+- World Beyblade Organization by Fighting Spirits Inc. (https://worldbeyblade.org)
+-- Forum: Beyblade Discussion (https://worldbeyblade.org/Forum-Beyblade-Discussion)
+--- Forum: Beyblade General (https://worldbeyblade.org/Forum-Beyblade-General)
+--- Thread: The metagame and "balance": why do you care? (/Thread-The-metagame-and-balance-why-do-you-care)
Pages:
1
2
The metagame and "balance": why do you care? - Bey Brad - Sep. 02, 2016
So, the metagame: the game that exists outside the two tops hitting each other, the part where you plan and strategize and build your combos.
Unlike other competitive games like Magic: the Gathering or Pokémon, true competitive balancing is not a primary focus of its designers. Beyblade is less of a game and more of a toy with a game super-imposed onto it. This isn't to discredit Beyblade because I think it's a brilliant game but it's also just unusual in this nature.
While there's obviously always been some kind of meta-layer to Beyblade, I didn't get the sense it really took hold in the international community until the launch of Metal Fusion. Built on the backs of the initial competitive knowledge we'd gained after the "enlightenment" of having a knowledgeable Japanese player appear in the community, we'd accumulated a ton of information on plastics and HMS on Beywiki and began our shift into the WBO.
That kind of created the perfect storm for the intensely competitive nature of MFB to take hold, but as a game Beyblade just isn't designed to hold up to this level of scrutiny. The desire for a balanced metagame experience is something that the players project onto the designers who are mostly not super-concerned about it. Product reliability and marketable features (and strength is one of them) is probably more important.
So, I wanted to ask everyone: why do you care about Beyblade's metagame? I see even players who have never played in a tournament get anxious about the details of gameplay balance. Which is understandable to me, but I wonder how they feel about it (please chime in if you're reading this!).
I'm going to share my own thoughts on why I care later too. And it will probably sound pretty goofy.
RE: The metagame and "balance": why do you care? - cosmicstriker - Sep. 02, 2016
bc revolve op
Actually, people probably just want to win. Like on Pokemon, you have to use the pokemon that are best if you want to stand a chance. Some people hate on us for it, but we play to win. I'll assume it goes the same way here.
RE: The metagame and "balance": why do you care? - Bey Brad - Sep. 02, 2016
(Sep. 02, 2016 2:01 AM)cosmicstriker Wrote: bc revolve op
Actually, people probably just want to win. Like on Pokemon, you have to use the pokemon that are best if you want to stand a chance. Some people hate on us for it, but we play to win. I'll assume it goes the same way here.
I'm not really sure you understood what this thread is about ...?
Also, who's talking about wanting to win or hating anyone? So confused.
RE: The metagame and "balance": why do you care? - Giraton - Sep. 02, 2016
As someone who wants to be a game designer, and has played allot of trading card games (I mean allot, currently playing 5 actively) and balance is something I enjoy as both a player and as a designer. As a designer balance equates to all these complicated mechanics and systems clicking together like gears to work together, an incredibly satisfying feeling of a working game. Cause most game design, including here in beyblades, has a few loose gears that don't do anything and gears that do a little too much, but that's the beauty of it all working together. As long as the machine works and it works with it's parts together its great. It's when the entire machine works with only 1 or 2 gears and, say, only lift an arm instead of flipping and singing, that this highly complicated machine suddenly seems broken and incomplete.
As a player balance comes down to a few things for me. 1. Is knowing how you can win, and knowing that you can if you try hard enough. You don't have to win all the time, you just have to know you can (something I think the burst design does well). 2. Much like a designer, as a player I like seeing things work, just from another perspective. While a designer will look at all the gears working together, a player will look at the flashy show the hypothetical wind up monkey is doing and judge it by that. If you see one just moving an arm it's boring and lifeless. You see it clap, flip and sing and suddenly your entertained. 3. A balanced meta game means a puzzle that's solvable. Humans naturally enjoy puzzles, they test knowledge and logic. A balanced game gives players allot more to work with and solve the puzzle rather than an unbalanced game that makes the player have to go with the obvious solution.
However there is one more element that isn't quite connected to balance, is fairness. A game has to feel fair, even if it isn't balanced. A common game design trick is perfect inbalance. If a metagame is constantly rotating around various, I guess ill say tops in this case, then its a case of perfect inbalance. I'm not gona go too deep into this, there is an extra credits video that does this topic more justice than I will, but basically an inbalanced game is then balanced by counters and players. As long as a game feels fair, then to the players, it's balanced, even if in truth it isn't. I feel this is the most relevant point to beyblade.
RE: The metagame and "balance": why do you care? - cosmicstriker - Sep. 02, 2016
(Sep. 02, 2016 2:46 AM)Bey Brad Wrote:Well, that's why you use the metagame, to win, right? Otherwise why even bother?(Sep. 02, 2016 2:01 AM)cosmicstriker Wrote: bc revolve op
Actually, people probably just want to win. Like on Pokemon, you have to use the pokemon that are best if you want to stand a chance. Some people hate on us for it, but we play to win. I'll assume it goes the same way here.
