A word on the Meta. (more like.. more than a word AMIRITE!!)

[Mysterious Medic]

Meta complaining is simply trite and always will be. I remember when triple artemis ruled the skies and "Oh god stupid triple artemis! Oh god stupid sniping, I am tired of these 3 hour long games!" was the cool thing to complain about. (I will admit playing against the gents during this time was super frustrating when I was subbing for thralls). BUT as soooooon as the aerodrome and pyra came back into play and, "OHHHH god stupid metamidions. Oh god stupid brawling, I am tired of these boring unoriginal games" was the cool thing to complain about. It's like a fashionable fad. Who knows what we'll be complaining about in a few months. Personally, I am pretty alright with where the game stands meta wise. I think many teams know how to exploit the pyra well enough that it isn't a constantly annoying problem. Bottom-line is, people will complain about whatever seems to be the meta because it is the meta.

P.S.- I personally don't understand how gat-mortar brawling is boring. If ya think its boring, maybe we SHOULD go back to 2 hr long triple artemis sniping games. ^{kids these days sheesh}

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Speaking of disable, pyra guns are funny in that they are placed in a weird almost blind spot when heading dead on at the bridge. It is easy to miss the angle and hit the bridge instead, only getting the guns with secondary damage.

Yet another advantage of the pyra! OP.

While junkers, spires, galleons, fish have giant targets painted on their guns.

Junkers spires and galleons all have MORE guns though.

Everyone forgot the pls buff goldfish threads after they became fashionable again.

This. Few months ago people were whining on how OP junker is. According to Urz mobula and goldfish were at the bottom of the ship potential list and in need of an immediate buff. Today people are asking for a Junker buff and a carronade nerf because carrofish is OP.
The so-called meta isn't written in stone. Don't like it? Change it. Some things will always be easier to play compared to others, doesn't necesserily mean they're unbeatable or too good. Complaining on a different set of ships/guns every couple of months depending on what is popular is just silly and counter-productive both for you and the game in general.

What idiots are demanding a Junker buff? There is no reason for it. If folks want that buffed then they are clearly lacking in the mental capacities to see how OP Junkers can still be.

The balloon is the big weakness of the junker but even that can be handled with proper tools and counter builds. If Muse buffs another ship that doesn't need it instead of addressing the vessels that clearly need it because a bunch of numbnuts can't figure out how to counter...sigh...then this game has no hope of a future.

[Dementio]

If folks want that buffed then they are clearly lacking in the mental capacities to see not good at seeing how OP Junkers can still be.

As a side note: Every ship can be OP, but I am starting to think that the "Metas" are the most easily countered ships or am I starting to get delusional again?

[Alistair MacBain]

They arent. There are as many ways to count the meta ships as there are ways to counter any other ship.
You just are more used to counter meta ships cause you see them more often.

[Replaceable]

Clearly OP doesn't know what he's talking about. At all.
*Subscribes to Meta ships weekly*
*Contemplates Gat/mortar right on a Junker, hades/flak left and artemis upfront*
*might fly metamidion*





_{Lets forget I said anything xD}

[vyew]

Since the meta changes with time, there is no point complaining about it now. Just be patient for an interesting shake-up to happen (and there will be one.)

[macmacnick]

I, personally, want to see Harpoon-mine Pyra become the meta. (I'm a horrible person.)

[Omniraptor]

Be the change you want to see. All you have to do is win with a ship a lot, and it becomes meta.

[Skrimskraw]

meta to me is being predictable.
when something is so reliable and used a lot it becomes predictable.
This is why metabreaking exists.
Meta stops being meta when the reliability of it goes away.
as we see the junker lost its spot on the scene when more teams started using carronades.
Metamidion is slowly fading away against higher dps ships and will eventually not be worth it, since the flying style is predictably agressive. Every team knows that to break the metamidion you have to kill it faster than it can kill yourself.
ships that have had great success with this is:
junker, mobula and spire.

all 3 ships that are both harder to master, and 2 of them harder to survive with. However practice makes master. The most impressive setup this game has seen is not 2 metamidions, it is however the mandarins double junker setup. The mandarins forced a lot of teams to think diffrently, and in their end days of competitive it was discovered that disable and balloon popping was the way to fight them.

