Why bother with all of that convoluted metagame in MOBAs?

For me, I'd rather divide characters in MOBAs like League of Legends and DotA 2 into familiar RPG archetypes, like "tank", "support", "slow/strong DPS", etc., than use convoluted terminology like "mid-lane", "top-lane", "jungler", etc. The reason is because, when you think about it, all of those playable characters in LoL, DotA, and others really do play like familiar archetypes within an RPG. You have the slow-but-strong guys who can either tank or melee-DPS. You have the weak-but-fast guys who could either sneak-attack in a jungle or fight at a long range. And, you have the spell-casters who could either deal damage with their magic, or support allies with either heals, buffs, or disables.

So why all that convoluted metagame in MOBAs, when I rarely see any of that in other genres?

Sorry? Every game has a metagame if you look hard enough. MOBAs' are more pronounced due to their presentation as a sport, where victory is of the utmost essence.

Because they are competetive. Metagame isnt something people decide to create it's a natural consequence of people playing against each other in games that allow for different playstyles. The interaction of those playstyles and the reaction to that is what's called "metagame" It's not just MOBAs like Crembaw said, strategy games, card games and even FPS games all have Metagames of their own. Almost any game does.

Simply because the heroes are more complicated than just tank, support and dps. The core concepts of the trinity are generally still there (with a few exceptions for odd compositions), but the ways to make your 5 heroes play nice together are endlessly different. So endlessly in fact, that we end up with generalizations like "top-laner", "carry", "roamer" because the alternative is simply no designations at all. That's even more confusing than it already is for a new player.

Why buy anything but the the most appropriate items from the shop for the situation; being, character + job. The combinations are limited "due to their presentation as a sport" .

Unpopular opinion: the entire last hit mechanic is the biggest problem.

Additionally it's just jet lag, you know what works, you have the set up, you know what to buy, someone or you screw up to a point that you can't recover.

Those who love the game I guess can put that aside, I could too but that opening unnecessary bs to just get to the game, nah.

It's a concentrated effort to build a team ready to take on another, but overall turns into a gamble.

Pretty sure all those concepts and terminology came from the WarCraft 3 days. It's not like they are something artificially added in to create an illusion of depth.

@cid798: Lasthitting is actually surprisingly important to the flow of the game. It serves as a way to steal focus from the players so they can't hawkeye the minimap permanently, much like starcraft does with it's endless macro game. It also separates gold income from other important events to create decision making.If the only way to get gold was kills, then every game would 5v5 fights all the time, the need to stay close to the creeps and separate the income makes the players want to separate their team for the long term gain while creating holes for the enemy team to start smallers skirmishes and just generally making the game more interesting.

And trust me, we don't want dota to be 5v5 deathball every fucking game again....

Whether lasthitting specifically is a good mechanic or not in itself I don't really care, it serves its purpose well enough. But if you have a better alternative, I bet some moba makers out there are really curious. XD

The terms tanks, supports and DPS are already used in Mobas. But they're not very useful descriptions since there's so much more to the heroes/champions. Even if you say you're going to play as a tank, what kind of tank? How do you fit in the team? Are you an initiator? Can you solo a lane or take jungle camps effectively?

Also, you shouldn't mix up characters and roles. Most characters can tank, support and do damage. It's all about who can do it the best.

That's exactly my point. As I said, usually MOBAs would divide characters into different categories based on their strengths and weaknesses, just for newcomers to the genre. In DotA 2, for example, you have strength, agility, and intelligence. And, in LoL, you have Fighters and Tanks, Marksmen and Assassins, and Mages and Supports.

But here, it becomes so ridiculously and unnecessarily complicated with the metagame, that it would almost keep me away from either playing MOBAs or watching matches on Youtube. At least with RPGs, shooters, and RTS's, I'm able to divide characters, weapons, and/or units into offensive categories and defensive/supportive categories. But MOBAs? Too unnecessarily complicated.