I'm not really sure you understood what this thread is about ...?
Also, who's talking about wanting to win or hating anyone? So confused.
Also the hating is really only in Pokemon since only like 10 are really used. Thankfully it's not done here.
RE: The metagame and "balance": why do you care? - Bey Brad - Sep. 02, 2016
You don't really "use" the metagame, you participate in it. But there's obviously more to it than just wanting to win. Lots of top players continue to win even when they're unsatisfied with the game's balance. And there are players who don't play in tournaments but still care deeply about the game's balance.
@[Giraton], great reply, thanks. Echoes a lot of how I feel about Beyblade as well. How brilliant it feels when all of its bizarre elements click together in just the right ways. However, it's incredibly difficult to balance a game like Beyblade due to its nature. They're not rules written on cards, they're physical objects spinning at crazy speeds. It's hard to predict just how good or bad something will be until it's already finished.
RE: The metagame and "balance": why do you care? - Hypnofist - Sep. 02, 2016
(Sep. 02, 2016 2:55 AM)cosmicstriker Wrote:(Sep. 02, 2016 2:46 AM)Bey Brad Wrote:Well, that's why you use the metagame, to win, right? Otherwise why even bother?(Sep. 02, 2016 2:01 AM)cosmicstriker Wrote: bc revolve op
Actually, people probably just want to win. Like on Pokemon, you have to use the pokemon that are best if you want to stand a chance. Some people hate on us for it, but we play to win. I'll assume it goes the same way here.
I'm not really sure you understood what this thread is about ...?
Also, who's talking about wanting to win or hating anyone? So confused.
Also the hating is really only in Pokemon since only like 10 are really used. Thankfully it's not done here.
You play the metagame, not use it, and everyone plays, whether they want to or not. It's just the concept of trying to predict and counter what your opponent's are playing. After reading the WBO's tournament rules, metagaming is crucial, since you don't usually pick your parts until the start of each match.
Also, the concept of hate is in every game ever. Magic has had it worse than pokemon ever has, just look up decks like affinity or faeries. They were so oppressive people were most likely to be playing those decks, or decks loaded with hate cards to counter them. There's even an entire modern deck called hatebears, that just hates out everything.
RE: The metagame and "balance": why do you care? - Bey Brad - Sep. 02, 2016
I'm really confused about what context "hate" is being used in here.
RE: The metagame and "balance": why do you care? - Hypnofist - Sep. 02, 2016
(Sep. 02, 2016 4:19 AM)Bey Brad Wrote: I'm really confused about what context "hate" is being used in here.
I'm sorry, in a tcg it's pretty much loading up on cards to counter specific strategies. It's less of a broad counter and just a targeted counter.
In magic it's commonly used when playing cards that prevent use of either graveyard, or reduce the amount of spells a player can play each turn to prevent a combo deck from activating its combo.
For beyblade, it would probably be seen if odin is super good in the hasbro products, and people start loading up on something that might counter it.
RE: The metagame and "balance": why do you care? - Bey Brad - Sep. 02, 2016
OK, I thought so, thanks for clarifying though. However that's definitely not what cosmicstriker meant lol.
RE: The metagame and "balance": why do you care? - Tri - Sep. 02, 2016
Being involved a lot when Limited Format was announced, a balanced metagame was especially important to me. I had tested, and tested, and tested anything and everything. Gravity ended up being extremely dominant. And I loved it. I did not want it banned, but it had to be. It was the obvious choice for anyone looking for the dub. But who honestly wants an obvious choice from your opponent? You either have the perfect, specific, counter to that combo or the same exact combo*. No fun at all.
Domination is only respectable to me if it took skill rather than just the right parts. Balance is the key to a more skill-involved metagame. If Beyblade were a TCG with no bans, clearly everyone would just stock up on 10b bistool cards lol. Beyblade is an oddball of a game like you mentioned. It's hard to keep balance in a metagame when there really wasn't a metagame intended originally (in Hasbro's case at least, idk about TT).
*looking at you f230
RE: The metagame and "balance": why do you care? - Hypnofist - Sep. 02, 2016
(Sep. 02, 2016 4:55 AM)Tri Wrote: Being involved a lot when Limited Format was announced, a balanced metagame was especially important to me. I had tested, and tested, and tested anything and everything. Gravity ended up being extremely dominant. And I loved it. I did not want it banned, but it had to be. It was the obvious choice for anyone looking for the dub. But who honestly wants an obvious choice from your opponent? You either have the perfect, specific, counter to that combo or the same exact combo*. No fun at all.There was a short lived beyblade tcg, set suring g revolution i believe. They had demo decks you could print out online. It was awful.
