A Gustav 30 in 30, #22: I Hate the Meta

[Gustav 6,469]

 

I stole the clever, witty article name that this one deserves from myself. Whatever--it's time to do what I do best and make more excuses for my GM track record.

 

 

Good old build advice! We all know it. You probably had it shoved down your throat the second you ended up in a VHLM locker room. You've probably had people explain it to you from the second you stepped into your first server, and you've probably also noticed the sheer amount of stuff that gets tossed around that directly contradicts all the other stuff. From camps of people insisting that Simon's website saying that team strategies do nothing means that they do nothing and others insisting that lived experience proves otherwise, right on down to the (surprisingly numerous) instances where I've heard tell that my build guide is outdated or incorrect with no accompanying explanation as to why, it's fair to say that large portions of the league like to think they know far more than does anyone at all. Guess what--I don't really care what you say about my build guide. My real guide to building, as is also explained in my build guide, is that you should build in whatever way makes you happy. There's no single correct way to build.

 

Or is there?

 

That was a question unfortunately answered by our unaffiliated counterparts in the SHL back in the VHL's S70s. The strategy that led to the highest success over there, from a team standpoint, was as follows: all skaters upgrade Scoring as much as possible while never touching Passing. Repeat for seasons on end and profit as the rest of the league hates you. Often, this would come with stricter guidelines like "don't touch Skating; it messes with the decision-making formula" and "don't touch Checking; hits are bad and dumb and give you penalties." For all purposes, a player with 99s in Defense, Scoring, and Puck Handling was essentially perfect to some SHL GMs. This allowed for disproportionate amounts of success to be achieved in the SHL, with one team winning everything all the time, to the extent that league operations ground to a halt as the league switched its sim engine entirely.

 

When we first learned that this was the case, a few things happened around the VHL:

• The higher-ups did some test simming and found that a team formed from "meta" players (as the build became known) could be pretty good in the VHL but not unstoppable. This was chalked up to differences in league settings and largely considered a non-issue.
• A conversation went down in GM chat on Discord where most of those of us in management at the time agreed not to directly pursue the meta. This was just an informal agreement, but it seemed sincere. 
• A handful of "proto-meta" teams popped up over the mid-S70s (Warsaw/Chicago/Moscow/Malmo all come to mind). As VHLers picked up on the SHL story, more members started to build in ways consistent with the meta, and some teams seemed to prioritize this more than others. This doesn't mean that those teams were discouraging build freedom (my personal line), just that the players they sought out tended to be of that variety and no one really objected. These were very strong teams, but it was still OK.

 

As time went on, though, effects of the whole meta business compiled. People saw more meta builds working, so they built even more meta in response. Teams that targeted meta players now had a greater pool to pick from, while meta players gave back by specifically wanting to play for meta teams. This screwed over teams that didn't push any sort of agenda on their players as their success dipped and most non-meta players were only able to find a home on non-meta rosters as many teams scrambled to scrub their rosters of any upgrades to PA. I wonder if this had any sort of effect on my success or enjoyment as a GM during the later part of my tenure. Overall, by the end of the S70s, it became exceedingly clear that whatever supposed agreement there was to not pursue the meta practically didn't exist anymore--it didn't help that GM turnover had taken hold and by that point I had some people telling me that said agreement never happened to begin with.

 

In any case, things eventually became super-ultra-screwed when the @Nykonax-led Vancouver Wolves took off and became practically unbeatable. Players with relatively little TPE were blowing the roof off of the scoring leaderboards, while the team cruised to an easy three cups in a row. The era was also understandably rife with drama--lots of "you're ruining the league" comments came from those outside the Wolves, while lots of "hate us 'cause you ain't us" came back. To be clear, Vancouver was far from the only team trying to pull this off. The mask had come completely off of any "we don't push for the meta; it just happens" claims for lots of teams who were now actively campaigning for whatever players they could find to build one way and one way only. I specifically remember a @JardyB10 podcast where he talks about going through draft interviews and having the fun experience of being one of the most influential VHL members ever and being told to reroll one's build to match someone else's goals.

