That's where the Teacher part comes in.

I'm not going to go and explain the Lanchesters / probability math behind why a turretless Y-wing is worth 16 points, not 18 points, just to set up a casual game. Or likewise how 12 point TIE Fighters or 15 point Refit A-wings are a spectacular value despite being "inaccurate" 2 attack ships. And again, you presume that it is your job to impart all your knowledge on people before they even play a single game, most people I know would much rather just get into the action.

That doesn't change the fact teaching players with houserules is bad form...

You're entitled to your opinion of course, but the only truly bad form is imposing your will and judging people for what other people decide to do in their own home.

... and skews their understanding of the game.

So you have claimed twice now, but this time ignoring my counter point and offering no further justification for your position:

What rule misunderstandings would be hard to relearn? If you're going to a tournament, and you're using a card that has been clearly House Ruled, then read the original rules. How hard is that? The reason why the original card is useless is going to be even more obvious by comparing the two, because the House Ruled version will actually be balanced, so you'll clearly be able to see how the original is lacking. For example:

• TIE Advanced only modification: Equip a free FCS. Cost: -1 for Vader, -2 for all others.
• Expose: At the end of the text add "Perform a free action."

You can look at those house rules and immediately recognize that:

• The TIE Advanced is overcosted and lacks firepower
• Expose is bad because you lose your action

90% of the people I play with are never going to go play in a tournament. It's all just casual games. And those couple that might be interested in going to a tournament are MORE than intelligent enough that they could figure out the balance differences. It's a strategy game. You have to play smart to do well competitively.

TL; DR: It's casual games, in my own house, with people that are never going to play competitively. So why do you care?

I'm not saying don't use houserules. I'm saying that by teaching players with houserules you're changing their understanding of the game and leaving them only able to play with you. That's not judging you. It's not telling you how to play. It's telling you the potential consequences of what you're doing. You're handicapping your friends if they should ever deign to play outside your house. Even if they just hop down to the FLGS to play a game, they're going to look stupid when they realize their favorite 4 Y-wing squad is 8 points over because you housetuled the point cost, or whatever houserules you use.

It's not hard to say, "Ships with 2 dice tend to be bad. Tie fighters and Z95s are cheap enough tmake it work, but other ships need ordnance or weapon mounts to offset the low value." Explained and done. Took about 3 seconds to say. Now your players understand one of the fundamental listbuilding idea they need to follow. It doesn't cover everything, but it works.

And you know they're never going to play competitively how? What if there's another Imdaar Alpha type event they really want to go to. Do they know the real rules well enough to compete or have you hamstrung them? There is more to understanding the game than numbers. Every ship has a feeling of its relative efficiency. Are they going to understand that if you've altered the point costs in every game they've played. They have no metagamae awareness. No understanding of how to build a decent squad in the regular rules. Who are you to control their instincts for how the game works?

Any player who's only played at friends or local clubs will have no metagame awareness. That has absolutely squat to do with houseruling.

Good grief, you make it sound as if he's putting a gun to their heads and threatening to kill them if they don't play his way. Has the thought not occurred that these houserules may be mutually agreed on and/or vary per game?

And you know they're never going to play competitively how? What if there's another Imdaar Alpha type event they really want to go to. Do they know the real rules well enough to compete or have you hamstrung them? There is more to understanding the game than numbers. Every ship has a feeling of its relative efficiency. Are they going to understand that if you've altered the point costs in every game they've played. They have no metagamae awareness. No understanding of how to build a decent squad in the regular rules. Who are you to control their instincts for how the game works?

Any player who's only played at friends or local clubs will have no metagame awareness. That has absolutely squat to do with houseruling.

Good grief, you make it sound as if he's putting a gun to their heads and threatening to kill them if they don't play his way. Has the thought not occurred that these houserules may be mutually agreed on and/or vary per game?

He explicitly said he uses House rules with new players. That bothers me. It leaves them ignorant, and can leave them feeling like idiots later.

And I don't know about you, but most of the gamers I know can pick up on what's most effective whether they play in tournaments or not, so long as they understand the game. A good teacher getting people into the game teaches them about the metagame along the way so they learn to pick up on what is and isn't good, so that everyone has an even understanding of what is going on.

Players taught on houserules cannot gain an understanding of the game the rest of us play. Teaching them in a way that enforces that is unfair to them.

I am just having fun with ya. Caw-Blade was terrible for an entire season. I did manage to trade my cardboard addiction to plastic though. This thread reminds me of so many of the forum topics from Magic. This deck or card is broken, WOC please fix it! We will all find out very shortly where the new meta is by August 15th the first flight of nationals. Everything will be falling into place by then and we will see how much impact the Phantom has. Due to it's popularity the phantom will be put through the gauntlet very fast.

