开发者以实际案例解释什么是Meta-Game？

原作者：Stanislav Costiuc 译者：Willow Wu

在游戏开发生涯中，我经常会遇到这样一个问题:“什么是meta-game（元游戏）？”实际上有两种略为相似但本质相距甚远的模式我们都称为“meta-game”。今天我们会讨论这个问题，做出解答。

Meta-game的广泛定义就是“一个延伸到游戏之外的游戏”。然而，根据背景信息的不同，它可以指代以下任意一种游戏模式:

·第一种我称为“机制性元游戏（Mechanical Meta-Game）”，一套由开发者专门创造的、围绕主玩法的系统和机制。
·第二种我称为“浮现性元游戏（Emergent Meta-Game）”，玩家们说的元游戏大部分时候指的就是它，也就是游戏延伸到游戏本身设定的核心规则和系统之外，通过与玩家的互动体现出来。

kixeye（from gamesindustry.biz）

首先，我们来谈一谈机制性元游戏。每个游戏都有一套系统、机制、控制单元和循环，定义为“核心玩法”。比如说，《炉石传说》的核心玩法就是你和敌人之间的卡组或者等级对战。《刺客信条：兄弟会》的主要玩法就是在开放世界中探索，接受并完成任务，在此过程中你会接触到游戏的三大核心机制——潜行、地图导航和战斗。游戏中有各种各样不同的任务，从暗杀到追捕，从主线到支线，但是始终都会用到核心玩法。

然而元游戏系统不是这样的，它们是围绕核心游戏玩法的循环系统——可以影响游戏玩法，但却不参与其中。我们拿《炉石传说》的每日任务系统来做讲解。每一天你都会收到新的任务，完成后你就你能拿到金币。你可以用这些金币去消费，通常是购买卡包。接着你用新卡组成新的卡组，帮助你完成更多任务。这就是《炉石传说》的机制性元游戏。

虽然任务系统可以让玩家带着目标去对战，元游戏循环的奖励对于核心玩法也是有帮助作用的，但它实际上并没有直接利用游戏内的对战。而且这个循环是无限的。从这个角度来说，竞技模式和乱斗模式在本质上与排名/休闲模式是一样的——它们是核心游戏玩法的不同表现模式，但并不是元游戏系统的一部分。

《刺客信条：兄弟会》中就有兄弟会元游戏循环。你可以在世界各地招募刺客，在需要的时候召唤他们。升级成员的主要方式是让他们到欧洲各地执行任务（也就是游戏中的meta部分），积累经验值、为你赢得额外奖励，在城市中购买东西、投资会让你在后期得到丰厚的回报，这本质上也是元游戏。

基本上，大多数机制性元游戏都是围绕着进阶或者经济而设计，对核心游戏玩法起辅助作用，并没有直接参与其中。

这类元游戏系统的目的是为玩家提供中长期目标，让他们更长时间地沉浸在核心玩法中。

现在让我们来谈一谈浮现性元游戏。这类元游戏主要针对竞技游戏，是关于玩家所采取的策略以及决定玩家行动的策略知识。

举个例子，《炉石传说》中你要对抗一个法师，那么可能这个对手玩家当前使用的标准模式职业套牌是:

·控制法卡组，玩家试图用解场法术来苟住，直到像DK(冰霜女巫吉安娜)或者是巨龙召唤者奥兰纳这样的K牌出现。

·奇数法卡组，一组非常具有侵略性的卡组，包含噬月者巴库，所以玩家只能用奇数卡。

·元素法卡组，一个以元素协同为核心的随从卡组。

你知道所有的可能性，那么经过早先的几回合你就可以推断出对手的卡组是什么，以及知道如何利用你自己的牌来打败对手。你可能还会遇上镜像对战，用的是一样的套牌。

所以，要了解这个meta就意味着你要一直玩下去，直到你看出这种重复模式。或者，在当下这个网络时代，去一个相关的专题网站看一看就行了，这要取决于游戏本身。不过，浮现性元游戏会随着时间而改变。要是在若干年之前，很难找到一个不是海盗战的战士。但现在有更多的卡组卷土重来，例如带亡者之牌的无限战、奇数任务战等卡组。不可否认，名字很复杂。

