was no longer the mystery it once was, at least I know how to climb now and how long that climb is.  Finding that trail blazed by dozens of players before me.

One part of me is glad to have the knowledge, no longer fumbling in the dark because I lack an AIM name.

The other part is sad, what mystery was, no longer remains.  There's no putting that cat back in the bag, very few people are without the knowledge now.

Though ultimately It in some ways empowers people to role play more but at the cost of them roleplaying less in the beginning.


A good example, why on earth would I ever join a clan which is only going to actively hem and stop my coded progress? Better to spend the first ~20 days indie accomplishing that bullshit before I get schedules and rules laden upon my head.  No matter how good the role play, the lack of coded skill, the lack of progress will hover in the back of my head.  On some OOC level I will live in constant fear that all my role play/effort will be invalidated by the guy who decided to grind high agility creatures for a couple of months.

The guy who grinded, followed the meta guidelines can roll into a clan a full actualized hunter/warrior/master thief.

It's kind of shitty, but that's the nature of the meta-game and if Synthesis is anything to go by, it's always sort of been that way.  Just not out in the open.  Without a code overhaul it's going to be hard to really change, no one wants to 'lose' over and over again, because they were socially busy while the other player was turning lizards into reptilian hamburger.

I voted yes and we all know why it increased, because skill timers/tips/advice and lot of info in available via google search now.  To hear some, Armageddon has always been a skills arm race.

Do I wish it was more RP focused? Hell yes, I hate the skill grind.  I don't really enjoy being concerned about the meta, I get some what out of focus with my PC's sometimes.  First few days played? It's a skill sheet, cause it's squishy and useless and not even I the player of the PC want to put forth the effort on something squishy and useless.

Yet I have too, I feel obligated to meta the shit out of a PC.  The meta is there loaming in the shadows and it's threatening.  Not everyone wants to roll into a new PC planning to lose with no hope of 'winning' (lacking better terms) because there is a handful of PC's/players full willing to use that meta knowledge to further their plots and possibly end yours.  With the only deciding factor is you failed to meta as hard as they did.


You can have staff do a massive crackdown, watch a dozen or so less players on the who's list, maybe create some massive anal irritation for a few of the out spoken.

Code changes could be put in place, invalidating current meta knowledge, but that's a lot of work to ask.

You could try to change the current culture, focus players back away from winning with code, being concerned with skills, but that difficult, once the Skill mastery arms race starts, it's hard to stop.

The poll's kind of silly, of course it's increased, it's utterly evident.  The real question, what do we all do about it as a community?

[James de Monet]

Also, for the record, I'm not attacking people who metagame.  If that is what makes this game fun for you, knock yourself out (or me, which is more likely).  But this trend kinda has the bionic man effect: that is, when everyone is an augmented human except you, the defintion of what "sucking" is changes.

I don't mind if you skillmax.  But if this game gets to point where I have to skillmax in order not to look like a day 1 vp, vp, vp, vp character all the time, I see that as a problem.

(Also, I'm not whining about playing a pickpocket in a war clan.  I'm taking about playing a ranger, or a warrior, and having others say things like: "You can't do thing X yet?  What's wrong with you?")

[Nergal]

The unfortunate thing about the metagame is that the game's code, when it comes to skill progression and the like, isn't as complex as people think it is. It is actually very simple, and works exactly as described in the help files. Could it be improved? Perhaps - it always could be improved, and only requires a discussion staff-side as well as reasoned player input to figure out exactly how.

However, a lot of incorrect assertions float around, get repeated, and are eventually accepted as truth. Usually they are "proven" by someone who is believed to have had a strong character skills-wise, but in reality their character's strength was incidental, in the sense it didn't come about precisely the way they think it did - or, at least, that it came about the way they thought, but numerous alternate methods would have worked just as well.

In the end, this is a roleplaying game. There is nothing explicitly stopping players from maxing out their characters' skills (or trying to) by doing <insert senseless thing here> (of course, there's nothing stopping staff from making note of it either). But if you have a high-skilled character and you're not roleplaying, then you're missing the point of the game. That, to me, is much worse than simply wanting to have a competent character, and going about it in a relatively normal way. Not worse for the game, per se, because the vast majority of players roleplay normally - but worse for the player themselves, because they are wasting their time skilling up when they could be doing something more interesting with their time.

On the subject of competence, I think the visible skill levels didn't necessarily cause the metagame, but twisted players' viewpoint of what a "good enough" skill level is. When previously "good enough" in a combat skill was measured by how your PC did in a fight against something or someone, now it is measured by one of five words that each represent a broad range in ability. PKing simply doesn't happen enough in the game to justify the concept of becoming better than other players fast enough so that your PC can defend themselves against them.

Ultimately we are trending toward giving players the information they need to build a character they actually want to play. Obviously we would rather see players' focus fixed on roleplay, rather than coded advancement for the sake of itself.

[Synthesis]

The visible skill levels don't matter at all, dudes, to anyone who knows anything about anything.

What matters is branching.  It's not our fault that the teenage boys who created this game set the system up so that branching (unless it's from an extended subguild, or the rare case where your guild maxes out at a low level) requires you to be a grandmaster in something else.

