Would PvP be better with no meta?

TheEyeDoctorsWife

I think it depends on roster size. Limited or new rosters have less chance in PvP compared to collectionist whales . I had 7 low champed 5* last week and I get paired in PvP with a frequent poster here with 62 5* levels 480-450. My roster is 160 they had over 400.

HoundofShadow

Logically, it's very challenging for a meta not to exist.

If we were to look at some of the key factors involved in the meta-ness of a character, it would include:

1) Damage/ap 
2) number of turns needed to win a match 
3) potential to deter attacks or to slow down attacks (think pre-nerfed Bishop or Kitty/BRB meta etc) by the AI

As long as a character can perform any of the above better than other characters, it will be the most used and most commonly seen character by competitive players.

A meta-less format wil require all characters to win a match on turn x, deal y damage per ap, or always cause the players to win a match on turn x + z.

Rhipf

bbigler said:

btw, how does paper beat rock anyway? Is it a Contractor order to demolish all rocks? 

Paper doesn't beat rock. Paper covers rock.

Rock crushes scissors.

Scissors cut paper.

Paper covers rock.

entrailbucket

HoundofShadow said:

Logically, it's very challenging for a meta not to exist.

If we were to look at some of the key factors involved in the meta-ness of a character, it would include:

1) Damage/ap 
2) number of turns needed to win a match 
3) potential to deter attacks or to slow down attacks (think pre-nerfed Bishop or Kitty/BRB meta etc) by the AI

As long as a character can perform any of the above better than other characters, it will be the most used and most commonly seen character by competitive players.

A meta-less format wil require all characters to win a match on turn x, deal y damage per ap, or always cause the players to win a match on turn x + z.

How interesting!  Do you find this to be true of the metagames in all the competitive games that you play at a high level?  Or just this one?

Can you cite some other games you're aware of where all players who want to compete must use exactly the same characters or strategies?  I don't think I'm aware of any.

In fighting games, for example, the top tournament performers can usually choose any of several characters and still win the tournament, based on their skill level.  In collectible card games, generally players have access to a wide range of competitive decks.  In chess there are any number of strategies one might employ and still win. 

A game where there's only one competitive strategy sounds quite boring!

bbigler

Risk, Monopoly, Ticket to Ride all have meta strategies for winning. No matter how many possible winning strategies exist, players will discover the best one. Magic, Pokemon & Smash Up have meta decks as well, despite the huge pool of cards. Fighting video games, like Mortal Combat also have meta characters that everyone uses. 

If you create a game, players will figure out the best way to win the game and stick with that strategy because they want to win. 

bbigler

Rhipf said:

bbigler said:

btw, how does paper beat rock anyway? Is it a Contractor order to demolish all rocks? 

Paper doesn't beat rock. Paper covers rock.

Rock crushes scissors.

Scissors cut paper.

Paper covers rock.

Covering a rock with paper doesn’t stop it from being a rock. You can still use it like a rock, unlike crushed scissors or cut paper. 

entrailbucket

bbigler said:

Risk, Monopoly, Ticket to Ride all have meta strategies for winning. No matter how many possible winning strategies exist, players will discover the best one. Magic, Pokemon & Smash Up have meta decks as well, despite the huge pool of cards. Fighting video games, like Mortal Combat also have meta characters that everyone uses. 

If you create a game, players will figure out the best way to win the game and stick with that strategy because they want to win. 

The question is how many "best" strategies any given game will have, and it's generally more than one.  Game makers today can update on the fly to ensure that a lot of strategies are best, because it stops their games from being boring.

Magic formats typically have several best decks at any given time.  If one deck has a win rate that's too high, or makes up too much of the metagame, those cards are banned until the format opens up. 

In Mortal Kombat, the developers track usage and performance of each character.  Overused characters are nerfed and underpowered characters are buffed, frequently, until usage rates reach equilibrium.

bbigler

I agree, a good game will have multiple equally good strategies and the only way to balance the game is by making small tweaks along the way. 

But (correct me if I’m wrong) most game developers don’t make small tweaks, but big ones. Nerfing a character (or banning a card) is extreme and over-corrects the problem. MPQ does the same thing: their nerfs kill the character and their buffs don’t change the meta. Since they watch character usage stats, you would think they’d have this figured out by now. 