Domination is only respectable to me if it took skill rather than just the right parts. Balance is the key to a more skill-involved metagame. If Beyblade were a TCG with no bans, clearly everyone would just stock up on 10b bistool cards lol. Beyblade is an oddball of a game like you mentioned. It's hard to keep balance in a metagame when there really wasn't a metagame intended originally (in Hasbro's case at least, idk about TT).
*looking at you f230
RE: The metagame and "balance": why do you care? - Cake - Sep. 02, 2016
This isn't as much based on parts and regulation, but it kind of ties in with the topic here and some recent events.
Wall of text inbound, prepare thy eyeballs
I see Beyblade as having 3 major factors of skill:
- Designing
- Picking
- Launching
Design is the process of coming up with customizations and adapting them to suit your needs, whether it's as an individual Beyblade, part of a set you carry to a tournament, or a specific deck configuration for Deck Format rules. Although the "Build Me A Combo" and top-tier list threads can partially remove the need for this skill, experienced Bladers who know how to improvise on the fly or build counters to probable opponents will have an edge over anyone using standard "cookie-cutter" combos. But knowing how to build combos does you no good if you don't know when to use them or how to launch them!
Picking encompasses the whole tournament-day mess of scouting and predicting your opponents, and knowing how to apply that knowledge to ensure the best possible chance of victory. Picking skills are incredibly important, because they influence how you will design your combos in preparation and how you will launch them in battle. However, all the scouting, prediction, and sheer luck in the world won't help you if you don't have a combo to fit the situation or you don't know how to use it properly.
Launching is probably the most obvious skill involved in competitive Beyblade; being able to launch in a strong but controlled manner is absolutely critical for any Beyblade with a mobile Bottom, and at higher levels of play becomes important for almost any match, as techniques like weak-launching can turn weak or bad odds into a win. Although there are quite a few records of Attack masters getting KOs in matchups they really shouldn't have, or extremely strong launches leading to unexpected OSes, a good launch needs to be paired with a good combo in the right matchup for it to be effective.
These three things - an opportunity for creativity, a battle of wits, and an element of physical ability - are the reason that I've been so into Beyblade all these years. To me, they are what makes Beyblade a fun, competitive game, and all of them are essential to the experience.
This is where, lately, there have been problems.
I was initially extremely excited for Burst's release last year; the Bursting gimmick seemed like just the cool, fresh kind of game mechanic that would keep the new generation of Beyblade interesting and exciting. The lack of multiple Track heights and the resulting sub-meta worried me, but after years of hiatus, I was willing to give something new a shot. As new releases came and went, though, the new-ness wore off and it became clear that Burst has some serious issues. The most obvious two are Layer wear and Odin, but there is still a lack of meaningful Disk choices (as there are usually just a handful of extremely similar "good" options or the decision is more or less meaningless as long as you don't pick a terrible one) and there's still a constant worry over every new release: "Will Takara bless this Layer with good enough teeth or does it go straight to the garbage bin?"
The latter two problems cause a persistent lack of customization options and freedom to experiment; with Disks, it's almost always a matter of "better or worse" and never "different" when choosing which one to use; differences between competitive Disks are subtle and are more for optimizing based on manufacturing variance than for making significant strategic decisions. You could draw parallels to MFB's Clear Wheel system, but swapping an Aquario out for a Escolpio on a Defense type is a significant and potentially viable decision (giving the combo some Upper Attack to deal with tall opponents), whereas swapping Gravity out for Force does not provide a significant alteration to how the combo plays, and is more than likely just a bad decision.
Regarding the situation with bad teeth on many of Takara's releases,* my problem with it is that it brings the "useless" Layers in Burst to an all-new level of worthlessness. To illustrate with another MFB analogy, consider Poison. Poison is an awful Metal Wheel; it is useless in all formats and always has been. It's recoily, has bad Stamina, and not enough Attack to work in comparison to all the other options available, even in Limited. But even if little Timmy shows up to a Limited tournament with only his one prized Beyblade, Poison Serpent, he could actually have a shot at winning if his opponent chooses the wrong combo. Stock Poison Serpent could conceivably OS a Defense type or KO a Stamina type if Timmy gets lucky and launches right, and he could actually manage to blunder his way to a few wins. If he walked into a Burst event with a stock combo with terrible teeth, there is pretty much no hope for poor Timmy. Storm Spriggan is probably the worst offender; an aggressive shape coupled with some of the flattest teeth in the game makes it practically suicidal. Timmy won't be able to eke out a lucky OS or KO, because his combo will just blow up before he gets close to that chance. Now, obviously we aren't going to cater specifically to newbies using terrible stock combos, but those awful teeth means that those Layers are completely unusable in any kind of well-thought attempt at a competitive combo, either. Wheels like Poison are at least usable as an experimental or "lethal joke" combo, and underused, "bad" wheels like Cyclone and Divine have been seen on the Winning Combos list on rare occasions. On the other hand, in Burst, Takara may as well have shoved a wadded-up ball of damp newspaper into the Layer slot of the package instead of a Layer with bad teeth, because it's practically impossible to use them in any sort of competitive scenario. You will Burst against stronger-toothed opponents, and you will lose. I understand that they want to throw in "filler" to spread out the good parts more, but Burst's bad layers manage to be useless on an unprecedented level. They aren't even worth experimenting with; even if there was some kind of weird undiscovered synergy with another part, it won't fix the Layer's explosive tendencies, and it will remain useless.
