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Notes -
Sure, but that doesn't mean everyone has to be in whatever the meta pick is. That makes it boring. I'm still going to try to win in each game, but I'm not going to only be a missile boat or a light speedster just because it's meta if I don't enjoy that.
Competitive or not, unless you're playing for money it's competition for fun. And as per the lore a good chunk of people should be in boring work horse mechs (in my example at least). I might as well say, if a game is based on lore of some kind, you expect your teammates to adhere to that.
But the difference is I don't call them idiots for adhering to boring (in my view) cookie cutter builds. I let them do their thing, even though arguably it also makes the game more boring for me. Because it's their choice.
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