Metagaming - Why don't I understand it?

[Stumpy Buckford]

Hello CM Community,

Today, I got banned for metagaming, something I have been warned about before, but I just don't really understand. Please make no mistake, I am NOT trying to appeal my ban, or anything like that. My only objective is to try to actually get a grasp around what metagaming is. I was banned today, because on prison station, I broke into the crashed ship with 3 sentries, and after destroying the sentries, I pushed a crate around, gathered up all of the HPRs, and melted the crate. I understand at this point not to do this, because a moderator told me it is very meta...but what I don't understand is WHY. As far as I am aware, metagaming is performing an action in character based off of knowledge that your character would not have(to me, the best example I can think of is an engineer getting off on the first drop and immediately welding all of the vents shut.). So I guess what I don't understand is which part of my actions was metagaming? Do Xenos not know that crates hold objects? Would a Xeno not expect that spitting acid on container would also melt what is inside of the container? I am pretty confident that it isn't the melting HPRs part, because the moderator effectively told me that if I wanted to melt them, I should have done it individually. What is the difference between going back and forth 3 or 4 times, recharging my plasma, to melt all of the HPRs and their ammo, versus using a crate to do it? I am only saving a few minutes, and obviously in the future, I will just do that instead. Also, my previous warning for metagaming was for melting everything in hydro and medbay on LV. I've walked passed medbay and hydro like a million times, and ALL of the windows are normally broken by the time I even get there. So I want to understand, why does melting all of the windows become metagaming, while breaking all of the windows is normal gameplay? I understand that melting a window also melts the window's frame, but if I broke the window, then melted the frame as a boiler, is that meta, or is it normal gameplay? It just feels like at round-start, as a Xeno, I try to do as much as I can in the 25-30 minutes available before the first deployment, and metagaming is just me trying to maximize my efficiency in the allotted time. Again, I really just want to UNDERSTAND. My ban today included a note that basically if I mess this up again, I will be job banned from Xeno, and I main Xeno, so I don't even know if I could continue playing the game at that point.

Thanks beforehand for any input,
Stumpy

[Heckenshutze]

Easy: Put yourself in other's shoes.


As a survivor, if you see a xeno, instead of doing something else, goes straight to where the crates are and melt shit to stop those survivors from getting a small chance of living long enough for the marines or just to kill some of the aliens, wouldn't you be at least a little mad?. Also, I don't imagine a xeno putting items inside a crate to melt them all at once, that's not xeno behaviour.


Second, There's a thin line here, xenos can't really meta, but there are a few exceptions to that statement and most of the times, that line is drawn straight from the Mod's criteria.

[JennerH]

Basically what you did is very much the equivalent of an engineer welding all vents at first drop. The staff probably should have put it under powergaming, in my opinion, because that makes more sense at least to me, but basically melting window frames, melting med vendors, all that is very meta because as a xeno you have no reason to do such a thing, nor have the marines given you a reason to do it.

You're ruining part of the round with out of character knowledge like that. It's like when marines could land by 12:10, rush research and burn the hive before you even have any T3s.

[Philby0]

First, that's the good attitude to have to be a good player, so don't worry too much about it, you're on the good way.

To get to your issue, you summed it up here :

It just feels like at round-start, as a Xeno, I try to do as much as I can in the 25-30 minutes available before the first deployment, and metagaming is just me trying to maximize my efficiency in the allotted time.

At the start of the round, xenos don't know humans are coming, at all.
So melting equipment before the dropship gets here is meta, because you're using meta information : Marines are coming. And you aren't supposed to know it until at least one xeno has seen it.

The same reasoning is used to say that marines can't build defences until they know the xenos will board.
Be careful though, as even without really using meta information, you could still be powergaming.

For example, the survivors aren't allow to go on a monkey killing spree, even though they know the xenos can use them to reproduce.

The best way to avoid metagaming/powergaming entirely is to understand the pvp mechanics and wonder "did the devs want us to do that"
The devs put equipment on the planets for marines to find and use, so it's illogical to destroy it all before they even land.

