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Are we playing the wrong meta?

LockeExile

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Aug 31, 2015
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114
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Locke64
I feel like more attention is being spent shuffling players around than actually learning the game. Want to get better as a team? Acquire a better player. Nevermind actually working out your weaknesses and getting more cohesive with the players you already have. It just seems like the game meta is going nowhere (at least in the West) while there's so much drama and focus on the player meta.

Please disagree.
 

CknSalad

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Joined
Nov 12, 2015
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This is an issue that NA in general experiences in any competitive video game. You see this in league of legends, TF2, and counter strike. I played competitive TF2 6s for a while and all the good teams I backed up for had huge differences of opinion and fighting egos. There was constant backstabbing where a teammate who somewhat carried the team would replace good long time members with former or current pro players.

It never ceased to amaze me how ego driven NA teams get and look too much in winning short term instead of finding creative ways of playing as a team using every member's strengths to their fullest.
 

Astral

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This is an issue that NA in general experiences in any competitive video game. You see this in league of legends, TF2, and counter strike. I played competitive TF2 6s for a while and all the good teams I backed up for had huge differences of opinion and fighting egos. There was constant backstabbing where a teammate who somewhat carried the team would replace good long time members with former or current pro players.

It never ceased to amaze me how ego driven NA teams get and look too much in winning short term instead of finding creative ways of playing as a team using every member's strengths to their fullest.
hah i fully agree with this, there is a reason that you never see top US players in games like Street Fighter, BlazBlue, etc. Its because we are all too lazy to learn all of the combos and character weaknesses.
 

Vitezen

Inkling Cadet
Joined
Oct 4, 2015
Messages
254
This seems to be a result of player ego. Asking a player to learn a new role, or improve their best role even more, would imply they're currently not good enough. Which if you're being asked to do this, is probably true. I know that due to cultural differences, this is much less prevalent in Asian countries.
 

DaBoss

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May 11, 2015
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105
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I think the issue comes from the lack of stability in teams or players not enjoying their current team. This leads to players leaving or the team disbanding all together, which sucks. There is also the problem of people leaving the game all together either for personal reasons or lack of interest and it leaves gaps for teams they would want to fill.

I don't know about whether it is affecting the game's meta, however.
 

Ultramus

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May 29, 2015
Messages
103
Well, it's kind of expected that if you have teammates that either feel like they are carrying the rest of their team, or that disagree with teammates choice of weapons/strategies or what have you, they generally feel like they will get better results if they have teammates that they feel are either superior to their former ones or work better in their play style. It's unfortunate that depending on how it shakes down, you can end up with teams stacking talent beyond just a 4 person team plus subs, and then you have a situation where there could be more overall competition among more teams, but a decent amount of talent that could be competing is tied up in a larger group. Eventually jostling like this can basically end up with teams completely dissolving, once one person or one starting member jumps ship, others either follow or the gap left by that player cannot be filled by another player easily, as generally people in this game specialize. There are a few teams out there that genuinely care about doing what they want to do, and winning that way, our team (CyberBullies) generally plays weird compositions that aren't necessarily standard due to our players, and we also rotate rosters almost every match, as such, it has definitely hurt our consistency(See: Calcup 3 vs our exhibition matches for Leagues). We don't really mind because we are pretty happy with our teammates and have been playing together a very long time, despite having to change names essentially...4 times, at least for me(SS-D, SS-C, Determ, CB).

Other teams that have that singular focus of "Must win tournaments" and other players that have that same goal will basically do whatever they feel necessary to get those results. Therefore, teams will aggregate players that desperately want to win and will possibly have good results, until certain players are forced to be benched or lose their spot on the roster, then they jump ship or internal drama dissolves them. I have a lot of respect for some of the teams that have persisted and haven't necessarily won a tournament,(DEG, oL, SND, etc.) and they have clearly started to get solid finishes lately. Eventually we will either see the top teams constantly cycling, and subsequently dissolving and reforming into new teams, but as long as they have top players they will get top results. That isn't going to stop until maps, modes or weapons come out that depend more on teamwork than individual skill. Right now, or rather for the foreseeable future, it will remain this way, as even just a double kill can swing an objective quite quickly. Splatoon's ranked modes as they are are mostly decided by 30 second instances of one team having a powerplay, or a team timing supers once. If we were playing something more similar to CTF with multiple captures, or any game mode that didn't have incremental scoring, this wouldn't be the case.