It's just the nature of the beast. Some prefer this intricate depth that creates a vast amount of different combinations with various roles in any given group given the other characters selected (including the other team's characters), while others might prefer just something to kick back and relax to. Personally I don't play Dota 2 for the latter most of the time closing in on 1400 hours into it, even if I do enjoy random groupings with nonsensical character lineups sometimes. There are other games that yield to the more noncompetitive gaming desires that I have, but MOBAs are more or less inherently competitive - even if in a fun way similar to a pick-up game of basketball.

I don't play LoL, but the terms used in Dota are far more specific and descriptive than simply labeling heroes as "tank" or "dps" can account for. Not all Strength heroes are tanks. Not all Intelligence heroes are supports. In addition, most heroes can be played multiple ways. You can't just slap "support" on Nature's Prophet, since he can viably fill 3+ different roles on a team- sometimes shifting mid-match.

These games are complex for a reason. It creates a deeper, more strategic experience with a higher skill ceiling than your average game. They're certainly not for everyone. Maybe MOBAs just aren't for you.

@eternalnothingness: You can still divide the characters like that though? In fact you even just told us the way Riot does it with fighters, etc.

Are you just complaining about the metagame of what gets picked and where it goes? That stuff's just core to every competitive game. Just because the tank in starcraft is more of a defensive zoning tool, doesn't mean you can't mass them and A-Move the enemy base if you want to. Just because zerglings are a cheap high speed tool for aggression, doesn't mean you can't keep them in your base to protect yourself. The metagame is just formed around what works and is perceived as the "right" thing to do. In League, Renekton is a top-laner because that is EASIER to understand for people rather than figuring out optimal lane compositions around the "Fighter: Renekton" character on the fly every game.

If you don't want to dive deep and learn how the community has built the metagame, that's fine. But calling a simplification of the game "too complicated" is a little silly.

Your OP and replies honestly just make it seem like you're unwilling to learn or even be told about a MOBA like League, much less the even deeper intricacies of Dota.

Also, metagaming is in no way exclusive to MOBAs, or even multiplayer games, or even video games in general.

Some of those terms and concepts are complicated for sure, but it's necessary for higher level players. Understanding those higher level concepts is key to playing the game well. If that stuff wasn't surfaced in the game, you'd end up with a situation similar to fighting games where players who are looking to move from beginner to intermediate have very little guidance from the game itself. You're right that it can be overwhelming for beginners, but I think DotA 2 does an okay job of mitigating that.

In DotA 2, characters are sorted into their roles like initiator, carry, etc. no? That seems like a pretty good way to give beginners the basic concepts of the genre.

Obviously there's more they could do to help beginners, but I don't think slapping arbitrary labels that they might be more familiar with is the answer. Is there a description of each role in DotA 2? I feel like that would give beginners an idea of the type of character they want to play. Get huge then crush things, carry. Stay back and cast spells, support. Start some shit and jump enemies, initiator. That kind of thing.

Pong has a great metagame.

That's the main draw of Heroes of the Storm. Its classes are boiled down to Tank, Support, and Assassin (melee or ranged for each), and since you share experience among all players, there's not really any need for jungling, although each map has special objectives built into each map that are usually located in the jungle. There's also no items. Instead, characters get to choose from up to four talents they modify their abilities when they level up.

I love DotA, but I'm really digging the streamlined nature of Heroes.

Yeah you often still subdivide characters into tanks and support and whatnot in MOBA games. The metagame is on top of that, some specific characters can be extremely crucial to a current metagame. Like wisp was in DOTA2 or Tempest in HoN. You would not see a single game where the character wasn't picked or banned for months. Then suddenly some team comes up with a good counter and the metagame changes.

It makes it very hard to get into these types of games, but much more rewarding when you do. Like if I play a game of HoN now and I need to play as a tank I will know based on the team picks exactly which I should pick in order to contribute as much as possible. I think it's more fun that way.

Though the mental footprint of years of playing HoN is probably very large and unnecessary. I've thought of it before, there are like 120 heroes with mostly 4 skills each and I know every one of them and I know counters to almost all specific heroes. It's ridiculous in a way.