As I said a couple paragraphs earlier in this increasingly jumbled mess of a rant, Burst's issues with uninteresting Disk choices and unusable Layers making up the majority of the release schedule hurts its customizability even beyond its already simple 3-part system. I've become increasingly frustrated with Beyblade Burst, and am desperately hoping that Hasbro's revisions to the system can help solve what I see as glaring issues with the product line as a whole.
*Please note that my complaints about bad teeth are not based on the Chaos layer (which I do like a lot) being weak; giving Chaos terribad teeth makes sense from a game balance point of view and I'm not upset about that. The issue is that the majority of released Layers aren't suitable for use because of bad teeth, and those bad teeth make them impossible to use, regardless of any other positive qualities that they might have. Again, S2 is an excellent example of the "bad teeth, cool shape" group.
BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE
caek plsTakara's poor product design / game balance choices have seriously hurt Burst's "Design" element; but there's something else I'm concerned about that I think could cripple the Burst metagame's "Picking" element: Deck Format. Or, more specifically, this clause:
Deck Rotation Format Wrote:- When a Blader loses a round, they have the option to switch their Beyblade for another Beyblade in their deck.My problem with this is that the winner is not allowed to swap out their combos following the round; the winner is a sitting duck strategically; the loser needs only basic knowledge of counter-picking in order to counter the last round's winning combination and win the next round. This means that unless one player or the other intentionally picks a bad matchup, (which would not have to happen if both bladers are knowledgeable enough and have properly constructed decks) whoever wins the first round wins the whole thing. But Bursts and KOs are valued double, which opens the door to exploitation. I covered this in an earlier post in the Deck Format thread, but I'll restate it here. By playing dirty (but legally),and abusing "safe" combos, the doubled-value Attack wins, and the fact that the winner of each round must re-use the same combo, you can game the system to win almost any matchup (assuming your Attack skills are good; given the fact that Attack is so unreliable in the Takara game right now, it's probably not practical... yet).
Here's how:
Rules are first to 5 points, double valued Bursts and KOs.
Our deck will consist of -
* 1 Defense/Stamina hybrid of your choice (must be capable of resisting Attack effectively, more weight to Defense than Stamina)
* 1 Attack type, must be as consistent as possible against Stamina
* 1 Stamina type, just needs to be able to OS Defense types and Def/Sta hybrids
1) Always lead with the hybrid.
2) The goal is to lose to Stamina. If you win against an Attacker, keep using the Defense/Stamina until they switch.
3) Once you've forced your opponent into a Stamina combo, switch to Attack to KO/Burst them. They can't switch off, so 2 easy points for you. Score is at least 2-1 in your favor right now.
4) They will likely switch to counter your Attack type. If you don't think you can win the round, deliberately weak launch or launch out of the stadium to take a 1-point loss instead of risking a Burst. Score is minimum 2-2, you may be leading if you got some early OSes with the hybrid.
5) If they used another Attacker to try and counter, swap to the hybrid, forcing them back into Stamina where you can exploit the double Attack bonus. If they used Defense, counter with Stamina then suicide launch when they pull Attack to counter you, allowing you to revert to the Hybrid for a counter. Either scenario results in a win for you, either 5-3 or 6-4.
To make matters worse, if this kind of "tactical loss" strategy catches on, if both players use the strategy, there is no 2x Attack bonus at all because players will always forfeit the round instead, meaning that we'ere back to "whoever wins first wins it all".
Now, to avoid all this dubiously ethical nastiness, simply removing the "winner must keep the same combo" rule makes the whole system less exploitable (though suicide launching is still an issue that needs to be dealt with). If both players get a chance to swap combos each round, gameplay becomes less of a matter of "What Counters What: the Quiz Show" and more of a typical blind pick, but with less unpredictability. Bladers must consider what they need to pick to counter the opponent's deck, but it retains some of the typical qualifier blind pick decision-making and uncertainty; instead of tailoring their combos to beat specific known combos, Bladers would need to prepare themselves to deal with three different possibilities in each round - not the overwhelming array of choices available in the qualifiers, but not just a simple back-and-forth of counterpicks.
Whew, I spent over two and a half hours writing this... I don't know that I've said everything I want to, or that it's said as well as I want to, but here it is XD
EDIT: Trying to bold some significant points but the haphazard structure of this beast is making it difficult.
EDIT2: I have some thoughts on part bans/how we maintain competitive balance, but I needed to get this out first and I'm still thinking things through after the whole Hasbro reveal. Before the announcement I was interested in a Burst Limited-type format, but now I'm thinking that integrating Hasbro and Takara releases into one big format would be best for the health of the community and the integrity and fun factor of the game. We'll need more tests before I'm sure, though.