 

I personally hated this and took pride in never telling my team what to do. I dealt with people who didn't want to play for me for that reason and very likely took a lot of losses that I otherwise wouldn't. And I even think that blew up in my face unfairly as it was during this time that my (somewhat deserved) reputation as a "bad GM" was at its peak. My team knew what the meta was and watched it work, and my players would have made the choice to reroll and become that if that was what they wanted. But, I never asked them to and they remained happy with what they had, and that was important to me. At the time, I would always say that I didn't blame any GM or player who went for the meta, because I couldn't really blame anyone for wanting to do what worked best. That's still something I agree with, but I think I get to be more critical now that some time has passed. As a course of individual action by any GM or any player, I have no issue with it for the reason I already stated. But as a fact that a really stupid philosophy took hold of the entire league? It was a really shitty thing that happened. Maybe it's weird to blame the group and not the individual, but I think I do blame the group for seeing absolutely nothing wrong with what was going on so long as they were on the right side of it.

 

As a whole, it doesn't really need to be said specifically that the meta was a leaguewide problem. Not to mention the idea that doing anything other than the one correct build could get a player shunned by half the league, it was also very against the spirit of building that someone grinding for an entire career could lose out, every time, to someone who was only around for a couple seasons but in better circumstances. So, like not nearly enough league problems do, this went to the BoG and spawned an extensive discussion.

 

Something that you'll come across in lots of my posts is that I tend to be in favor of simple solutions. Some of my ideas (the portal waiver system, for example) can be very involved, but even those are drawn up with the intent of being easy to work with. A big reason for this is that I have been in lots of different sim leagues where I am either too stupid or not attentive enough to understand everything right away, I have my own story of almost leaving the VHL forever after a day or so, and I've seen enough first-gens quit almost immediately to know that we have lots to learn and we ideally shouldn't add more to that. My suggestion? And something I pushed for pretty hard over the entire course of the thread? Just make it so Passing and Scoring can't be separated more than a certain amount. Let's say we make players build to at least 99-75 instead of 99-40. Sure, meta teams will throw a fit at anyone who wants a 76, but it brings the lower limit up. The rule could also be enforced the other way, so that players who wanted to go pass-first could be at most a 75-99 and would still bring some goals to teams that more or less had to take them in by virtue of being the ones who were willing to.

 

That was one idea, and another idea (not mine) was to introduce player archetypes. In many other leagues, a player type is selected at the start of a career, at which point certain limits are introduced to that player's build. The idea here was that we could just slap the limits we wanted onto a player and make it all part of player creation. I didn't like this for a couple reasons--I felt like everyone would just go for the most meta archetype, and I also felt like this was just a fancy and overcomplicated version of my idea. The whole league knew what was up and I didn't see any need to bury our efforts to fix it under a layer of roleplay.

 

Which was also what I hated about a new proposed system that buried our attributes themselves under a weird layer of roleplay, while also introducing math that would be really confusing to new players who didn't understand our attributes. You know what I'm talking about--it's our current system! Named then and known today as "hybrid attributes," someone (originally @Beketov in the first post of the thread, but I'm pretty sure it came from an old proposal from @Beaviss) dropped an idea to do what I still just viewed as a needlessly cursive version of my idea, and this time extremely so. 

 

There are a few things I will criticize BoG for publicly, and that is because they're things that--much like all the meta players and GMs--pertain more to the group than to any individuals. One thing is that I feel that BoG members are generally unwilling to discuss things that they aren't personally excited about. Another is that threads that come to very solid conclusions still end up dying because time often isn't taken to roll out new ideas. And a third thing, which pertains here, is that I feel that BoG will generally gravitate toward more disruptive changes, not because they're perceived as any more effective but because people want to be important and do big, exciting things. This has been, on more than one occasion, strongly at odds with my own personal philosophy, and so it was here. I watched and yelled at everyone as the group got super excited over what I felt was the dumbest way imaginable to address a pretty simple issue, and the hybrid system was eventually put into place. 