For after deployment though, I think it could be argued that xenos can destroy some guns, as they are intelligent enough to understand their purpose and the consequences of giving more means to the tallhosts. Still, it would be powergamey to actively go after it, if you do this when marines are pushing the front lines back and xenos have to retreat, and there's a gun on the ground somewhere, it's fine.

Remember though that I'm not and have never been staff, and I could be wrong, don't take my word for it. If you have any doubt about what you think of doing, ahelp about it.
If there's one good advice I can give you though, it's to watch Aliens if you haven't seen it. Easiest way to know how to act as xeno.

[LocalizedDownpour]

I would say dragging a crate around to collect items then melt them is meta. If you melted them all individually that would have been fine in my book, but melting them all in a clsoed crate seemed more power gaming to me then meta...

But that's just my opinion.

[Twizz]

I personally always as Xeno use the sense 'First look what ---- does, then understand and then act.' For example with the red dot, i know often Xenos instantly behave like they know what it does, but some also dont. First time theres a red dot? I'd go 'Its just a light' and stay there. After hearing it beeping first alarm goes off, behave carefull. Then the missiles fall? Run for it and inform the hive.

So basically what im trying to say is. Dont act as Xeno as if you knew everything. There is a hivemind, but that doesnt mean you know everything which ever happened. Only act to stuff the Hive knows and has already encountered. Hope that helped a bit!

And also, what i personally as Xeno do because i dont wanna ruin someone's round, if they have their suit-light on and it gives a disadvantage, i'd drag them around a single corner so that the light wouldnt give me away anymore. But if they dont have a lightsource on them or anything that gives a disadvantage, just leave them there.

Same goes for guns in my book, if they emit light. Melt them, if not, move on.

[Stumpy Buckford]

As a survivor, if you see a xeno, instead of doing something else, goes straight to where the crates are and melt shit to stop those survivors from getting a small chance of living long enough for the marines or just to kill some of the aliens, wouldn't you be at least a little mad?

This is kind of what I am talking about in that I don't understand it. You are right, if I played survivor, I would be pissed...But I would be pissed at the Xenos that SPRINT straight to security in Big Red/Prison/LV, and the Xenos that OPEN LOCKERS to find survivors. But I've never seen these things considered meta. Also, the moderator that PM'd me said if I had just melted every single gun and ammo magazine individually, it would have been fine, do you agree, or should I just avoid melting everything at this point?

[Stumpy Buckford]

I would say dragging a crate around to collect items then melt them is meta. If you melted them all individually that would have been fine in my book, but melting them all in a clsoed crate seemed more power gaming to me then meta...

But that's just my opinion.

I appreciate the input, this is basically the way the moderator felt today. But I am not questioning the moderator's decision, and I am just accepting the ban. What I don't understand is that melted guns is melted guns, and like I said, I just won't use the crate anymore, that is fine, but I don't want to be job banned because I figure out some other way to save a few minutes of recharging plasma, but it is considered meta...

[LocalizedDownpour]

I appreciate the input, this is basically the way the moderator felt today. But I am not questioning the moderator's decision, and I am just accepting the ban. What I don't understand is that melted guns is melted guns, and like I said, I just won't use the crate anymore, that is fine, but I don't want to be job banned because I figure out some other way to save a few minutes of recharging plasma, but it is considered meta...

If I was going to rule on it I would say melting guns is fine it happens all the time, aliens know guns are bad at roundstart, just like marines know xenos are bad when first contact is made. However gathering up abunch of gear so you can melt it once is the key factor here.

[Stumpy Buckford]

I personally always as Xeno use the sense 'First look what ---- does, then understand and then act.' For example with the red dot, i know often Xenos instantly behave like they know what it does, but some also dont. First time theres a red dot? I'd go 'Its just a light' and stay there. After hearing it beeping first alarm goes off, behave carefull. Then the missiles fall? Run for it and inform the hive.