I am actually selling off my remaining magic cards right now to pay for Wave 4, 5, and Rebel aces...I found them when we moved. Trade one hobby for another. Should be almost a perfect trade across.

I am just having fun with ya. Caw-Blade was terrible for an entire season. I did manage to trade my cardboard addiction to plastic though. This thread reminds me of so many of the forum topics from Magic. This deck or card is broken, WOC please fix it! We will all find out very shortly where the new meta is by August 15th the first flight of nationals. Everything will be falling into place by then and we will see how much impact the Phantom has. Due to it's popularity the phantom will be put through the gauntlet very fast.

I am actually selling off my remaining magic cards right now to pay for Wave 4, 5, and Rebel aces...I found them when we moved. Trade one hobby for another. Should be almost a perfect trade across.

Same will apply to someone making up one sided house rules that literally breaks the game.

I don't care so long as they keep it in their house.

Just so long as that is where it stays,and if they teach a new player, I hope they teach them the real rules.

I agree. There are certainly different kinds of house rules, and while I'm not going to judge someone for having custom rules "for funzies" like barrel rolling X-wings, I can see how that could be confusing later. But what I'm talking about are specific balance fixes to known issues with FFG's game out of the box.

And you know they're never going to play competitively how? What if there's another Imdaar Alpha type event they really want to go to. Do they know the real rules well enough to compete or have you hamstrung them?

They would need to buy some ships, or else borrow some from me before they could play in a tournament. If they went down this route I would gladly go over everything again, give some advice, and refresh exactly why the House Rules were in place. It's a non-issue.

And even if they did play, like I said, I'm not worried about them being able to pick up the game at a deeper level. These are folks with decades of experience in strategy games, and typically have degrees in technical fields (engineering, computer science, etc).

Nobody has any meta game awareness unless they play in tournaments, or play on Vassal, or reads the Regional Reports. House Rules are orthogonal to this issue.

You presume too much, have affirmed an absolute negative in a philosophical argument, and have essentially just called everyone I played with an idiot for not being able to figure out the rules. This does not merit a reply.

Please explain to me how this could actually happen?

Also, I am aware of how teaching works, I taught at University for a semester to cover for my adviser who was on sabbatical.

Has the thought not occurred that these houserules may be mutually agreed on and/or vary per game?

IME when you have a group of people play fairly exclusively with only that group, and use house rules many members of the group may not even be aware that they aren't playing with the official rules.

So teaching people to play by the house rules, without explaining why the change is made, is a bad idea. Even if they never go play in a tourney or something they still don't know the real rules. This really limits their options greatly, because now they can't really play outside their group.

Oh, did he say he actually teaches new players?

**** man that's Terrible.

I feel bad for those players. I just assumed he may, but hoped that he would start off with the real rules first, then adapt them into the house rules.

Ya, that is pretty bad though. Teaching sometime how to play a one sided broken game. Don't see how that is very fun.

I can only assume that if you were to make such adjustments that you're probably not very good, and making one faction one sided is giving someone an advantage. Using the "keeping it with that movies " sounds like an excuse. Ffg has already did that quite well and if someone feels the need to change the game because they think it should work in a different way then had a total different aspectof the movies over the majority I would say.

They probably don't realize that in any game there is a need for balance, and changing things around breaks that balance. Which I find ffg dies do an excellent job. Maybe not perfect, but it's pretty **** good

Without an understanding of the real rules they cannot understand the houserules well enough to know why they are useful or needed or what have you.

Please stop calling my friends stupid, they are far more intelligent than you are making them out to be.

FYI I only mention the House Rules if after they build a list it includes a card / ship / pilot that is known to be broken.

Like TIE Advanced, Expose, Fel's Wrath, etc. Let them fly with it for a casual game but make it balanced.

Edit: also A-wing Refit, which is still a House Rule since it hasn't been released yet and is therefore not tournament legal.

I think it's because in the initial post on houseruling, it was worded as if FFG did the wrong thing and houserules were the only way to play the game right.

That's exactly my point. FFG clearly got the cost wrong for a couple of ships, and some cards / abilities are not useful, and House Rules are the only way for them to be balanced until they issue a fix (like Refit for the A-wing), or change card text (like Expose, which they haven't done).

My point below was simply that out-of-box balance is already broken to some extent.

Largely because house rules tend to be a great way to build up bad habits.