 

I ran from the system early on by creating a goaltender. Art Vandelay wouldn't be affected by the new changes, and I was happy about that. I also wasn't a GM at this point anymore, and that was something I was relieved by. Overall, I hated the way the league went about things, but the fact that the meta was gone in an instant was a huge success. The league only made one change since, that being tweaking depreciation in a way that I hate to this day (and that has more to do with my E issues than anything else). So, contrary to my fears that changing the attribute system would kill everyone's enjoyment of the VHL, it actually worked pretty well. I understood it fine when I recreated as a skater and I actually enjoy the added dimension that it adds to building from a veteran perspective. As far as first-gens go, I really don't see how this isn't a more confusing system than the way it used to be, but the VHLM hasn't imploded on itself with it and I'm cool with the way building works.

 

The moral of the story here is that I can be convinced about stuff. Lots of you know that I've carried lots of strong VHL opinions with me and that I'll still stick to most of them today. I would say that the hybrid system is the one issue where I've reversed the course of my opinion the most--I think my simple idea would have worked, for sure, but any issues we have now are far lesser than any we had in S79. I don't apologize for having fought against it, but I'm glad we have it.

 

 

 

Read my other articles for the full Gustav experience:

 

#1: Lightning Glory Gonna Be My Name

#2: Can't We All Just Get Along?

#3: Who Needs Cybersecurity Anyway?

#4: The House That I Built

#5: Can We Fix It?

#6: American Beauty

#7: The Kids Are Alright

#8: Dogs In A Pile

#9: I Just Wanna Grill For God's Sake

#10: This Old House

#11: Go Directly to Jail

#12: If You Can Dodge a Color, You Can Dodge a Ball

#13: How I Messed Up Davos

#14: Ello Gov'nor

#15: Weewoo

#16: Jolly Kranchers

#17: How I Messed Up Davos, Part 2

#18: I've Been Everywhere, Man

#19: The Sun Also Rises

#20: Ripple In Still Water

#21: How I Messed Up Davos, Part 3

[Victor 11,021]

Wasn't an important factor also that there was just too much TPE which meant people maxed out preferred bits too quickly and all 99s across the board was also dumb and not what the sim intended?

[Beketov 9,101]

7 hours ago, Gustav said:

but I'm pretty sure it came from an old proposal from @Beaviss

It did. In his case it was purely for the sake of build diversity and was also broken to the point that I proved I could have Thompson's exact same build with about 3/4 of the TPE but it was originally his; I simply refined it.

 

7 hours ago, Gustav said:

And a third thing, which pertains here, is that I feel that BoG will generally gravitate toward more disruptive changes, not because they're perceived as any more effective but because people want to be important and do big, exciting things. This has been, on more than one occasion, strongly at odds with my own personal philosophy, and so it was here. I watched and yelled at everyone as the group got super excited over what I felt was the dumbest way imaginable to address a pretty simple issue, and the hybrid system was eventually put into place. 

TBH I tend to agree with you that simple solutions are good solutions. I just disagree that simple solutions are always the best solutions. You were, and are, correct that hybrid attributes are just limits with more steps but sadly it comes down to the O word I hate so much. People don't like being outright told "you are limited to x" even if it's for the best of the league. The hybrids introduced those caps without having ti be a "no, you can't do that" which is why I liked them in the first place.

 

7 hours ago, Gustav said:

The moral of the story here is that I can be convinced about stuff. Lots of you know that I've carried lots of strong VHL opinions with me and that I'll still stick to most of them today. I would say that the hybrid system is the one issue where I've reversed the course of my opinion the most--I think my simple idea would have worked, for sure, but any issues we have now are far lesser than any we had in S79. I don't apologize for having fought against it, but I'm glad we have it.