RE: The metagame and "balance": why do you care? - Izhkoort - Sep. 02, 2016
I'm pretty alone in my country when it comes to beyblade, but I'm one of those who struggle to follow the metagame and balance of the game (not posting much but asking for help when I need to), even when I only play with a few friends and my nephews that I'm trying to get into beyblade, so most of my battles are not around meta or balance, then "why?" is a question I asked myself long time ago
I will separate this on numbered points:
1- Money: I'm from argentina and an adult, I have other priorities to invest my salary than beyblade, so I can't invest so much money in buying huge amount of beyblades to try a combination I like, so when I want a really good combo I rely on the metagame and balance, if I don't know anything about it, it's difficult to choose what to buy
2- Fair Play: Has I say, I'm trying to introduce people to beyblade, but with that I try to tell people what is better or worst, because if someone always lose every battle, he may feel frustrated and abandon the game, a balanced metagame helps with this
3- Customization: the most important point, I love the customization system, the one thing that makes beyblade different is this, I love to make beyblades that can toss around a super heavy combo, or a beyblade that could spin for minutes, how each type has its pros and cons and creates a variaty of possibilities
Without that balance beyblade would be totally bland and no different from other spinning tops, would have no challenge when making a good beyblade or playing against friends
I'm not sure if this was the right answer for the question made, but is what I answer myself long time ago
RE: The metagame and "balance": why do you care? - Bey Brad - Sep. 02, 2016
Really great and thorough post @[Cake], thanks for taking the 150 minutes to write it
You did a good job of summarizing the problems Takara-Tomy has been running into with Burst, and why I am cautiously optimistic about Hasbro's effort.Regarding deck rotation format, I really appreciate the thoughts. This pattern is exactly what we'll be looking out for as we test the format. While I would say that I do think leading with a hybrid is an effective strategy (it worked out very well for me), the example you present above requires a perfectly-played game from both players following very predictable patterns. In real life, the format just hasn't played out like that so far. You can fudge it with attack and suddenly the match becomes way more intense; it's also important to make unpredictable decisions so your opponent can't lock you into a losing scenario.
But, again, maybe in testing we'll realize that it's not working out and we'll switch out the format. Would love to hear what your ruleset would look like for that format, Cake!
RE: The metagame and "balance": why do you care? - Cake - Sep. 02, 2016
(Sep. 02, 2016 3:08 PM)Bey Brad Wrote: Really great and thorough post @[Cake], thanks for taking the 150 minutes to write it
Regarding deck rotation format, I really appreciate the thoughts. This pattern is exactly what we'll be looking out for as we test the format. While I would say that I do think leading with a hybrid is an effective strategy (it worked out very well for me), the example you present above requires a perfectly-played game from both players following very predictable patterns. In real life, the format just hasn't played out like that so far. You can fudge it with attack and suddenly the match becomes way more intense; it's also important to make unpredictable decisions so your opponent can't lock you into a losing scenario.
But, again, maybe in testing we'll realize that it's not working out and we'll switch out the format. Would love to hear what your ruleset would look like for that format, Cake!
Thanks, I was worried that such a long post written at 1AM would end up as an incoherent mess XD
Not every match is going to go exactly as expected, and upsets are pretty common, so the "perfect scenario" strategy that I outlined won't work all the time, for sure.
What I find frustrating with the current rules set for the Deck Format is that the gameplay relies on your opponent making mistakes. Losing rounds you know you should be able to win - especially in a format like Burst where Attack (the riskiest, highest-skill type) is even more volatile than usual - is not fun. Of course, launching skill is still essential and should remain a core part of Beyblade, but I think that the current rules put too much weight on playing matchups perfectly and not enough on the decision-making process behind each matchup choice. Because they give Bladers a chance to adapt to an opponent's strategy, matches are closer in points than usual because you aren't guaranteed a loss for picking poorly (good!) but that same close-ness and counterplay-focused gameplay means that making mistakes is much, much more crippling (not good!). There's room for the occasional screw-up in an advantageous matchup during regular qualifiers; during Deck Format matches, the combination of closer games and double-valued Attack points makes "risky" combos much more risky. This is a huge problem for Burst, because 2/3 of our type triangle is at risk of blowing up suddenly, meaning that any mistake, worn out part, or bad launch can lead to as much as a 2-point loss. Playing safe combos to force your opponent into risky ones just feels unpleasant, and your opponent really has no choice but to go along with it.