So basically what im trying to say is. Dont act as Xeno as if you knew everything. There is a hivemind, but that doesnt mean you know everything which ever happened. Only act to stuff the Hive knows and has already encountered. Hope that helped a bit!

And also, what i personally as Xeno do because i dont wanna ruin someone's round, if they have their suit-light on and it gives a disadvantage, i'd drag them around a single corner so that the light wouldnt give me away anymore. But if they dont have a lightsource on them or anything that gives a disadvantage, just leave them there.

Same goes for guns in my book, if they emit light. Melt them, if not, move on.

We are basically the same player . I always drag bodies to just out of the combat area if they have a light, and I only melt guns if they have a light, or they are the, "special" weapons(boomtoob, boomrockthrower, longspitter, flamespitter), and I always wait for the sound to run from orbital beacons unless the queen orders to stay away from it. I have actually died quite a few times from that!

[Stumpy Buckford]

If I was going to rule on it I would say melting guns is fine it happens all the time, aliens know guns are bad at roundstart, just like marines know xenos are bad when first contact is made. However gathering up abunch of gear so you can melt it once is the key factor here.

I think you actually solved my problem... Having read the Powergaming rule, it does sound kind of powergamey, specifically, "aim of maximizing progress towards a specific goal to the exclusion of other considerations such as storytelling, atmosphere and camaraderie." I can't believe I made this mistake, I feel so dumb... All this time, I have been trying to maximize my efficiency when I play, but that in itself is actually leaning towards powergaming. All I need to do is stop trying to do everything before the marines land, and just focus on what I can do without trying to speed everything up. Thanks everyone for your inputs.

Edit: I would also like to apologize to the staff and players for violating the rules of the game. Thank you to staff members for keeping the games exciting and taking care of us players, and I hope to do better in the future.

[Jerkface00]

I wasn't on and I haven't spoken to anyone about your case so I'm not commenting on it. Generally speaking, the instances of xeno metagamming we most commonly see are:

1) Xenos melt or otherwise destroy a portion of the map rendering it unusable/nonviable when there's no determinable reason for them to do so, except that they appear to think it a critical area for the marines. Xenos melting the entire nexus before the first drop back in the day is an example of that;

2) Use of tools as a xenomorph. The xenos are animals; they just don't "GET" tools. Their tools are their bodies and their abilities. Examples of xenos metagaming the use of tools include stuffing corpses into lockers or trash chutes, or pushing (usually bulletproof) objects down hallways for cover, using crates to move things around they can't normally move, and crushing corpses with the shuttle. Understand however, there is a difference between an alien going around collecting things in a crate to melt vs killing a marine dragging a crate and melting it. The former a xeno uses a tool and is not permissible, the latter a marine used the tool and the xeno exploited the marine which is fine. There is also a difference between a xeno fighting and killing someone on an LZ who is then crushed by the shuttle, versus a xeno killing someone and then dragging them to be crushed;

3) The use of LZ1/LZ2 as a nesting ground/fortified area before the marines first drop. This one seems to confuse people because we get ahelps all the time on the first drop of "hey there was this/these alien(s) at the lz at the first drop". The issue isn't mere presence of aliens at the LZ, it's their building up large forces (read queen +T3's) or hives;

4) Queen uses the console before the marines first drop - self explanatory (expect a queen/xeno job ban if you do this)

5) A lone xeno on the Almayer specifically targeting critical systems before the xenos crash/board the almayer - self explanatory.

Hope that helps,
~Jerkface

[Stumpy Buckford]

2) Use of tools as a xenomorph. The xenos are animals; they just don't "GET" tools. Their tools are their bodies and their abilities. Examples of xenos metagaming the use of tools include stuffing corpses into lockers or trash chutes, or pushing (usually bulletproof) objects down hallways for cover, using crates to move things around they can't normally move, and crushing corpses with the shuttle. Understand however, there is a difference between an alien going around collecting things in a crate to melt vs killing a marine dragging a crate and melting it. The former a xeno uses a tool and is not permissible, the latter a marine used the tool and the xeno exploited the marine which is fine. There is also a difference between a xeno fighting and killing someone on an LZ who is then crushed by the shuttle, versus a xeno killing someone and then dragging them to be crushed;

Thanks a ton for this, I think it actually makes more sense when you break it down like that.

