Understanding The Metagame

Pylgrim

Very well, then. Feel free to disregard, mock or whatever you feel like with those useless polls. I look forward to whatever you will do that will be much more useful for the community and illuminate us on the road to wisdom on the only thing that ever has mattered or will matter in the history of the game, and why not, the world, META. Make sure of meta inserting the word meta every two meta words so meta people will meta know what are you meta talking about.

Unknown

You're taking this way too seriously: the entire forum appreciates those polls and they are useful. Let BPC vent over his frustration of World Rupture not winning the poll.

Unknown

Pylgrim wrote:

Very well, then. Feel free to disregard, mock or whatever you feel like with those useless polls. I look forward to whatever you will do that will be much more useful for the community and illuminate us on the road to wisdom on the only thing that ever has mattered or will matter in the history of the game, and why not, the world, META. Make sure of meta inserting the word meta every two meta words so meta people will meta know what are you meta talking about.

My greatest contribution to this forum is spam cleanup. I will however, engage in debate and challenge people on topics I feel I'm strong. The best polls we've seen are meant to generate discussion as much as they are about collecting data.The problem that I think BPC is highlighting is that your assertions aren't holding true. You're trying to find out which skills are best independent of any other factors. The two big problems are 1) you immediately contradict yourself by comparing the skills to one another based on an arbitrary grouping and 2) you failed to define best. "Best" is a meaningless word when devoid of context, b/c it's entirely subjective. When you say best, you have a number of hidden assumptions or definitions that aren't clearly conveyed. So by using the word best, you're implicitly using rules and creating a context while simultaneously chastising us for not knowing where the boundaries of your definition are.

It's kind of like the concept of a hole. A hole without context is a meaningless concept b/c by definition it is an absence of the surrounding context. These skills without context (e.g. the meta - that's not the only context, but it's the one most of us will implicitly apply here) are just as meaningless as a hole by itself.

I'm sorry if you're getting discouraged but do realize that a) this is the internet and you can discard 99% of what people say here, myself included and b) this is the internet so don't take anything seriously.

Unknown

Pylgrim wrote:

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

@Pylgrim: but that's exactly the point I'm making. Examining these abilities in a vacuum is not just pointless from a game design perspective, it's inherently meaningless. Call The Storm does, at best, around 550 damage per AP, at an overall cost of 14. What does that tell us about the metagame, absent the knowledge of the rest of the metagame? Nothing.

See the bolded I added. You keep insisting that all quantifiable, veritable and ultimately useful data is that which has direct application about playing and winning the game as it is TODAY, i.e. the meta. But what happens when we look at things one by one, in their own merit, disregarding current, ever-changing external factors? We get a solid base in understanding the characters and adapting when the meta changes. To use a very obvious example, Thor's abilities (except red) are highly regarded, coming a top in their corresponding colours poll. Put that together and you find out that Thor is an extremely solid character regardless the circumstances. Again, this is widely known, but there may be subtler things in that line that we'll find out once all the data is together. Currently, the meta is indeed dominated by WR, no one denies that. But WR is a somewhat mediocre ability on its own! Changes to Sentry (already rumoured) -such as the removal of Sacrifice-, changes to the gameplay, or changes to the metagame may at any point take the bonus fangs from the power and leave it standing alone and mediocre. When/if that happens, the more you know about abilities and characters on their own will help you adapt better to new circumstances.

Analyzing the game in terms of the meta is critical. Context is crucial for measuring anything. Otherwise it's damage divided by ap usage. We all clearly know that it's much more than that basic math. Knowing how people use these powers and in what combinations is crucial.
An example is hood. When used for sentry bombing his build "should" be 355 to maximize that attack. If he is used without sentry with that build, then usefulness of both his yellow & black powers decrease. By the same token, a 553 hood can cause issues on sentry bombing (like a partial WR against a hulk captain marvel combo). Without knowing his build or who he is paired with or who he goes against, no one can really quantify hood's value. In fact saying anything definitive is a bit naive to the actual experience (which the meta describes)
The meta "explains" which powers are favored under current settings, which combinations have best synergy & what is best to be avoided (like avoid 5 black xforce but don't worry about any non 5 black xforce cause that difference is huge). Additionally grouping them by color is kinda not the point of the powers. I'll use three guys w the same color & alternate who uses the power based on circumstance. Like xforce bp cmag. In a vacuum, cmag yellow is the best cause it keeps attacks away. However, in practice I'll always use xforce yellow if he is under 6k health as top priority. If not then for some opponents I'd use BP yellow but against others cmag yellow. Hulk as enemy favors cmag but recurring damage guys like punisher or HT means cmag yellow is better. Quantifying all three against each other is pointless as a result. A poll is troublesome to me because the info can lead uninformed people to making silly decisions about purchases.
A poll that pits all elite powers against one another makes the most sense. Roster composition is based off of two factors for most people: the featured character (PvP obviously & PvE generally from buffs) & strongest available power. People with deep maxed out rosters will pick complementary teammates to maximize the team. It's why I chuckle whenever I hear about rainbow attack. Why would anyone collect ap for a lesser power? Also it makes the AI act stupider on defense because it will prioritize dumber things at times. There's a reason that sentry is always hanging out with hood & LD. They make him better. The team is about sentry green & yellow. Everything else is pointless. If you pair sentry w anyone else, his effectiveness drops. Subtly but measurable. Your shield hops will take longer & you'll be attacked slightly more (I'll attack a sentry & no hood/ld team every time I see one)

mohio

Phantron wrote:

Where do people get the idea that Sentry isn't good without boosts? Even without them, 7g + 8y that have a high probability of ending a game is still one of the fastest way to win and winning fast greatly reduces the damage taken. But if you don't boost you can end up in some awkward situation where there's one guy left with 2000 HP and your Sacrifice tile got taken out somehow and the only move you can use is Supernova. In a shield hopping situation you'd just use the Supernova anyway, but it's rather uncomfortable to decide whether to match 3 the last 2K damage or use a Supernova if you're just playing normally.

I realize this is not the main topic of conversation in this thread, but I completely agree, and anyone can see this first hand in the sentry pvp going on right now. I played a few matches with LT against some lower life opps (spiderman, punisher, gsbw, etc.) thinking WR/Sacrifice was just overkill and I could save some life loss from WR (and maybe sacrifice if my daken didn't make enough strike tiles), but I quickly saw that I was losing more life from the matches going longer since it took many more turns to get to 14 green (or 12 yellow into 14 green), and even then CotS only takes out maybe 2 characters once you factor in all your match damage, sothen you still have to kill whoever's remaining. It's way faster and even saves you life to just suck it up and run out WR with some form of strike tiles (bring BP if you really don't want to use sacrifice).