Because, at least with Dota, sorting out heroes into stiff categories is stupid. 95% of the heroes can be played in multiple roles and you need to flexible else you're gonna be bad forever. As a side note, you know when someone on your team is bad and should be ignored when they say "pick tank".

I feel like OP used the word "metagame" when he meant to say "jargon". I don't think he's really complaining about the metagame at all, he just doesn't like that there are a bunch of terms to describe possible roles for characters and he wants everything to be Tank DPS Support. Which is what Heroes of the Storm is trying to do, in that jungling basically doesn't exist and the characters are labelled with their role, though even then some Tanks can do alright damage while others have nearly useless damage output and are only good for their stuns/slows/disables.

I don't think the terms are necessarily more complicated, it's just that you're more familiar with the standard RPG terms. Also, it doesn't necessarily work in the same way because MOBAs are a multiplayer experience and as such have different roles. In a traditional RPG, a tank would be expected to draw the fire of enemies by initiating fights, taunting, and so on. There are a few characters in League who have taunt abilities and such, but in Dota 2 there's only one character (Axe) who can force opponents to attack him.

It's also reflective of the nuance between characters. A standard RPG might only have 6-10 characters or classes, whereas you have well over 100 characters in both League and Dota 2 each with their own unique twist. Additionally, often characters can fill multiple different roles, either game-to-game or within a single match. It's intentionally deep and complex - that will put many people off, but you can't please all the people all the time and these games were designed to be that way. It might make them difficult to get into, but it also is a big reason why the people who do play get so deep into it for so long.

Theres nothing complicated in the game its just humans competing against each other that turns every stone they can find for the slightest advantage. Check every sport there is and you will find it performed insanely complicated even though the sport itself is as simpel as just kick the damn ball into the goal as an example

If you wanna keep it nice and simple play against the AI.

You hit the nail on the head.

The most important point of which is how heroes don't fit one role and can shift mid match. It was a concept I struggled with for a bit when I first started playing DOTA.

I mean sure, many MOBAs have elements of RPGs in them, but they also have unique elements, like the lanes. Convolution describes situations when something is made needlessly complicated, but thinking about the kind of things you're talking about in a MOBA is pretty necessary to play, and that kind of play helps enrich and adds more depth to the game.

most competitive games have some "convoluted" aspect, probably a by-product of design choices aimed at pleasing the hardcore crowd, and because people will fight for whatever slight edges they can when a game gets really competitive. people will find whatever small system quirks they can which might help (be they quirks intentionally designed in the game, or created by accident because games are real real complex)

The hero stats in DotA don't correspond to roles at all and a large percentage of the pool can be played in multiple roles. They also don't necessarily have any bearing on the relative statistical weaknesses of a given hero. One of the heroes with the highest agility stat gains in the game is an intelligence hero - Silencer.

The only roles that really matter are those assigned to heroes within a given game to a given team with a given strategy. There are no universally-applicable roles in DotA.

esports, that's why. Unlike most genres, in MOBA games the competitive scenes have surpassed general fans, so the majority of people who play League and DOTA, or rather the people who have put League and DOTA on the map, want it more complicated and play it for entirely different reasons than you, the average gamer. They are also the people that the games' developers are focusing on, because that's where the money and eyeballs are.

Or to put it another way, for all your opinions and suggestions, you are the minority in this situation and are not the primary demographic of these games.

In Pokemon DPS are called Sweepers, and Tanks are called Walls (there are tanks too though).

...because those other genres... are other genres. All the MOBA specific terminology adds to the genre in ways that don't add much to other genres. Those ideas fit the genre, work in the genre, and were specifically design... for the genre. Forgive the snark, but doesn't this question boil down to "why do this different genres have differences?" It's because they're different genres! Also, the holy trinity of tank-healer-dps still very much exists in MOBAs

So here is what I got from looking up metagames in MOBAs like League of Legends and DotA 2.