I admit that small tweaks are less interesting, but that’s how you achieve balance 

entrailbucket

bbigler said:

I agree, a good game will have multiple equally good strategies and the only way to balance the game is by making small tweaks along the way. 

But (correct me if I’m wrong) most game developers don’t make small tweaks, but big ones. Nerfing a character (or banning a card) is extreme and over-corrects the problem. MPQ does the same thing: their nerfs kill the character and their buffs don’t change the meta. Since they watch character usage stats, you would think they’d have this figured out by now. 

I admit that small tweaks are less interesting, but that’s how you achieve balance 

Almost all game developers today make small tweaks frequently.  Big changes are to be avoided and are only done when absolutely necessary.

Bans are usually reserved for a situation like a card game, where you can't really nerf or buff a preprinted piece of cardboard.

Borstock

Metas are good. It means there exists a fast and efficient option for people who don't want to spend forever playing this game.

TheEyeDoctorsWife

Borstock said:

Metas are good. It means there exists a fast and efficient option for people who don't want to spend forever playing this game.

There’s a common well known term for those players . Community guidelines prevents me from mentioning it. 

entrailbucket

Borstock said:

Metas are good. It means there exists a fast and efficient option for people who don't want to spend forever playing this game.

If they made a new guy who insta-killed the enemy team every time he made a match, he'd be fast and efficient.  Would that be good for the metagame?

Daredevil217

TheEyeDoctorsWife said:

I think it depends on roster size. Limited or new rosters have less chance in PvP compared to collectionist whales . I had 7 low champed 5* last week and I get paired in PvP with a frequent poster here with 62 5* levels 480-450. My roster is 160 they had over 400.

Checks post count…

Checks roster slots (460)…

Checks number of 5* champs (62)…

Checks lowest (450)…

Checks highest (479)…

phew that was close!

Daredevil217

I will say that it seems like at every MMR but the top .1%, PVP is finally diverse thanks to boosts. Past 1K the last few events I’ve seen every combination of IHulk, Rider, Bill, and Pool. Next week I likely won’t see any of them.

It’s very a much appreciated change and actually rewards you for being a collector. I think the boosts are probably the best they can do to shift the meta because there is such a wide chasm between characters at the 5* level, that so many would need to be rebalanced that it would take an ungodly amount of developer time. And after all that labor we’d still find the best combo and run it into the ground. Might as well start MPQ2 at that point.

I think the game has settled on not all being equal and I think that’s okay. Nerfs to top characters like Okoye, Shang, Apocalypse, Polaris and Thor might balance PVP more for the .1% but they would anger the 99.9% due to the impact on their PVE timing.

I think at this point the game strikes a good balance between giving us characters for everyone.

entrailbucket

Daredevil217 said:

I will say that it seems like at every MMR but the top .1%, PVP is finally diverse thanks to boosts. Past 1K the last few events I’ve seen every combination of IHulk, Rider, Bill, and Pool. Next week I likely won’t see any of them.

It’s very a much appreciated change and actually rewards you for being a collector. I think the boosts are probably the best they can do to shift the meta because there is such a wide chasm between characters at the 5* level, that so many would need to be rebalanced that it would take an ungodly amount of developer time. And after all that labor we’d still find the best combo and run it into the ground. Might as well start MPQ2 at that point.

I think the game has settled on not all being equal and I think that’s okay. Nerfs to top characters like Okoye, Shang, Apocalypse, Polaris and Thor might balance PVP more for the .1% but they would anger the 99.9% due to the impact on their PVE timing.

I think at this point the game strikes a good balance between giving us characters for everyone.

I agree with pretty much everything you said and I *really* don't really want to start another 200,000-word debate (my hands hurt from writing that much).

I don't think the amount of adjustments they'd need to do to fix the chasm is that huge.  We all agree that tier 1 and tier 3 are really small relative to tier 2.  If they did do it, the .01% PvP meta would look like it does for you -- rotating boosted characters would change the best combo every week. 

They could even start with tier 3, fix those guys, then see if the tier 1 guys were still overused.

The few members of the 99.9% who are exclusively using the overpowered characters might suffer at first, yes, but...wouldn't they have more fun using different characters occasionally, like you, and hound, and others do?  If they didn't have more fun, is that the game's problem or theirs?

Remember, they're never all going to be equal. It's not possible. All I (and some others, and I think you secretly) want is for them to be more equal-er than they are now.

