Metagaming

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Metagaming is the act of using the game community's perceived best tool, be it character, item or class specialization.

Metagaming is frequently used in competitive games such as League of Legends and Team Fortress 2 to achieve victory with greater ease.

It does not seem so bad, does it? Well i think metagaming limits creativity and experimentation with weaponry or character due to the metagaming communities downright kicking or banning players due to not conforming with the metagame.

Now i ask you. Do you conform to the metagaming willingly or unwillingly or do you refuse to conform?

If my explanation was not good enough, please watch this video [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IERRTAh90HA[/youtube]

That's a different definition of "metagame" than I'm used to. Coming from the fighting game community, it usually involves character matchups, studying hitboxes and properties of different moves, etc. Doesn't always involve exploiting things for victory, but sometimes how to counterpick to defeat something that could be exploited for victory. A well-designed game usually has a fun and involved metagame.

Yes. For example, in Pokemon and Yugioh, there exist fan-made tier systems and an official banlist, respectively, in order that in a given instance, the two players have a (theoretically) even match-up.

More generally, analysis, discussion, and development of tactics is a fun and fascinating, often just as much as the game itself.

The complaint made in the video seems to specifically be a complaint along the lines of which in Yugioh is known as 'netdecking' i.e. blindly copying someone else's deck/strategy because one thinks that it will win. This results in a large number of players using good decks poorly, and is frustrating to play against, as they tend to win through luck and brute force, rather than the original strategic play that is more likely to result in victory and is more challenging to face.

Another component mentioned is that of people acting basing their actions on expectations of other's actions. Generally speaking, this is going to be an unavoidable component of any multi-player game. This can be difficult for one's who have greater difficulty simulating other's actions.

Additionally, when one plays a RL game, such as Yugioh or MTG or even chess or checkers, there is an additional factor that others can read our body language far better, on average, then we can read theirs, giving them a tactical advantage.

I have evened the playing field by utilizing my strengths that my opponents do not posses: my memory and my sharp analysis.

I would recommend that if you are frustrated by similar issues, that you too find what your unique abilities are in this regard and use them to prevail.

From my decades of RPG playing and refereeing, "Metagaming" means to me that a player is using information from outside the context of the in-game environment to influence the decisions they make for their character, expecially knowledge that is not included in the game's ruleset.

Example: "My character is going to strip naked and stab the dragon in the back and survive, because I know the referee does not like to kill female characters."

Example: "It took me 73 seconds to disassemble and reassemble an M-16 back in 'Nam, so I know that I'll be out for a little over 12 combat rounds if my character tries to clear this jam ... or he could fling a grenade 30 meters and maybe take out one of their troops ... but I could run the 100 meters in 7.3 seconds, so if my character charges the enemy's position maybe he could squeeze off a few rounds with his 9mm ..."

Example: "I've read 'Dracula', and so has the referee ... so as long as my character does not make eye contact ..."

What the OP described seems more like "Min-Maxing", where each advantages is taken to support all other advantages and to minimize the effects of any disadvantages.