In the beginning of the game, Pushers (who are usually mages) and Junglers (who are usually fighters) farm for gold and XP from minions and neutral monsters, respectively, just to develop their Carry. Meanwhile, Tanks and Supports protect their Carry long enough for him to max out his XP and gear, so that by the end of the game, the Carry could "carry" the team just as they had "carried" him during the beginning of the game. Gankers (who are usually assassins) also tend to be included mostly to kill off the opposing team's Carry.

This is pretty much accurate, except for every time you say "who are usually x". Can't speak for League, but these generalizations are super inaccurate for Dota. Maybe half of the good pushers in the game could be described as "mages". There are way more "mages" that focus on disable abilities or general support. Some of the best junglers in Dota are also "mages" that focus on summoning minions to fight for them.

The reason all these metagaming terms exist is that if you try to simplify them to basic terms from other genres like "mages" or "fighters", you completely lose any meaning it would have in the context of MOBAs.

The general purpose of the construct known as "metagame" is to make a game more familiar with people that have jobs, so that the game becomes more like a job than it would be otherwise. As far as top players go I'm sure there's plenty of them that don't really follow the general trends and thus negate the supposed purpose for having to study to play a video game.

Mid, off, and safe lane all present different challenges which are not simply overcome by being a support or tank or whatever. There are supports that are terrible mid-lane, and there are supports that are terrible offlane. They're both supports; the "convoluted terminology" regarding the lanes is about a very important game mechanic and is not adding a layer of complexity simply for the sake of it.

It's not as complicated as it seems, either. Think of it this way: if you played one single map in a FPS for years, you'd have some very specific terms relating to different sections of the map and the unique problems you'll face there.

Why is Dark Souls so unnecessarily clunky and obtuse? Why did early minecraft need a wiki? Why is dwarf fortress in ascii? ;_;

I mean, if you think about it, American Football has a ridiculous meta, as well. Just read a couple of fivethirtyeight.com articles about the game. I would say that there are two main reason a "Meta" game arises: 1) Balance: One thing that makes LoL, Dota, and Smite so great is the sheer diversity of characters. As such, you won't ever be able to get a "Rock-paper-scissors" balance since there are what, 100 some characters in each game? There's at least 15 "Tank" type characters in each, and they can't all be the same; it'd get boring! Thus, people figure out creative ways to use the characters, aided by the numerous permutations of buffs and abilities that items bring as well.

2) The meta gives people like me (office drone with a loving fiance and a lot of activities outside of games) a way to play the game, even if we can't physically logon and play. Changes to the game and the champions keeps it fresh, and lets us theorycraft and discuss on forums like this. It's like EVE Online - you can play the game for weeks at a time, only logging in once or twice, since diplomacy was a huge factor. (Of course, EVE isn't MOBAs, and vice versa, but that's the sort-of analogy that I'm trying to draw.)

Would you also ask "Why bother with games like Magic: The Gathering with its complicated meta-game when people could play WAR?" Because the interactions are fun.

To help explain it from someone who spends way too much time in League of Legends, those definitions and specifications are there to help individualize each champion. There are over 100 in the game at the moment, and with how often the meta shifts, a single champion could range from Top Lane to Jungler, Midlane to Top, or even Mid lane to support (examples of this are the champions Nidalee, Lissandra, Lulu, Karma, Kayle, Aatrox, and a couple more).

To a new player, the more minor terms such as fighter, assassin, tank, etc are less important. The terms you NEED to know are toplane, jungler, mid lane, attack damage carry (Marksman) and support. Mostly these define position, but within these positions on the map defines your role in many ways. For example, Top lane champions can carry, but it is a rarer instance than the Marksman or Mid Lane doing the carrying. A support could be the tank, but it is more likely for the Top lane or Jungler to be the tank of the team (not always needed).

So, in the end, the reason for these "convoluted" titles is because LoL and Dota2 are imo the two most competitive games out there, and even if you aren't playing ranked you are still invested in these small differences that define a role or champion.