HoundofShadow

That was in reference to a pvp without meta, and since we are talking about mpq, those three factors are limited to MPQ. There are probably some other factors but I missed out.

Fighting games are very different from the mechanics of MPQ.

1) It requires instant/real-time reaction and focus. You can' win a fight in tournament while watching netflix.  You could defend while watching netflix, but many of these games "penalise" defending by decreasing hp of the defenders when attacked.

2) Mastery of characters, timing and psychology are important. Competitive players like to feint to test the reactions of the other players, and this is part of the psychology. Unlike in MPQ, we can't feint in the game.

3) They have a short time limit, typically between 60-90 seconds. Once the time limit is up, winners are typically decided based on the characters who have the most health left, or the players will simply lose. In MPQ, we don't have such a short time limit. If a player play MPQ and say he completes only 50% progression at the end of the event, the developers aren't going to claw back all the placement and progression rewards just because they didn't complete a minimum of 100% progression. For super competitive players, they have an unseen time limit for T10 placements.

As for Collectible Card games, they are similar to MPQ in the sense that they are turned-based. Other than that, it's pretty different.

1) Usually, a deck is typically made up of characters, potions and action cards. In MPQ, our deck are made up of only characters and nothing else, apart from Supports.

2) There are some kind of mechanics that determine who goes first, like flipping a coin or giving players the choice. In MPQ, players always make the first move, and AI second.

3) Players draw 5-6 cards shuffled randomly at the beginning of the turn and draw one card each turn subsequently. What they get are usually not the same. You can play 10 matches, and your starting hands won't be the same for 10 matches in a row. In MPQ, we can choose our "cards" before the battle begins and our cards can be the same for 10 matches in a row.

4) Action cards and Potion cards are usually used once and discarded. You can use other action cards to bring these discarded cards and shuffle it back into your deck. In MPQ, if Apocalypse fire his red once, players can still continue to fire his red as long as you have the aps. There isn't a rule that says powers of each character can only be fired once per game.

As for chess, in a sense, there's a kind of limit in the game. Each move has a very high stake. I have seen matches where 80% of chess pieces are still available on the board but the player admit defeat because of a wrong move. 

entrailbucket

The mechanics of those games are different...because they're different games.  That's pretty obvious.

But each of them has a metagame and one or more "best" strategies.  In modern, multiplayer fighting games, if one character is stronger than all others, he will quickly become dominant at the top of the rankings (which are always public now). 

Maybe he's not really stronger, and other players just need to learn a counter for him.  Games playtest these things to make sure there's depth, but if they've made a mistake and the character *actually is* just the strongest, without any reasonable counter, the developers will take action. 

If they take no action, then the competitive metagame will consist only of mirror matches, forever. 

Incidentally, MPQ's competitive metagame has consisted only of mirror matches for about the past 4-5 years.

HoundofShadow

It is because of these differences in mechanics that affect and limit the state of meta in the game.

For example, If MPQ is played in real time with time limit per move, I don't think anyone would bring America Chavez with Shang Chi or Polaris with BRB 5* against another player, neither would they be watching netflix or multitasking while playing MPQ.

Likewise, if players' starting characters can be shuffled after the game start, it will affect the lineup of meta game.

In chess, the starting board is always the same. However, MPQ starting board is always random, except for certain events. Also, every single move in chess is critical. In MPQ, each move is very important only in critical situations. If I want to make a match-4 and accidently make a match-3 at the start of the game, I'm not going to lose the match.

If MPQ has a "player can only use each character once per node" rule, it will affect the meta state. Likewise, if the dev has an "all retreat and all losses will close off the node" rule, and combined with the "each character can only be used once per node", it will also affect the meta state of the game. 

The differences among the games are obvious; however, the implications of such differences on the meta state of the game are obviously not obvious. 

entrailbucket

Those are all good suggestions, but are you saying that they would fix the "meta" characters problem?  I don't follow your argument at all.

entrailbucket

I asked for examples of other competitive games where there is only one "meta" strategy or character. 

In a collectible card game, if all players at a tournament played the same "meta" deck because it was the best, would you say that's a good game?

In a fighting game, if every player who wanted to win had to choose the same "meta" character, is that a good game?

In chess, if there was a series of "meta" moves that always resulted in a win, would people still play?


Why, then, is it good for MPQ to have one "meta" team that all competitive players must use if they want to win?