[Lumi Pharon]

Wait, pushing an ore crate is meta? If that's the ruling then so be it, but xenos have enough brains to put walls where they want cover, is pushing an object that does the same thing into a spot instead really any different? (The fact that they're indestructable is another thing entirely, they should be destructable like anything else)

[caleeb101]

Wait, pushing an ore crate is meta? If that's the ruling then so be it, but xenos have enough brains to put walls where they want cover, is pushing an object that does the same thing into a spot instead really any different? (The fact that they're indestructable is another thing entirely, they should be destructable like anything else)

i think it's more one of those rules that's in place cause it makes it a bit more fair.

[Rio]

I wasn't on and I haven't spoken to anyone about your case so I'm not commenting on it. Generally speaking, the instances of xeno metagamming we most commonly see are:

1) Xenos melt or otherwise destroy a portion of the map rendering it unusable/nonviable when there's no determinable reason for them to do so, except that they appear to think it a critical area for the marines. Xenos melting the entire nexus before the first drop back in the day is an example of that;

2) Use of tools as a xenomorph. The xenos are animals; they just don't "GET" tools. Their tools are their bodies and their abilities. Examples of xenos metagaming the use of tools include stuffing corpses into lockers or trash chutes, or pushing (usually bulletproof) objects down hallways for cover, using crates to move things around they can't normally move, and crushing corpses with the shuttle. Understand however, there is a difference between an alien going around collecting things in a crate to melt vs killing a marine dragging a crate and melting it. The former a xeno uses a tool and is not permissible, the latter a marine used the tool and the xeno exploited the marine which is fine. There is also a difference between a xeno fighting and killing someone on an LZ who is then crushed by the shuttle, versus a xeno killing someone and then dragging them to be crushed;

3) The use of LZ1/LZ2 as a nesting ground/fortified area before the marines first drop. This one seems to confuse people because we get ahelps all the time on the first drop of "hey there was this/these alien(s) at the lz at the first drop". The issue isn't mere presence of aliens at the LZ, it's their building up large forces (read queen +T3's) or hives;

4) Queen uses the console before the marines first drop - self explanatory (expect a queen/xeno job ban if you do this)

5) A lone xeno on the Almayer specifically targeting critical systems before the xenos crash/board the almayer - self explanatory.

Hope that helps,
~Jerkface

And yet I still see a lot of of xeno players getting away with this (except 3 and 4).

If Admins are going to bring the hammer down on one dude dragging a crate and stuffing HPRs into them, then can we see more hammers brought down on other blatant powergaming like the ones that instantly rush comms to fuck the room as badly as possible before the marines land? How about the xenos that drag corpses and hide them in obscure places specifically to prevent other players from finding the body (something no xenomorph would ever bother with in the first place)?

I see no difference between any of the above. All three instances are behaviors not inherent to xenomorphs, and clearly show the players in question are trying to gamify the round.

[caleeb101]

And yet I still see a lot of of xeno players getting away with this (except 3 and 4).

If Admins are going to bring the hammer down on one dude dragging a crate and stuffing HPRs into them, then can we see more hammers brought down on other blatant powergaming like the ones that instantly rush comms to fuck the room as badly as possible before the marines land? How about the xenos that drag corpses and hide them in obscure places specifically to prevent other players from finding the body (something no xenomorph would ever bother with in the first place)?

I see no difference between any of the above. All three instances are behaviors not inherent to xenomorphs, and clearly show the players in question are trying to gamify the round.

I see hunters on the ship out of all 5 of those things most commonly. Decapping doctors and whatnot.