...

This isn't D&D. It isn't an RPG, it's a strategy game. A very well balanced and thematic strategy game.

The part about the game being balanced is somewhat debatable. The top 4 PILOTS see 25% more use than the bottom 7 out of 12 SHIPS combined!

There are also quite a few skills and abilities that are fairly useless. House Rules are very good for newbies in casual games, otherwise they get heavily punished for choosing something that's overcosted. It's also nice to be able to use most of the ships / abilities in the game and not feel like you're handicapping yourself.

Same will apply to someone making up one sided house rules that literally breaks the game.

I don't care so long as they keep it in their house.

Just so long as that is where it stays,and if they teach a new player, I hope they teach them the real rules.

I agree. There are certainly different kinds of house rules, and while I'm not going to judge someone for having custom rules "for funzies" like barrel rolling X-wings, I can see how that could be confusing later. But what I'm talking about are specific balance fixes to known issues with FFG's game out of the box.

And you know they're never going to play competitively how? What if there's another Imdaar Alpha type event they really want to go to. Do they know the real rules well enough to compete or have you hamstrung them?

They would need to buy some ships, or else borrow some from me before they could play in a tournament. If they went down this route I would gladly go over everything again, give some advice, and refresh exactly why the House Rules were in place. It's a non-issue.

And even if they did play, like I said, I'm not worried about them being able to pick up the game at a deeper level. These are folks with decades of experience in strategy games, and typically have degrees in technical fields (engineering, computer science, etc).

Every ship has a feeling of its relative efficiency. Are they going to understand that if you've altered the point costs in every game they've played.

Yes, as stated above, they clearly will. For example, if they have experience with playing several TIE Advanced (with -2 cost and +FCS), and it worked out OK but not great, then they're going to look at the non-house rule baseline and say "well that sucks, I'm staying away from that ship!"

They have no metagamae awareness.

No understanding of how to build a decent squad in the regular rules.

Nobody has any meta game awareness unless they play in tournaments, or play on Vassal, or reads the Regional Reports. House Rules are orthogonal to this issue.

You presume too much, have affirmed an absolute negative in a philosophical argument, and have essentially just called everyone I played with an idiot for not being able to figure out the rules. This does not merit a reply.

I'm saying that by teaching players with houserules you're changing their understanding of the game and leaving them only able to play with you.

Well, right now they can only play with me because I'm the only one who has any ships.

Whether they can play intelligently on their own is a separate issue and any half-intelligent person is going to be able to figure it out. I would argue that the converse is actually true, they see exactly why something is broken, so they know to avoid it. Or even more simply: don't use anything that is House Ruled.

Even if they just hop down to the FLGS to play a game, they're going to look stupid when they realize their favorite 4 Y-wing squad is 8 points over because you housetuled the point cost, or whatever houserules you use.

It's not hard to say, "Ships with 2 dice tend to be bad. Tie fighters and Z95s are cheap enough tmake it work, but other ships need ordnance or weapon mounts to offset the low value." Explained and done. Took about 3 seconds to say. Now your players understand one of the fundamental listbuilding idea they need to follow. It doesn't cover everything, but it works.

Please explain to me how this could actually happen?

Also, I am aware of how teaching works, I taught at University for a semester to cover for my adviser who was on sabbatical.

Intelligent people are taught wrong things all the time and think they are right. Maybe he gets into an argument. Maybe he just miscounts his list because he's played it a dozen times before and gets accused of cheating.

All I'm saying is teach the real rules first. Help your students understand the game as its designed.

Y-wings were designed to be run with turrets. They are costed to allow for this.

A-wings look like they should perform better than they do. They're overcost and the overcost of the Advanced comes from a flawed understanding of agility that took time to understand. These will be addressed eventually. In games without focus fire the Advanced and A-wing fare much much better.

That doesn't mean you need houserules. It means FFG will find a way overtime to balance them.

Much like the world at large, facing the game as is makes smarter better players than showing them your own little version of utopia.(I don't mean to make you sound likr an X-wing cult leader. But on some levels its what's going on.)

This game is remarkably balanced. I can't imagine finding any ship so useless it needs extra rules to hit the field in casual play. Even the Advanced and ORS are fun to fly.

Without an understanding of the real rules they cannot understand the houserules well enough to know why they are useful or needed or what have you.

Please stop calling my friends stupid, they are far more intelligent than you are making them out to be.

Oh, did he say he actually teaches new players?

I have no idea, I wasn't really commenting on what MajorJuggler does, just my opinion about playing house rules in a group like that, it can lead to people not being able to play the game outside that group.