And this is why I tend to appreciate debating you; while you hold strong opinions you are also willing to admit when things you didn't like still work out.

[Gustav 6,469]

8 hours ago, Victor said:

Wasn't an important factor also that there was just too much TPE which meant people maxed out preferred bits too quickly and all 99s across the board was also dumb and not what the sim intended?

Sort of? I didn’t really have an issue with the first part because it made solid builds/a couple high attributes accessible to more casual earners, and I didn’t really have an issue with the second part (until the S70s ended) because even though it was dumb it at least worked (until it didn’t). 
 

I always understood the appeal of making it more “realistic” or whatnot with extra layers but also always pushed for the most basic version of fixing the issue possible. 

[Nykonax 1,566]

On 8/19/2024 at 12:27 AM, Gustav said:

A handful of "proto-meta" teams popped up over the mid-S70s (Warsaw/Chicago/Moscow/Malmo all come to mind). As VHLers picked up on the SHL story, more members started to build in ways consistent with the meta, and some teams seemed to prioritize this more than others. This doesn't mean that those teams were discouraging build freedom (my personal line), just that the players they sought out tended to be of that variety and no one really objected. These were very strong teams, but it was still OK.

I think this is an important part that people missed, Warsaw/Chicago/Malmo all definitely targeted meta-adjacent players in the late 70s, they were just never as outright explicit about it as I was with Vancouver. No matter what, some team was eventually going to end up full meta.

 

On 8/19/2024 at 12:27 AM, Gustav said:

I specifically remember a @JardyB10 podcast where he talks about going through draft interviews and having the fun experience of being one of the most influential VHL members ever and being told to reroll one's build to match someone else's goals.

Lmao tbf I was the one who asked him. I'll admit I did it in a bad way, but thought it was fine cause it is a pretty common question in other sim leagues if you're willing to like reroll a player. This was also when I was like AGM of Vancouver in S78 or S79 and @fonziGG rightfully gave me shit for it lol.

I will say I don't think I ever told someone to build a specific way. If people asked me what to build, I'd just tell them that like low passing high sc is the best, which I think is a valid answer if you're asking for advice on "how do I make my player as good as possible". I just traded for/signed players who also were meta or wanted to build themselves meta (which Chicago/Warsaw/Malmo were also doing at the time). I agree people should be free to build whatever they want, on your note about checking I'm definitely one of those checking purists, but I totally understand someone just wanting to lay people out in the sim and try to go for the hit record.

As a GM though, I wanted to build the best team possible and win, and I personally have fun min-maxing and optimizing things. So I had fun trying to build a good team, sign people who would fit that vision, and whatnot. If someone wanted to be a hit player, or a pass player, or any player that had like a conflicting vision, I totally understood that and felt like that they can just totally do it on a different team. I figured that people who got enjoyment from traditional success in the sim would target the top playoff teams, while someone who wanted to just get a bunch of hits or something could find a role on another like "roleplay" team. Looking back on it now though, I definitely see how it becomes unfun for those other people when they realise there's just 0 chance of them winning at all, doesn't matter if they expect to win or not, but knowing there's no hope is unfun.
 

 

On 8/19/2024 at 12:27 AM, Gustav said:

The higher-ups did some test simming and found that a team formed from "meta" players (as the build became known) could be pretty good in the VHL but not unstoppable. This was chalked up to differences in league settings and largely considered a non-issue.

 

On 8/19/2024 at 12:27 AM, Gustav said:

the @Nykonax-led Vancouver Wolves took off and became practically unbeatable

I still think meta being stoppable is somewhat true. We had like ~50% win rate vs. Moscow in cup final tests, and I think like sub 50% vs. LA or Chicago one year, but they got upset by DC and we did good against DC. I think there was an element of luck that people overlooked, and since they saw Vancouver win 3 cups and top the league 3 times in a row they thought it was basically 100%. It was however absolutely dominant vs. shit teams, but I think each year there was definitely 1 or 2 teams that could relatively fairly compete. I think the main problem with meta was just how achievable it was. You could get 400/500 tpe welfare players basically come "online" in like a season or two and be 90+ point players, plus you could fit so many of them under the cap. You could spend seasons making good GM decisions to build a team like Moscow, or you could get a few draft picks and sign some decent clickers and compete with Moscow in the span of a single season. The like effort:reward was very unbalanced.