My suggested rules changes would be to allow both Bladers to switch combos after each round, and to have a short "display" section before the first round to allow both Bladers to see each other's Deck. This changes the prediction and picking game from "First round completely blind (go safe), counterpick every other round" to "Which of my combos does the best against each of theirs? What are they likely to lead with?" It's a condensed version of the near-unlimited possibilities in the qualifying rounds; there is less uncertainty as to which combos you opponent could use, but it's still unknown which combo specifically they will play. This opens the door for more mind games and strategy as opposed to a formulaic or risk-based decision-making system. The first round is easier to predict and respond to than it is under the current Deck Format rules, and it's also easier than the blind pick in the qualifying rounds. The counterpicking game becomes more about known unknowns - your opponent has just three combos to choose from; which one of yours can deal with all three possibilities as well as possible? Bladers must react to a group of threats, not just respond with a counter to one. I believe that this is a much better way to test the skills of the strongest Bladers at competitions; it requires the same skills that got them through the qualifying rounds, but with less unpredictability and more strategic thinking, which is appropriate for a competitive final.
RE: The metagame and "balance": why do you care? - Bey Brad - Sep. 02, 2016
A few people have made similar suggestions, so it makes sense to try it. We'll see how we can work it in. Hopefully lots of communities will join the trial and we can find opportunities to test other approaches
I would say that Beyblade, and most other games, pretty much always rely on other players making mistakes. The winner is usually the one who makes less of them.
RE: The metagame and "balance": why do you care? - Dracomageat - Sep. 02, 2016
Cake, what you describe in Burst's teeth is exactly what I remember seeing in the later day MFB releases. Wonderful beyblade designs and people constantly asking "are they going to make it heavy enough to compete or is this release going to be utterly worthless?".
Teeth are a balancing factor that needs to be used more thoughtfully by TT, I agree, but a single decision ruining otherwise good parts is not unique to them.
RE: The metagame and "balance": why do you care? - Cake - Sep. 02, 2016
(Sep. 02, 2016 6:11 PM)Dracomageat Wrote: Cake, what you describe in Burst's teeth is exactly what I remember seeing in the later day MFB releases. Wonderful beyblade designs and people constantly asking "are they going to make it heavy enough to compete or is this release going to be utterly worthless?".
Teeth are a balancing factor that needs to be used more thoughtfully by TT, I agree, but a single decision ruining otherwise good parts is not unique to them.
The problem with Burst is that it takes the good parts / bad parts split to an extreme. With MFB, you would get really heavy or frustratingly light parts, but with the exception of Light Wheels and stuff like Torch or Counter, the difference in mass between contemporary parts is not that high. Sure, Dark is a terrible wheel that's lightweight and has awful weight distribution, but a Stamina-type setup with Dark could OS a Defense-type Earth setup. Now compare teeth between Layers - could I ever get S2 to reliably KO something Stamina-y without Bursting itself all the time? Could I get R2 to OS something, even a Defense type, without getting Burst by even a slightly aggressive launch? Even on an ideal setup against an ideal opponent, a Layer with bad teeth will struggle to win far more than a bad Metal Wheel would in a similar MFB scenario.
Customization is possibly my favorite part about Beyblade, but Takara is really limiting the options for experimentation; without super-meaningful differences in Disks, and without a whole lot of viable or even semi-viable Layers, really the only option available for innovation is Driver choice. Part of the problem is that we're still fairly early in the release, with not a lot of parts to work with in general, but the lack of interesting parts and competitive options in each new Beyblade is wearing out my patience. Not every release has to be all amazing, or even have any good parts at all, but when most new stuff is useless, that's not a good sign for the franchise.
RE: The metagame and "balance": why do you care? - Wombat - Sep. 04, 2016
I don't really have enough time to type out a super-lengthy response, and there a few other threads I want to respond to before I probably disappear for like another week, so I'll keep this (relatively) brief.
Sourcing relevant material from some of my previous posts so I don't have time to re-type them:
- Some thoughts on the "game outside of the game" and a few thoughts on Deck Rotation
- More thoughts on the Deck Rotation System, and modifications/comparisons to Ingulit's model
- (Start at the place where I quote juncction) Random philosophical metagame-balancey type stuff and also why Limited is the GOAT format
I care about Beyblade's metagame because, to me, it is the whole reason the game is fun. If it weren't for me discovering competitive Beyblade in 2012 I probably would have gotten bored of Dark Bull and Rock Aries going at it in the Pegasus Thunder Whip long ago. The metagame balance I personally want is one that encourages diversity in combinations and play styles. It's no fun when, at the highest level of competitive play, it's just the same combo or group of combos getting used with slight variations (which is why I'm not a huge fan of Standard, where the meta is literally Duo Cancer, or Plastics, which is "standard but the beyblades break more and also your stamina types self ko sometimes"). That's a huge reason of why Limited is my favorite format, it encourages diversity, and creativity, and rewards people who know how parts work.
I've been kinda out of the loop on Hasbro's changes to Burst, so I'll refrain from commenting about those for now, but I agree with most of the points Cake made about teeth making a whole bunch of parts unusable (when we needed Spriggan to beat Odin, it's teeth couldn't handle Xtreme. D2HD, and previously Revolve dominate because people are loath to use the fast-wearing Valkyrie or the fragile Mold 1 V2 (which might change as Mold 2 gets to more people) in KO Attack setups against Defense types on Plastic tips (Libra C145WB anyone?).
