Questions regarding established metagame

Question

Many games (LoL, SC2, etc) have established metagame(see What is metagame?). Unfortunately, its sometimes difficult to pick up the metagame without being called a noob for the first many games you play. This often discourages people from playing games just because they don't have an understanding of how it works, and may not have the resources available to easily gain that understanding.

My question is that although it would be somewhat localized, would it be beneficial to provide answers to questions like "What is the metagame in [game01]"?

This question was driven by Is playing an AD carry top viable? question, as in order to effectively answer it one must know the meta(See the problems with gaining knowledge of the meta given above). In order to ask the question without inferring the metagame would make the question long and also just as localized as referring to the meta.

Chat discussion http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/35/conversation/metagame-conversation

Answer 1

Rather than asking what the metagame is about X, just ask about X.

Remember, we're here to solve practical problems. Asking what pro players think is the best way to tackle the X scenario is just a contorted way to really ask how to tackle the X scenario.

Asking how to tackle a scenario in a videogame is the whole point behind this website. Asking what "pros" think isn't.

Answer 2

EDIT: After discussing this in chat, I have again changed my mind. There is nothing inherently wrong with discussing the metagame. Most of the issue from these questions comes from being extremely badly written, by assuming the reader knows and understands the metagame.

As I stated in chat, answers that assume knowledge of meta are bad answers. I would extend this to apply to questions as well. Not only do they not provide all the information required so that it helps all users equally, but by referencing meta without providing the relevant information, they are continuing the cycle of insider knowledge. Users familiar with the metagame will understand, but new users who do not understand what the meta is, or even where to find that knowledge are left in the cold.

Additionally, by only referencing the meta, the answer becomes obsolete as soon as the meta game changes. The meta game itself is a moving target, and by including that within your question or answer, the meaning of your question or answer gets changed along with the meta game.

I would recommend that questions or answers that reference their game's metagame without providing the relevant information be downvoted as not helpful.

Answer 3

Let's arQAde-metagame out this scenario...

When a metagame question is asked, the ball is left in the court of the answerer.

If an answerer chooses to explain fundamental concepts in addition to the answer, he may reach a larger audience and get more upvotes. His answer might grow long, so organizing it becomes important.

If the answerer chooses to answer without explanation, then there are some new words on this site from which a new question may be forged to reveal the fundamental concepts. Any asker that notices this stands to gain some easy rep.

That's all well and good for today, but what about when the game changes tomorrow? Well we have a system for that. As games change, answers may be updated and new answers may be created. Knowing when or if a game may change is not relevant. The system is amazing if the current/correct answer is somewhere in the top 2 (the accepted one and the most upvoted one). The system is pretty good if the current/correct answer lives among the top 5. The system is poor if the current/correct answer is 10th or farther from the top.

Answer 4

I think that metagame should not be discussed here due to the following reasons:

• Metagame changes very often, mostly due to patches and new strategies
• If an answer is poorly written a new player might get the impression that the discussed topics are facts and not merely probabilities or educated guesses.
• Metagame on low level of play is worthless, because the players do not follow strategies and rules. They just play "their" style that might contradict the metagame.
• The QA style of Arqade is not a good fit for thorough guides. This should be left to professional gaming sites that are dedicated to a certain game, like Teamliquid.net.

A forum is good to discuss metagame. Some people write new posts on some topic and the others comment. If the info gets outdated the thread gets forgotten and eventually a new one is created. The focus shifts to the new infos.

Arqade does not want that. Every question should be posted only once, similar questions are marked as duplicates. This means old answers will remain in the question. Sure metagame shifts can produce new answers, but if the changes are too fast the upvotes cannot catch up.