Metamidion is an easy ship to steer and doesnt require any particular greater skill to have security in, but when you do the math and learn to pilot and work together properly. You will see the benefits of bringing ships that require more skill, awareness and crew capability over ships that are considered most reliable.

All I can say to every player, every clan and team is that the metamidion is a false sense of security, start working on other ships and you will see a rise in both performance and individual skill of the players. I find it a bit disturbing that some of our best gunners, pilots and engineers in this game is forced to play on metamidions. These players are far beyond simple gat mortar and will perform so much better on more advanced guns and ships.

[Hoja Lateralus]

Firstly I feel that seing that 60-70% of ships in Hephaestus Challenge was pyramidions makes me think about game ballance and stuff. It's a bit disturbing.

Then again I understand that metas come and go, I'm not long enough in GOIO to have seen it personally but in many other, older and more competetive games (say, Starcraft) it also came and go so it's something we'll have to accept.

But one thing has my complete support - making tournaments go away from regular DM to CP or even CK to increase the opportunities. Even the regular 3v3 DM tournament (which I think is happening now) gives much more possibilities for support ships and builds.
I'd love to see a tournament with growing possibilities after matches, so say 3v3 tournament with division DM's, Silver only CP's and Gold only CK's. This would be something.

[macmacnick]

A tournament where the match type is randomly chosen at a set point before the match, so that the teams have to be able to prepare for it with a short notice?

[Spud Nick]

It is interesting to see how the meta changes over time. Most of it comes form players trying out new ships and builds rather than updates from Muse. The Goldfish is a good example. With out any changes from Muse players have found out how to use it in competitive play.

[Queu Fox P.]

As some others have said, the meta changes over time, and that is not a feature, more like a flaw in the balance. (I'll try to keep this short)

As replaceable said quoting game theory, a player will always choose the best response. Some people here compared the balance in GoIO to other games like Starcraft for instance, but that can't hold, due to the nature of the asymmetrical gameplay of those games.

GoIO is not asymmetrical, as every player has access to all the possible strategies prior the start of the match. The meta tends to change not because of changes in tactics or someone making groundbreaking discoveries. One patch had artemis, another patch had gat flak and now we have gat mortar.

How many times have we seen lobbies (competitive and not) starting an arms race culminating into a 2v2 metafest with 4 pyras? Let's not hide behind a finger.

right now the gatling mortar combo is the combination with the best payoff no matter the opponents' choice (even in meta vs meta):

• i.e. greased gatling: 1038 damage per clip (one clip is enough to scrap away the armor, even taking into account a mallet)
• i.e. greased mortar: 1411 damage per clip to hull (enoguh to kill every ship, it can even overkill a galleon by 11 points, add tactical buff to it and byebye xoxo)

What is needed is a proper balance in the trade off for every ship, it's not related just to the weapons: there have been metamobulas, but the metamidion is still preferred due to the higher mass, ramming capability, armor and mass.

Bringing a meta counter, be it a blender/hwachafish, or a lumbergalleon, or whatever, can be situational and it still doesn't provide the best response due to the unrealiability of the weapons compared to the point and shoot of a metamidion.

A possible "community solution", until Muse studies its powerpoints and comes up with a better balance, could be introducing a Tier system in the competitive scene [Pokemon community does that (yes, Pokemon has a competitive scene, and it's hella complex)]:

• Uber: metafest tournaments, we are all limited to the gat mortar meta, the first to hit wins.
• Overused: you can bring whatever you want, and we'll stick to the current tradeoff (business as usual).
• Underused: some "judge" sets up a limited pool of ships who are considered more balanced in their group and require something different than the gatling race of the meta. (i.e. goldfish, galleons, mobulas...)
  
• neverused: limited to the most fragile and tricky ships/loadouts, in order to promote a different gameplay.

Those are my 2 cents.

[Omniraptor]

Rock is overpowered, but Paper is perfect.
— Scissors

Balance discussions in a nutshell. At this point with gatling being very short-range gat/mortar is very easy to counter. see for example tropo's galleon

[Queu Fox P.]

Which gets hard countered by many other builds, the game is a 2v2, not a 1v1, and it still doesn't deny the fact that the metamidion has the best trade-off compared to every other ship right now.

Now please, proceed and enumerate all the possible counters to the meta, my Research&Development Department is eager to learn.