This isn't really an instance of teams playing the wrong Meta, it's that the Meta they are playing is the best chance for victory right now.
 

shiyongyi

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Joined
Oct 16, 2015
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22
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jaddasbranch
This seems to be a result of player ego. Asking a player to learn a new role, or improve their best role even more, would imply they're currently not good enough. Which if you're being asked to do this, is probably true. I know that due to cultural differences, this is much less prevalent in Asian countries.
I agree with this a lot. A lot of teams seem to have players who are like "I can play this one weapon and play it really well", opposed to "I play these variety of weapons, and play them really well." Because then when you ask players to be like "Hey, can you pick up the Tentatek?" they might get huffy, they don't want to, shouldn't their .52 gal be enough, etc. It's somewhat easier to simply find a tentatek main than trying to pull teeth and get a current player learn a new weapon. But at the same time you add more players, others get benched, causing unrest.

Plus when one player only plays one weapon, it cuts the chances for anyone else to play that same weapon, if they might be stronger with it, or if they just want the chance to play it too. Also learning new weapons takes time. No one gets good at Bamboozler over night. It can take three weeks or a month and a half to get to S+ proficiency.

I think western culture has a bit too much focus on "I should be really good at this one thing", instead of multiple things, in this case weapons. Also in the community, there's egos, drama. Both fairly unavoidable. Hard to deal with difference of opinions, some people like to be package deals when they join teams.

There's also the problem that it feels like there's less teams of friends and more teams of just good people who get together and play to win tourneys.

i forgot what my point was
 
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Fightersword

Good TOs are Capitalists
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Fightersword
interestingly enough you'd likely have higher skilled players in general if teams were more equal in skill level. By stacking talent you end up with a few super strong teams and several weaker teams. If talent is closer to equalized then you get more worthwhile and tough games to improve on in comparison. It also keeps players from being nearly as cocky.

I noticed similar things happening with some teams, both good and bad, when I played yugioh (we did have team based events for yugioh, though obviously they weren't official events). Hell I was a member of one of the 'stacked talent' teams on numerous occasions. We literally gathered up a ton of amazing players, Me, Nelrick (Nelrick was a God), Farls, Saga, Shaney Poo, and others that we all pulled out from teams because we were all good friends and even better players. Except for Shaney Poo. No one liked him after a little while, and he started acting dictatorial and kicking people, but the epoch of Shaney poo is a very long story.

Normally I advise players that try to get better to first specialize their playset: meaning playing one weapon and one role in general, and then once they get that far instead of resting on their laurels to start playing a wide variety of roles and weapons/champions/whatever so they understand how those roles work, which enhances their specialization because they'll know firsthand how to play against several roles. That also does a LOT to protect against burnout. If you're lucky it could also lead to a strong dual-specialization in that player because he takes a liking to another role. You learn more by spending your time doing this, if you do it well (IE not bothering with roles no one will play), than the diminishing returns you'll get at a certain point by overly focusing on your specialization.

I feel like the problem is how fast and volatile teams tend to be in many games. You can't spend time on wide variety role learning because, though it makes you better in the long term, if you perform badly in the short term you won't stay on a team, so you have to go for the 'diminishing returns improvement' of continuing to totally focus on your specialization. But how could you get around these issues? Roster limiting and locking is the best way to mandate teams improving 'for the long term' because in seasons they won't be able to throw people out and swap in new players because X is doing not as well in a format that is bad for his specialization. Frankly because there's no penalty for making roster changes and no limits to how often you can, and oftentimes very lax limits if limits at all on player count, there's no incentive NOT to throw players out for players that are currently performing better. There's no cost to the team at all, they don't personally spend (much) time or any money to improve the player(s), whereas with many other competitive things a player is an investment for the team, so its imperative that instead of shifting people around like a madman they try and strengthen what they have and only make changes when it's very necessary to do so, and to be very serious about the long term implications of those changes to their team, or in the case of a business to their business or in the case of anything else to that other thing. Sports teams wouldn't survive if they were swapping players in like crazy, businesses wouldn't survive if they overturned their staff every month, but games teams can easily swap out their roster constantly because they don't invest in the players like the sports teams and businesses do.
 