[Rio]

I see hunters on the ship out of all 5 of those things most commonly. Decapping doctors and whatnot.

I'm fine with that, becuase there is a precedent for xenomorphs to attack isolated and vulnerable targets.

What I don't find kosher is when an Almayer ayy immediately melts their way into SD and fucks up the APC before beginning their rampage.

[Philby0]

2) Use of tools as a xenomorph. The xenos are animals; they just don't "GET" tools.

What ?

We're animals and we get tools, how is that related ? Xenos are at least as smart as humans.
Xenos don't use tools because they don't need them most of the time is all.
A hive is able to detect, understand, and shutdown a power system.
How do xenos turn off the power if they don't "get" tools ?

The examples provided are more powergaming than anything, I don't think xenos should be forbidden to use objects and tools, at least not for a lore reason.

[Sulaboy]

What ?

We're animals and we get tools, how is that related ? Xenos are at least as smart as humans.
Xenos don't use tools because they don't need them most of the time is all.
A hive is able to detect, understand, and shutdown a power system.
How do xenos turn off the power if they don't "get" tools ?

The examples provided are more powergaming than anything, I don't think xenos should be forbidden to use objects and tools, at least not for a lore reason.

Senior staff says Xenos don't get tools = Xenos don't get tools

[Philby0]

Senior staff says Xenos don't get tools = Xenos don't get tools

I'm not arguing about being able to do it in the game or not, I'm arguing that the justification that xenos can't use tools because they're animals is factually incorrect.
If you're gonna quote you could bother reading.

I don't think xenos should be forbidden to use objects and tools, at least not for a lore reason.

= Using objects should be good if it's not powergaming.

[Sulaboy]

snip!

Alright now for a serious answer as to why I think xenomorphs would not use tools. I would argue that they are not as smart as we make them out to be. When we play this game we have humans playing the role of xenomorphs, we follow rules but it's not expected of us to perfectly act like a part of a hive mind. This is mostly because this is impossible and would make the gameplay boring on both sides. My arguement is that aliens are not intelligent, they run mostly off of instinct in that they must collect hosts and spread and grow. I'd say the best parallel to their intelligence would be the raptors from Jurassic park, their capacity for learning is very limited. They do not create but rather learn from experience. We won't see any Xenos trying to use complex tools because their brains are hard wired to infect hosts, their minds would be dictated by this one thought overriding everything else. So sure they might be able to figure out what a tool does and try to mimic that, but they would not do that unless it was necessary to complete their biological function. Anyways I'm just some guy talking about what a made up monster from some old movie would think.

[Philby0]

Alright now for a serious answer as to why I think xenomorphs would not use tools. I would argue that they are not as smart as we make them out to be. When we play this game we have humans playing the role of xenomorphs, we follow rules but it's not expected of us to perfectly act like a part of a hive mind. This is mostly because this is impossible and would make the gameplay boring on both sides. My arguement is that aliens are not intelligent, they run mostly off of instinct in that they must collect hosts and spread and grow. I'd say the best parallel to their intelligence would be the raptors from Jurassic park, their capacity for learning is very limited. They do not create but rather learn from experience. We won't see any Xenos trying to use complex tools because their brains are hard wired to infect hosts, their minds would be dictated by this one thought overriding everything else. So sure they might be able to figure out what a tool does and try to mimic that, but they would not do that unless it was necessary to complete their biological function. Anyways I'm just some guy talking about what a made up monster from some old movie would think.

For the records, I agree that the xenos shouldnt be using tools on CM because no tool has been thought for that, and that xenos even in lore have good enough bodies to not need tools at all.

But I'd say xenomorphs definitely have enough intelligence to technically use tools.
I mean, in the first film, a single drone outsmarts the whole crew for almost the entire film. So smart even, that it understands the ship is on self destruct and gets in the shuttle before Ripley does, which is pretty amazing. There's of course the classic "how could they turn the power man, they're animals !" supposed to hint at how smart they are.
I think it's one of the great things with CM too, xenos are too intelligent to be mobs, they have to be player controlled to be proper xenos. But yeah enough rambling we should open a topic in the hive if we want to talk xeno IQ and leave this one to metagaming.

