Do you metagame?

[Raptor]

I do admit to metagaming a lot, and sometimes for good reason. Here's an example; we all know that the weapon stats bars presented in-game by, say Battlefield or Call of Duty, are pretty meaningless. I tend to look for the raw game files and people who post real game data on weapon performance (symthic.com has very detailed weapon data charts and spreadsheets for both COD and BF). For example, in the case of BO2, the game never gives you solid numbers on how much the foregrip decreases recoil, or how much range the suppressor reduces. Know exact statistics can give you a pretty substantial advantage at times. Thing is, when I know exactly how a weapon will perform, I often find myself using very powerful setups and combinations that the average player may not be aware of, like in BF3 where I would slap HBAR on the AN-94 and taking advantage of the burst fire spread recovery.

I've also metagamed the Mass Effect series to get some of the more favorable outcomes, i.e. keeping Wrex alive and curing the genophage, securing peace between Geth and Quarians, etc. And this doesn't include my MP metagaming, such as (ab)using the infamous (yet quietly permitted by Bioware) warp+incendiary cheese and using elevation difference to avoid sync-kills. To be honest, by spoiling the story, I tend to somewhat break my immersion in the game by metagaming.

So yes, I'm a dirty metagamer. Do you metagame, and more importantly, do you think it ruins the immersion/experience, especially for RPG games such as Mass Effect?

[Crickett]

Originally Posted by Raptor

I've also metagamed the Mass Effect series to get some of the more favorable outcomes, i.e. keeping Wrex alive and curing the genophage, securing peace between Geth and Quarians, etc. And this doesn't include my MP metagaming, such as (ab)using the infamous (yet quietly permitted by Bioware) warp+incendiary cheese and using elevation difference to avoid sync-kills. To be honest, by spoiling the story, I tend to somewhat break my immersion in the game by metagaming.

In Mass Effect 2, I did 3 run throughs of the end run because

A. the first time I didn't immediately save my crew, so they were all dead.
B. the second time, Tali randomly died. I don't even know when. I think she just died during the final fight when I was fighting the final boss with Miranda & Jacob.
3. My third time around I sent Tali back the ship with the rescued crew members and nobody died. I'll never know why Tali randomly died in the second run through. I sent her through the tunnels but.... she survived that.

As far as ME3 multiplayer, I've heard of the incendiary/warp combo, but I don't know how to do it or how it works. I just use my consumables in what would be considered a normal way. As far as fighting enemies on ramps, I do that constantly against Reapers. My entire strategy in Platinum White or Glacier revolves around camping on ramps.

And of course, there is always the box of shame, but IMO, Rio is maybe the third easiest map to do platinum runs. Third or fourth. The only times I do Rio Platinum anymore are when I complete Map Mastery or when someone on my friends list asks me to (not recently).

I do not force enemies to spawn in specific areas and then missile those areas as is becoming popular.

[Raptor]

I will admit that my first gold game was White/Geth/Gold before the change to that map (which I think made it better). I did a bit of that before I was confident enough to venture into UUG, though if I think my team isn't competent I still whip out my Piranha GI. On a similar note, my first successful plat game was using the box of shame. I don't like the way plat is designed though, since I don't think constant boss spam is all that fun.

EDIT: For the warp+incendiary, spec into expose for warp's 5th evo, cast it on a boss, then shoot it with incendiary ammo. For some reason it will result in massive DOT.

[Raiden]

I used to play Yu-Gi-Oh! and Magic: The Gathering pretty seriously.

"Metagaming" was the only thing I would think about when I had nothing else to do.

[Moco Loco]

Unsurprisingly, I had to google "metagame", and since I'm still only getting sort of a vague impression, I'm pretty sure my answer is no, thought that is more likely because I haven't played anything other than pokemon seriously. My only "yes" could possibly be for the sims, but cheating is pretty much the rule rather than the exception there.

[Raiden]

Originally Posted by Moco Loco

Unsurprisingly, I had to google "metagame", and since I'm still only getting sort of a vague impression, I'm pretty sure my answer is no, thought that is more likely because I haven't played anything other than pokemon seriously. My only "yes" could possibly be for the sims, but cheating is pretty much the rule rather than the exception there.

A "metagame" is when a game is complex enough that you can look at the different parts of the game and theorize how the presence or absence of each part affects the overall flow of the game, on a macroscopic level (i.e. the effect it has on millions of players).

For example, if there's a really powerful card in a trading card game that anyone can use, it will affect the metagame by suddenly showing up in every player's deck, and so then everyone will either use the card or find a way to defend themselves against the card. If the card is too powerful and gets banned, then nobody has to worry about it anymore, and the metagame changes again, because the card is no longer having an effect on a large percentage of the players.

It's a highly applicable theory/system that can help "serious" players in games that are competitive and change over time, such as first-person shooters, MMOs, Pokemon (the video games), and trading card games.

[Clarke]

Originally Posted by Moco Loco

Unsurprisingly, I had to google "metagame", and since I'm still only getting sort of a vague impression, I'm pretty sure my answer is no, thought that is more likely because I haven't played anything other than pokemon seriously. My only "yes" could possibly be for the sims, but cheating is pretty much the rule rather than the exception there.

It's only really applicable in games that are either multiplayer, or where the mechanics involve hiding information from the player significantly, e.g. Roguelikes' tendency to not tell you what items do, fog of war or AI flaws in strategy games, etc.

Since I played Kingdom of Loathing for a few years, which not only does both of these things, but has the meme that "The metagame is not the game" () my answer's a definite yes.

[Human No More]

Sure, I always at least look up statistics and strategies even if I don't always go deep into it to huge levels, EVE/Starcraft-style.

[Moco Loco]

I did mean "metagame" as a verb, like in the thread title, FYI