While I already stated my agreement with Cake's points about the Deck Rotation format in the posts I sourced, I just want to reiterate, and maybe add a few points of my own:
- Revealing Decks is a much more strategic option from an objective, competitive standpoint than the subjective thrill you get from pulling your secret weapon on an unsuspecting opponent. It also forces players to operate on the 3rd level of prediction when picking their lead or even their deck - they have to respond to all the possible threats the opponent could choose, while also being self aware of what their tendencies are.
- I think Bursts should only be worth one point, and exclusively KOs worth too. This will drive the meta in the way we (I) want by encouraging the use of KO Attack, and possibly KO Defense like NHU as a result. This also makes Deathscyther vs Deathscyther matches (and apparently D2 vs D2) seem a lot more "fair" since you aren't penalized a lucky Burst that's outside of your control (whereas Burst Attack should still be able to win consistently enough that they aren't totally nerfed).
- Winner should be allowed to switch as well, not only does this make the game more strategic than just counterpicking it also makes the Self-KO cheese strat less of a problem.
- I would be down with allowing duplicate parts within a deck, and if you've read most of my recent posts it's definitely not so I can put Heavy on everything. I'm of the opinion that using duplicate parts only limits the range of opponents your deck can beat, but this particular issue is small enough that I'm ok if it gets overlooked.
Sample Experimental Format (Click to View)
While I'm here I'll throw in some quick comments on the new experimental format, since it's conveniently posted in a place where me, Cake, Nocto, Beylon, and juncction can't get to it:
-Swiss is a bad idea for smaller events; the final scores for the placers in my example make that pretty clear. I still prefer round robin for small events but Swiss might work for larger ones.
-Seeding players is a great idea though, I know at least Time balances his blocks so the "strong" people are evenly distributed.
- Finals need to be double elimination, or at least have a 3rd place match. As of now there's no way to determine who would take 3rd place between Def and Valentin. Depending on the size of the finals I would still prefer a round robin (though DE could work for super-large events)
- I still think tiebreaker matches are necessary, and while I haven't researched the Median-Buccholz tiebreak system too extensively I think it could potentially cause problems in smaller events where M-B scores have a small range, especially between players that never meet in swiss.
- I haven't run many simulations of this format yet but basically it seems like it goes from "too forgiving" to "pretty unforgiving". Isn't this part of the reason BRR was changed to "top 2 from each block" since you would basically have to go undefeated to advance?
- Totally agree with the finals being Deck Rotation.
- Still not sure whether it's time to #FreeMyBoyOdin yet but that's not really a format issue.
I typed this in kind of a rush, so there's probably a bunch of grammatical errors (I know I have a huge mess of nested parentheses somewhere).
RE: The metagame and "balance": why do you care? - Bey Brad - Sep. 04, 2016
Quote:-Swiss is a bad idea for smaller events; the final scores for the placers in my example make that pretty clear. I still prefer round robin for small events but Swiss might work for larger ones.
I suspect this might be the case, too. However, it might also encourage people to run two tournaments a day instead. Whether we want that or not is unknown to be honest, but we wanted to try Swiss in a regular event and see how it goes.
Quote:- I haven't run many simulations of this format yet but basically it seems like it goes from "too forgiving" to "pretty unforgiving". Isn't this part of the reason BRR was changed to "top 2 from each block" since you would basically have to go undefeated to advance?
You don't have to go undefeated, but losing more than 1 match would probably cost you the finals spot. However if you get 16 people or more there's a top 8 instead of a top 4.
Quote:- Finals need to be double elimination, or at least have a 3rd place match. As of now there's no way to determine who would take 3rd place between Def and Valentin. Depending on the size of the finals I would still prefer a round robin (though DE could work for super-large events)
Finals do have a third place match (this was not in the original draft but was updated shortly after).
Double elimination would be more likely than round robin for finals, probably. Considering the finals also use deck format instead of standard, we don't want the second stage taking a disproportionate amount of time.
Quote:While I'm here I'll throw in some quick comments on the new experimental format, since it's conveniently posted in a place where me, Cake, Nocto, Beylon, and juncction can't get to it:
All we want to do is collect at least some preliminary data on our concept before opening it up to discussion, so please don't hassle me about it too much.
We can only work in theory and hypotheticals so much — we wanna try something out! We definitely plan to iterate on the format as fast as possible, so your feedback is appreciated. We'll post a thread soliciting broader feedback once we've at least one run tournament.Also agree with Cake's thoughts on part variety in Burst. Hasbro is shaping up to be better, IMO ;x
RE: The metagame and "balance": why do you care? - Brisk AquarioHD - Sep. 05, 2016
Very interesting thread tbh.
Honestly, as for my experience and my opinion on the metagame, I find it so amazing that you're able to customize parts using your knowledge of Beyblade to make effective combos. Knowing this and knowing that there will be tough opponents battling against you.