EDIT: can't type properly in one try

[Miranda]

I wasn't on and I haven't spoken to anyone about your case so I'm not commenting on it. Generally speaking, the instances of xeno metagamming we most commonly see are:

1) Xenos melt or otherwise destroy a portion of the map rendering it unusable/nonviable when there's no determinable reason for them to do so, except that they appear to think it a critical area for the marines. Xenos melting the entire nexus before the first drop back in the day is an example of that;

2) Use of tools as a xenomorph. The xenos are animals; they just don't "GET" tools. Their tools are their bodies and their abilities. Examples of xenos metagaming the use of tools include stuffing corpses into lockers or trash chutes, or pushing (usually bulletproof) objects down hallways for cover, using crates to move things around they can't normally move, and crushing corpses with the shuttle. Understand however, there is a difference between an alien going around collecting things in a crate to melt vs killing a marine dragging a crate and melting it. The former a xeno uses a tool and is not permissible, the latter a marine used the tool and the xeno exploited the marine which is fine. There is also a difference between a xeno fighting and killing someone on an LZ who is then crushed by the shuttle, versus a xeno killing someone and then dragging them to be crushed;

3) The use of LZ1/LZ2 as a nesting ground/fortified area before the marines first drop. This one seems to confuse people because we get ahelps all the time on the first drop of "hey there was this/these alien(s) at the lz at the first drop". The issue isn't mere presence of aliens at the LZ, it's their building up large forces (read queen +T3's) or hives;

4) Queen uses the console before the marines first drop - self explanatory (expect a queen/xeno job ban if you do this)

5) A lone xeno on the Almayer specifically targeting critical systems before the xenos crash/board the almayer - self explanatory.

Hope that helps,
~Jerkface

Yet destroing tcomms and slashing ONLY sd apc is fine..

[misto]

if someone is using a metagaming trick, it is usually simply a symptom that things ought to be changed and rebalanced mechanically or removed if necessary, rather than needing to have someone watch everyone, every match, because obviously such policing strategies cannot and will not catch everything.

a long while back, i played a u.s. soldiers vs middle eastern insurgents mod for hl2

there was one specific map that was so poorly designed that the insurgents could rush up and take an elevated ridge position and pin the marines in their spawn point without much trouble - maybe some marine snipers or sharpshooters could fight back but for the most part it was clearly unfair

and yet they didnt remove the map from rotation, or edit the map to make it more fair, they had admins watching the players like hawks and kicking any insurgents who wandered too near to the logical elevated ridge shooting position too early in the match, and that always struck me as a simply silly solution

this game has been making reasonable balancing progress with cutting down on needing such policing, such as human characters having "skills". even the fogwall on LV is a more elegant solution than what i outlined above with my memory from the hl2 mod (but it would still be better if the xenos were just toughened slightly early round or something so that the additional wait time on top of briefing+transit wait time isn't necessary)

here's another fun example: big red. everyone knows it, everyone does it, but nobody wants to admit it - the xeno team usually "just happens" to "instinctually" melt/knock over the 8 or 9 fucking weylandmeds in bigred's medbay on the regular. completely in character! thoroughly roleplayed. obviously it is to deny medical supplies to marines. just don't say it out loud, it'll be fine.

OP i think that you being banned for that is preddy harsh. the crate thing is a clever time-saving trick but it's nothing you couldnt have done with a little more patience and applying acid to all the guns separately.

if the problem here is xenos melting too much shit early in the round to pre-sabotage things, which in my opinion is simply one's natural inclination when one has acid puke at one's disposal, perhaps this could be solved by not letting xenos use their acid puke until a timer has run out, and if you don't want a xeno breaking the almayer's comms apc too soon in a round, surround it with unacidable blast door thingies that lift like the SD doors do when the DS hits the ship, or whatever.