Seeing how hybrid played out I think it's an okay solution to the problem. My biggest problem with it is just how bad it feels for low-tpe welfare people now, under it I don't think you can ever have like a top player if you're a welfare earner. Which maybe is valid, the people putting in the effort should have the top players, but I know it's definitely sort of killed my interest in the league when it takes like a week or two just to get +1 in a single attribute in the sim. I agree though it has killed meta, and I think is a better alternative to just a simple "can't be more than 15 apart", which is what the SHL put as like a stop-gap while they switched to FHM (and I'm not sure it really worked, cause I think Hamilton still won the cup).
 

 

On 8/19/2024 at 12:27 AM, Gustav said:

feel that BoG members are generally unwilling to discuss things that they aren't personally excited about. Another is that threads that come to very solid conclusions still end up dying because time often isn't taken to roll out new ideas. And a third thing, which pertains here, is that I feel that BoG will generally gravitate toward more disruptive changes, not because they're perceived as any more effective but because people want to be important and do big, exciting things.

I definitely agree with all these points, especially the third one. It feels like people want to make changes just for the sake of making big changes, instead of just focusing on what the key issue is and how do we fix that as simply as possible. The first two I think are issues as well, but I can't really speak on them since I'll self-admit I also contribute to them.

Overall great article, and my bad gang.

[Victor 11,021]

10 minutes ago, Nykonax said:

We had like ~50% win rate vs. Moscow in cup final tests, and I think like sub 50% vs. LA or Chicago one year, but they got upset by DC and we did good against DC. I think there was an element of luck that people overlooked, and since they saw Vancouver win 3 cups and top the league 3 times in a row they thought it was basically 100%.

This I do agree with and gets lost in the noise. In that first season when Rara was on Moscow we were 3-1 up against you. Although the gap between Vancouver and Moscow did seem to widen in the next 2 seasons. And it's not like the Wolves were a random mishmash of journeymen. You had the Reinharts, Sales was obviously the best goalie anyway, Dear and Lamb stopped by. As a general collection of good players, regardless of expoiting the builds, it still holds up.

 

I think the more annoying teams were someone like London in S82 who were basically a bunch of nobodies but now have some of the highest rookie scoring seasons ever. I'm glad it all got killed off before that became the norm.

 

Being a goalie in that era was utterly shit though.

 

13 minutes ago, Nykonax said:

It feels like people want to make changes just for the sake of making big changes, instead of just focusing on what the key issue is and how do we fix that as simply as possible.

I think there is an element of a bigger picture solution being preferable to putting on band-aids. And I think mostly the crazy ideas are kept in check. What are the really big changes implemented relatively recently? VHLE? The alternative to that would have been expansion (and by now, contraction) so I still stand by that being the best option and we were picking between 2 drastic courses anyway. Hybrid attributes? Well that had to be a big change anyway.

 

We still do tweaks well like the goalie adjustment the other season, and other stuff.

[fonziGG 1,071]

On 8/24/2024 at 11:58 AM, Nykonax said:

Lmao tbf I was the one who asked him. I'll admit I did it in a bad way, but thought it was fine cause it is a pretty common question in other sim leagues if you're willing to like reroll a player. This was also when I was like AGM of Vancouver in S78 or S79 and @fonziGG rightfully gave me shit for it lol.

Lmao I remember being like “bruh leave the jards alone”

[Psanchez55 59]

I appreciate this article. I may have heard a little about the meta here and there, but it makes sense why the hybrid system exists. It did make little sense to me why the sim attributes were hidden beneath a layer of fake attributes, but if it forces less of a meta, that is good i guess.