Valkyria

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Jun 6, 2015
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203
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Valkyriah
If people want to leave Squad A and join Squad B, that's one thing. It's a different issue entirely when Squad A deliberately tries poaching members from Squad B, while they are still in Squad B.
 

Albatross

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Zacrowski
This is why I am grateful for Team SRL. We came together already knowing each other as friends. When we lose, we lose as a team, not individuals. We work to make each other better. That's something that's harder to achieve in a system based on tryouts that mainly tests how good you are at a specific moment.

Not saying other teams don't have strong bonds, as when I look at some teams like Get Kraken I see there what we have at SRL.
 

SquiddiamFancyson

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Jun 3, 2015
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DowntownMountain
I think there's definite merit in what you're saying Locke, and there is evidence in our community of some teams currently prioritizing 4 players of high individual skill > 4 players that have great team chemistry and get along. I think the frustration of losing despite a great individual performance, and reliance on teammates, are two of the biggest factors in this trend you're referring to.

That being said, this is also being challenged by teams like SRL (just look how great their showing was in the latest S+F), and teams are also disbanding/merging for many different reasons so we have to be careful before arriving at any conclusions. I know inactivity has been a huge issue for a lot of teams, with players either not having the time to play competitively anymore, or some tiring of the game. Our recent team merge for example (Blackbelly Bouncers & On The Blink) came as a result of inactivity problems in both teams, and great cross-team chemistry. Even in NSTCs case, who have many of the top players now, from what I gather a lot of the transfers were a result of inactivity issues, and their old teams disbanding.

I'm kinda excited to see where the competitive community goes; NSTC right now are still dominant but there's been signs that they can be broken, and I think that's motivating to the teams that have had less success. Leagues Under The Ink should also allow teams to improve further, since the divisions are split in a way where similarly skilled teams fight one another.
 

MasterSaruwatari

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As a competitive fighting game player...this mentality has been in the FGC for ages. I swear in the capcom games the top american players just tier ***** and then cry when they lose about the game being broken. I mean it's sad when guys like bananaken and lordknight(anime fg players) do so well since they don't sit around and complain. The same goes for smash players too. It's sad when I watch games like street fighter be played by Americans because I know once it's EVO time they are going to get ***** by the overseas players.

Anyway..tell me about this drama in splatoon. I thought thigns were fine?
 

Fightersword

Good TOs are Capitalists
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As a competitive fighting game player...this mentality has been in the FGC for ages. I swear in the capcom games the top american players just tier ***** and then cry when they lose about the game being broken. I mean it's sad when guys like bananaken and lordknight(anime fg players) do so well since they don't sit around and complain. The same goes for smash players too. It's sad when I watch games like street fighter be played by Americans because I know once it's EVO time they are going to get ***** by the overseas players.

Anyway..tell me about this drama in splatoon. I thought thigns were fine?
well things are generally going fine with regards to tournaments, league, etcetra, but because there aren't any roster locking rules you get into the situation where there's a lot of roster volatility, which has been a problem in many other team games. Reason being people want to keep winning in the short term, and because there's no penalty for it, people switch rosters and make changes constantly in the short term. This robs the players of opportunities to widen their skillset, because to do so means taking time off from their specialization which leads to them getting traded for someone else, which means he improves less in the long term due to diminishing returns brought by focusing your specialization past a certain point (at a certain point it's best to at least learn the other roles in depth so you better know how to play against them and can maybe develop a dual specialization or more). It also retards the development of the meta because people are less willing to go off the beaten path. Though it's not good to make a career of playing crappy weapons, it is good to try stuff in new ways and see what other things can be good or bad about both tried and true weapons and other, less used but still ok weapons. Both of these things do not happen when you're overly concerned of being perceived as 'not as good' in the short term.
 