If anything, seeing the visible skill levels has -decreased- the amount of spammy grinding I do, because I know exactly how far I have left to go, and how long it's going to take, and I don't need to get impatient and spammy about it, because I know I'm at journeyman, and I'll just have to keep sucking it up for a while.  It's also revealed that heeey, some things you can just fail once in a blue moon and they go up reeeeeal quick just like that, so spamming them when I was a noob was completely unnecessary.

[whitt]

a map of the city of Allanak

http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,49533.0.html

I love this map, fyi.  I regularly send the link to new players I run into.  But... I'm an apothecary.  Show me on this map where the herbalist is... that's what I mean.

Did I mention this map is awesome?

[Asanadas]

If branching as a concept was looked at, and there were serious considerations to allowing characters their "full" potential not locked behind fail-gates, then there'd be a lot less metagaming and powergaming.  

I will never play another Merchant Guild, because I feel like, in order to be useful to my clan / my friends in any reasonable amount of time, I have to fail at making X 30 times, and then X 30 times, and then [insert secret skill branching secrets here] in order to begin being useful to anyone. And you can't tell me otherwise: I knew that I was not useful to anyone.

Nothing so terribly vile as the Merchant grind comes to mind at the moment. It's not for me, because the way the code is set up defies any sort of realistic basis or understanding. I have helped tan skins IRL, for the record. I had no respect for that system and spared it as little time as possible, and, in the end, it burned me out.

I think that's one of the roots for the amount of twinkery going on; players have jumped through the hoops so many times, or despise jumping through the hoops, that they go about doing it as fast as possible and RP be damned. Find an excuse to go abandon your IC clan schedule and go outside to grind on a stilt lizard, some people on the GDB have suggested. If we look at one of the primary reasons why these sorts of things happen (raising skill X to Y level to branch), and fix that, then that cuts out a cause and improves the RP aspects of the game, in my opinion.

[Kryos]

Rather than vote, I'd put an opinion close to Syth's up on this:  I think its naive to believe people haven't been and still don't meta game the crap out of things.  I've seen them years ago, I see them now.  And by 'meta game' I do mean behavior close to or absolutely cheating and exploitation, with intention to.

[Inks]

I mostly agree it has always been this way. But lately I have noticed people do in game more, especially ignoring vnpc populations, and spamming look in crowded (virtually) areas, as well as watching the one PC rinther/elf as soon as they walk in to the bar and such.

[James de Monet]

Show me on this map where the herbalist is... that's what I mean.

Ohhhh, gotcha.  I tried to stay as close to the original ASCII map's level of info as possible, aside from street names and well known info. (Which, as here, he always subject to interpretation).


Kryos, you're making me see that my poll wording is somewhat at odds with my post.  I'm fully aware that there used to be, and remain, some players who just want to full throttle twink.  I'm not complaining about that.  I'm complaining about the fact that the occurrences of meta info being talked about in the GDB seem to have increased, that partly because of this, people seem to be utilizing such data more, and because of that, metagaming is seeming to become more of an expected norm, rather than the expected outlier of yesteryear.

[Desertman]

I think I tried to meta game more back when I had no idea how the code worked than I do now.

Back when I couldn't live for more than five days at a time I was super concerned with getting as good as possible as fast as possible because I was on character #68 that couldn't get past the five day mark.

After your standard PC starts living over fifty days, you really stop giving a fuck.

You are going to be a master at what you do at 20 days plays just through standard use in your day to day life if your character isn't lazy.

The next 50 days after that you won't even have any skills left to get better at.

It doesn't matter.

[Riev]

I care about the metagame inasmuch as I sometimes plan out a concept in my head that is reliant on a particular skill, in conjunction with RP.

But I typically only want to know what works best, and quickest, so I can wake up in the morning, do my exercises (skill up) and then go find people to RP with and get into trouble.

[Miradus]

I like skills. I like seeing what skills can do and I want to see what skills hide behind other skills. I want to see more of the game world and higher skills enable me to do that more before I die to XYZ monstrosity.

In most games I've played, a lot of this mechanics and code knowledge is passed around in emails, IM, etc. and it comprises the secret lore of the "in crowd".

That some of it is being exposed on the forum for a newbie like me to read and learn is only a good thing. I'm not using these skills to "compete" against other players and end their stories unfairly, so why does anyone particularly care?

[Armaddict]

The visibility of skills has had obvious and tremendous impact, though it is more subtle than one would think (as in easy to see when its looked for and compared to a before and after, but otherwise it seems innocuous).  I've talked about it multiple times, and don't care to go into risk-evasion and arbitrary OOC knowledge of skill-state again.  No, brief skills does not fix it, because that is self-only-modification, rather than modification of the behavior of all.

There has been a very noticeable rise in the demand for mechanics.  While there has long been an undertone of 'I want to be a badass', there was -not- previously an entitled attitude about how becoming a badass should be facilitated and accepted, which is how things seem to be at this point.

That's all I'll say, because I keep going on old player rants about then vs now and the differences, then deleting it because in the end I don't want to come off that way.  I will just leave it that I do think the metagame is -more- prevalent than it was before because it is more facilitated, where as long ago, the measures taken in that pursuit put you in relatively constant danger that few managed to live long-lived lives through.