Before, I wasn't as knowledgeable about the metagame (I regret not learning back then). I mean, there was no Bladers around my area and all I did on YouTube was to make unboxings and battles. That was it. (Well more than that but YouTube is also a big part of my life
) (At some point, I kinda felt like it was impossible for me to ever get better competitively) Honestly, learning more about Beyblade competitively is great. I felt like it was time to start actually getting into the competitive scene now before it's too late and participate in tournaments.So the overall reason why it's important to me is that:
- It makes the game amazing and overall, a experience.
- You get to meet so many other Bladers, who share the same passion as you. You learn to admit defeats and learn from them.
- WBO tournaments basically. It was a small dream for me to attend a official tournament and I did. Best moments of my life.
- Visually making a combo in your head in seconds is heaven to me. I mean, I took a few minutes on my combo for the finals. Those few seconds I had left were terrifying, since I had to whip up a combo already.
And I'm not gonna lie, the thought of attending a tournament was anxiety to me. I was shaking in the beginning of the tournament. xD But honestly, it was the best. Just battling other people made me so happy and so hyped.
In summary, Beyblade brings people closer. As in heart and soul. I honestly don't care what people say about Beyblade or how it's a kid's toy.. They haven't actually experienced every perspective of Beyblade and shame on them.
It's a game of luck, skill and determination. It's amazing really.
RE: The metagame and "balance": why do you care? - Bey Brad - Sep. 05, 2016
Brisk, I always love reading your posts and your passion for Beyblade. We're honored we could help you experience the fun of a Beyblade tournament, hope you will make it out to more
And I hope we'll be able to battle someday!
RE: The metagame and "balance": why do you care? - Brisk AquarioHD - Sep. 05, 2016
(Sep. 05, 2016 1:39 AM)Bey Brad Wrote: Brisk, I always love reading your posts and your passion for Beyblade. We're honored we could help you experience the fun of a Beyblade tournament, hope you will make it out to more
Thank you.
And of course, it's big thanks to you and the rest of the WBO! And I definitely will, most likely will go to AN someday. (maybe next year!) And of course! I'll be looking forward to that.
RE: The metagame and "balance": why do you care? - Beylon - Sep. 05, 2016
Kei's recent reports from Japan show us exactly what "metagame" means for Beyblade. At the time of these reports, Odin was dominating the WBO metagame. But in Japan, Deathscyther was dominating a metagame isolated by distance, language and another major organisational force in the Beyblade world: WariBey.
In Charles Darwin's notes for his "Origin of species," he observed birds in completely seperate, isolated parts of the world evolving almost identical physical characteristics. In this case, survival of the fitest, in the shared environnt of "planet earth" meant a foregone conclusion; that, given similar but separate environments, two species with a common source will naturally and necessarily evolve toward a similar physiological condition in the competition for survival. In this respect, the idea of "metagame" is unique to humans because it is entirely artificial. The WBO and WariBey had access to identical environmental conditions (stadiums, launchers, beys) but reached two very different competitive conclusions: Odin and Dethscyther.
In each instance, the metagame was driven by the sentient choices of cohabitative individuals; not the natural competetive evolution of the gaming environment. We know this, because the results were inconsistent. Call it mob-mentality, if you will. In practice, some individuals have the ability to influence or even control the "mob" by virtue of their popularity. We see this happening all the time in Beyblade, wherever it is played. Remember the old testing-versus-opinion debate? It's natural. But it also means that whenever we encounter a new "mob," we should ideally adjust our expectations to suit popular opinion.
One of the greatest powers the game-designer weilds is the ability to split "mobs" apart by changing the rules of the game - which we have just seen Hasbro do with their new Burst mechanism. The benefit of "shaking up the metagame" is that is keeps the competetive scene fresh. Fresh is never boring. Video-game designers often have to rely on sequels or colossal software updates to achieve this - but traditional games like Beyblade require just a single new component to reshape the fabric of the game and the way we interact as players.
We might consider all this to be "normal" because, as bladers, we are used to it. But in the grand scheme of game design, the Beyblade metagame and its ability to evolve and change by design is something unique to Beyblade and perhaps the most enduring quality of "mobs" like the WBO and WariBey. So, apart from the obvious technological aspect of designing and building Beyblades, metagame is really the anthropological foundation of the entire global community of bladers. The very existence of a metagame (whether it favours Odin or Deathscyther) is scientific proof that a strong community exists.
Obviously then, I neither care nor fail-to-care about the metagame. Such a thing will only cease to exist if everyone stops posting here and cannot otherwise be controlled or regulated by me. It is simply an omnipotent part of the game which one must casually accept if they wish to continue playing - or else be shunned by the mob. Rest in peace, th!nk.
Cool thread, Brad. We need more like this. And thanks to Wombat for posting links, as this same discussion often happens in little tid-bits across the board, only to be lost to post-count and time. We need a WBO ethnographer to record it all in one spot.