PKfuzzy

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While I can't speak for the rest of the scene, the case at NSTC is far from "acquire a better player" although it may seem that way. ynnaD and I joined because we really enjoy playing with Walkman and James and liked the laid back culture of the team (not to mention OFFSHORE was totally dead). Nikey joined because xlt was dying out, and recently DTM, who wasnt on a team and not sure of his competitive future, joined because hes a good friend of mine and walkman's, having started a japan PUG team a month or more ago. So essentially all of the "new" players have come from teams that were dead, or on the verge of dying. As far as the "meta" aspect goes, NSTC's LUTI roster (Daboss, DTM, fuzzy, James, Nikey, Samura1man, Sendou, WALKMAN04) all play at least 2 weapons in tournament settings. and we reach into tri slosher, jr, rapid blaster, sloshing machine, splatlings, rollers, etc. I know from the outside NSTC may seem like they're hoarding players just for the heck of it, but in reality this team is a group of friends who all want to play together, and dominate the scene...not just the west, either.
 

Fightersword

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While I can't speak for the rest of the scene, the case at NSTC is far from "acquire a better player" although it may seem that way. ynnaD and I joined because we really enjoy playing with Walkman and James and liked the laid back culture of the team (not to mention OFFSHORE was totally dead). Nikey joined because xlt was dying out, and recently DTM, who wasnt on a team and not sure of his competitive future, joined because hes a good friend of mine and walkman's, having started a japan PUG team a month or more ago. So essentially all of the "new" players have come from teams that were dead, or on the verge of dying. As far as the "meta" aspect goes, NSTC's LUTI roster (Daboss, DTM, fuzzy, James, Nikey, Samura1man, Sendou, WALKMAN04) all play at least 2 weapons in tournament settings. and we reach into tri slosher, jr, rapid blaster, sloshing machine, splatlings, rollers, etc. I know from the outside NSTC may seem like they're hoarding players just for the heck of it, but in reality this team is a group of friends who all want to play together, and dominate the scene...not just the west, either.
we're not saying everyone is guilty of these things. I always liked NSTC because you guys for the most part seem nice and give off a friendly atmosphere. Most of the time. Playing for the long term will definitely keep NSTC at the top of things. It also helps you guys do have a lot of inherently skilled players on top of it.
 

MasterSaruwatari

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well things are generally going fine with regards to tournaments, league, etcetra, but because there aren't any roster locking rules you get into the situation where there's a lot of roster volatility, which has been a problem in many other team games. Reason being people want to keep winning in the short term, and because there's no penalty for it, people switch rosters and make changes constantly in the short term. This robs the players of opportunities to widen their skillset, because to do so means taking time off from their specialization which leads to them getting traded for someone else, which means he improves less in the long term due to diminishing returns brought by focusing your specialization past a certain point (at a certain point it's best to at least learn the other roles in depth so you better know how to play against them and can maybe develop a dual specialization or more). It also retards the development of the meta because people are less willing to go off the beaten path. Though it's not good to make a career of playing crappy weapons, it is good to try stuff in new ways and see what other things can be good or bad about both tried and true weapons and other, less used but still ok weapons. Both of these things do not happen when you're overly concerned of being perceived as 'not as good' in the short term.
Well in my case I'll make an effort learning some other weapons..it's just that I flat out get pwn when I use anything outside of the splat roller with krak-on. I been trying to put work with the buckets and brushes but I can't match the success I have with the roller. I think as I grow. I'll unlock more stuffthat will help with some of the issues I have been having.
 

Fightersword

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Well in my case I'll make an effort learning some other weapons..it's just that I flat out get pwn when I use anything outside of the splat roller with krak-on. I been trying to put work with the buckets and brushes but I can't match the success I have with the roller. I think as I grow. I'll unlock more stuffthat will help with some of the issues I have been having.
you don't have to get amazing at other stuff, just learn to have a general feel as to what they do, how they do it, and the mindset behind it so that when you fight them you are better prepared. you may also find something else you're talented and good at.
 

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