根据游戏类型的不同，元游戏的表现形式也有所差异。从策略游戏中的计时、军队编组到团队射击游戏中的小组装备和行进路线规划。重点在于你能够推测敌人的之后的举动，做出正确的应对策略。

元游戏循环可以分为四个阶段。

第1阶段：试验

这就是玩家在面对陌生内容时，他们会不断尝试各种策略和反击方式，有时甚至是天马行空。

第2阶段：稳定

经过了试验阶段，玩家会找到一些非常有效的策略，在游戏中反复使用。接下来他们会遇到这些策略的对策，甚至是对策的对策。玩家在使用策略的过程中也开始摸索如何才能更好地抵御反击。总的来说这一阶段就是相互制衡。

第3阶段：公开

最终，游戏中的各种策略和反击方式都摆上了台面，主要就是依靠技能和meta知识来维持竞争力。然而对于一款游戏来说，长时间停留在这一阶段并不可取，因为会有很多人开始觉得乏味。这就是为什么下一阶段非常重要。

第4阶段：重组

基本上就是重置meta。可以表现为以下几种形式：

-有人发现了其他玩家未曾注意到的的有效策略（比如捷径），因此开发团队要重组循环。

-开发者发行补丁调整平衡，这就意味着之前的很多策略不再那么有效了。

-发行一个新的扩展包，或者重要的新游戏内容，引入新元素。

这等于把meta推回循环的起点，也就是试验阶段。但是玩家需要花多少时间重新摸索就取决于重组本身了。

为了让meta的保持新鲜血液、保持玩家粘性，定期重置循环是非常重要的。我注意到很多游戏开发团队喜欢在每三个月左右进行一次中规模的重组，每一年一次大型重组，当然还是要根据游戏和社区的实际状况来决定。

好了，我们来回顾总结一下：meta-game（元游戏）就是一个延伸到游戏之外的游戏、一个围绕着核心玩法的循环。它可以是由开发者创造的系统，也可以是玩家使用的策略——后者需要定期重置以防玩家厌倦游戏，造成用户流失。

感谢阅读，我希望这篇文章能够对你有所帮助。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

One question I get on a fairly regular basis during my game development career is, ‘What is a meta-game?’ There are actually two kinda similar but pretty distinct things we refer to as ‘Meta-game’. And in this edition of Farlands, a series about video games and video game design, I’m going to talk about both and explain what they are.

Meta-game is a term that can be broadly defined as ‘a game beyond the game’. However, depending on the context, it can mean one of two things:

The first one I like to call ‘Mechanical Meta-Game’ – a set of systems and mechanics created specifically by developers to wrap it around the main gameplay.
The second one I like to call ‘Emergent Meta-Game’, and this is the way players mostly use the term, the meta-game being strategies that transcend the rules and systems of a game, by, well, emerging from them via player interaction.

First, let’s talk about the Mechanical Meta-Game. Every game has a set of systems, mechanics, entities and loops that can be defined as the ‘core gameplay’. For example, Hearthstone’s core gameplay is the battle between you and the opponent with a chosen class or deck. In Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood the main gameplay is going around the open-world, taking and completing missions where you engage with the core mechanics of stealth, navigation and combat. There are different kind of missions, from assassination to chase ones, from main ones to side ones, but they all utilize the core gameplay one way or another.

Meta-game systems, however, don’t. They’re looping systems that wrap themselves around the core gameplay – they can affect it, but they don’t take part in it. Let’s take Hearthstone’s daily quest system, for example. Each day you receive a quest. The quest gives you gold. You can use that gold to make a purchase, usually a card pack. That card pack then gives you cards that you can use to build your decks, that will help you complete more quests. That’s Hearthstone’s mechanical meta-game.

While the quests provide goals to be done during the matches, and the rewards of the meta-game loop are helpful for the core gameplay, the systems don’t actually utilize the in-game matches directly in any way. And you can do that loop, well, indefinitely. Now, stuff like Arena and Tavern Brawl are essentially on the same level as the ranked/casual matches – they’re alternative modes of the core gameplay, but not part of a meta-game system.

In Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood we have the Brotherhood meta-game loop. You can find Assassin Recruits in the world and recruit them to call upon when needed. But the main way to upgrade the Recruits to eventually initiate them into the Order is to participate in the meta-game of sending them around Europe to get XP and also additional rewards for you. The economy system where buying things in the city will make you money over-time is also essentially a meta-game.

Basically, most mechanical meta-games revolve around some sort of progression or economy that wrap around the core gameplay without directly utilizing it.

These systems are usually created with the purpose of providing additional mid and long-term goals to the players, to keep them engaged with the core gameplay for longer.

Now, let’s talk about the Emergent Meta-Game. This type of meta-game is specific mostly to competitive games, and is about strategies that players utilize and knowledge of those strategies to define your actions.

As an example, if in Hearthstone, at the moment of writing this, you go against a mage, chances are you’re going to face one of the specific archetypes players use currently:

Control Mage, a deck that tries to delay damage with spells until it gets to the big hitters like Frost Lich Jaina and Dragoncaller Alana.
Odd Mage, an aggressive archetype that uses Baku and therefore can utilize only odd cards.
Elemental Mage, a mostly minion-based deck revolving around elemental synergy.

Knowing that this might be one of these archetypes, you then play accordingly as you figure out in your first turns what the opponent’s deck is and how to best utilize your own to beat theirs. You might even face a mirror match and utilize the same archetype.

So, knowing the current meta means to keep playing over and over until you start seeing repeating patterns. Or, well, with the current age of internet, go to a site that tracks that sort of stuff, depending on the game. The thing is, though, emergent meta-game lives and changes over time. A couple years ago it was hard to find a Warrior that wasn’t a Pirate one, but nowadays more control archetypes have resurged, from Dead Man’s Hand Warrior to Odd Quest Taunt Warrior. Yeah, the name’s a handful.

The meta is represented in a variety of different ways depending on the game genre, from timing and army composition in strategy games to team equipment and approach routes in team shooter games. The important aspect is the knowledge of what the opponent might be doing to figure it out and apply correct counters.

The cycle of a meta-game can be divided in four phases.

Phase 1: Experimentation

This is the moment when everything is new, people are going wild with strategies and approaches, and getting really creative.

Phase 2: Stabilization

During the experimentation stage, some very efficient strategies would have been found and become oftenly used. What would then follow is the process of finding counters to those strategies, and maybe even counters to those counters. The established strategies would also start to figure out how to defend better against the counters. Basically this is the stage when everything tries to balance itself out.

Phase 3: Meta Solved

Eventually, though, comes a point when all strategies are known, counters to them too, and it mostly becomes a matter of skill and meta knowledge to stay competitive. It’s inadvisable though for a game to stay in this phase for long, since it can become quite stale for a big number of people. Which is why the next step is very important.

Phase 4: The Shake Up

A reset of the meta, basically. Can be manifested in the following forms:

Somebody manages to find a strong strategy that was overlooked in the experimentation and stabilization stage, thus shaking up the meta.

A balance patch was released, meaning that a lot of old strategies might become inefficient.

A new expansion, or otherwise prominent new game components, is released, introducing new unknown elements.

The shake up sends the meta back to the start of the cycle – the experimentation stage, though the length of the that and stabilization depends on how powerful the shake up was.

To keep the meta healthy and players engaged, it is important for the cycle to restart pretty regularly. I’ve noticed that a lot of games took to their liking to do a medium-sized shake-up approximately every three months and a huge shake up every year or so, though of course it depends on the game and its community.

So, to recap, a meta-game is a game beyond the game – a loop wrapping itself around the core gameplay experience. It can take form of systems created by developers, or strategies used by players, and the latter one needs regular shake ups to prevent the meta from becoming stale, which can lead to loss of interest in the game among a hefty part of the player base.

Thank you all for watching, I hope you found this video useful. If you have any comments, feel free to leave them below.

A special thank you goes to my patreon supporters. A new poll for the next Farlands video is up. A choice between two topics: one regarding what makes good collectibles, and another regarding what makes good achievements. If you’d like to take part in choosing what my next video will be, feel free to support my campaign at patreon.com/farlands（source:gamasutra.com ）