You'll know when your casual buddies have attained some level of game mastery when they ask you why the Tie advanced sucks compared to the other ships or why the Awing costs so much for a 2 att die ship.

The houserules only make sense when players know the actual rules already. Otherwise they aren't houserules they are THE rules.

Oh... and can we make new topics for discussions at this point. This thread is absolutely off the rails at this point. I'll even do the work if needed.

Buddy X goes off to college or moves away or sees the tournament and buys what he needs to compete. He miss understands the game. He buys ships. He never learned to play the game the same as normal. He looks like an idiot when he realizes what's going on.

Intelligent people are taught wrong things all the time and think they are right.

I still don't see the issue. I'm specifically warning players that certain ships are poor, so don't use them competitively. THAT IS WHY WE ARE HOUSE RULING THEM, AND HERE IS WHY:

[insert house rule here to make card balanced]

I fail to see how after explaining why the House Rule makes the ship balanced, and why the vanilla version is no good, and then further backing that up with in-game experience (during casual play, "see, here we are using the House Rule to gain a TL from the free FCS...") that they would then suddenly forget that they were using House Rules on a ship the whole time. I'm in fact arguing that the opposite will be true: they will have a better understanding for mechanically why something underperforms as vanilla, since they will have a balanced version to clearly compare against.

So which is it? Are you agreeing that there are a non trivial amount of unbalanced ships / cards / abilities, or not?

I'm not. I'm calling them taught in ignorance. There's a huge difference. If they try to use a bad ship tell them its bad, and why its bad. Not, Oh that ship has special rule x to make it good.

Thankfully you are flat-out-wrong. You have absolutely no idea how I teach the game, despite your presumptions otherwise, and even my FYI above. Also, your 3rd and 4th sentences are not mutually exclusive.

Oh... and can we make new topics for discussions at this point. This thread is absolutely off the rails at this point. I'll even do the work if needed.

On a related note, it will be interesting if in a year people feel inclined to House Rule the Phantom the other way, because it turns out too powerful!

Oh... and can we make new topics for discussions at this point. This thread is absolutely off the rails at this point. I'll even do the work if needed.

On a related note, it will be interesting if in a year people feel inclined to House Rule the Phantom the other way, because it turns out too powerful!

The Phantom is not over powered. It seems well balanced. Changes the game up some which is never a bad thing

Honestly Juggler, I wouldn't have rebalanced the A-Wing, as it is a capable ship. Underpowered, but capable. The Advanced is the only ship that needs help, and I could care less if some pilots or cards are useless in standard play. There will always be useless things, but nothing in the game is OP to the point it breaks things. That's the definition of balance. Nothing broken, but enough things below average to allow experienced players to face weaker players on an even level and create combo fodder.

No I make it sound like he's a parent raising kids in ignorance. Without an understanding of the real rules they cannot understand the houserules well enough to know why they are useful or needed or what have you.

Anyone with a working brain can read the cards. If the new guys sees the card and sees the four painted on the Phantom, the first thing he'll do is "why do we give it only four attack" Juggler gives his reason, new player goes "Oh." and the game resumes.

Really, houserules are not the drastic capping of knees you make them out to be. And if they do go out and play "for reals" at tournaments? Well, they'll learn in one or two games. If they haven't already by then, since, you know, houserules do not prevent people from reading rulebooks.

No I make it sound like he's a parent raising kids in ignorance. Without an understanding of the real rules they cannot understand the houserules well enough to know why they are useful or needed or what have you.

Anyone with a working brain can read the cards. If the new guys sees the card and sees the four painted on the Phantom, the first thing he'll do is "why do we give it only four attack" Juggler gives his reason, new player goes "Oh." and the game resumes.

Really, houserules are not the drastic capping of knees you make them out to be. And if they do go out and play "for reals" at tournaments? Well, they'll learn in one or two games. If they haven't already by then, since, you know, houserules do not prevent people from reading rulebooks.

Being good at a game, developing it as a skill, requires playing it with the standard rules. Yes, they can know what the numbers mean on an academic level. That doesn't mean they understand the difference in ship performance between an 18 point Y-Wing and a 16 Point Y-Wing actually is. Maybe its just me, but if I got taught a game with House Rules I'd be annoyed as hell and want to learn the real game first.

Funny thing really, most house rules are minor variants on the standard rule set. One or two attack changes and a barrel roll on the Falcon still teaches everyone to play by 99% of the standard rules.

Again, you're painting a few houserules as if they handicap players forever, while all it takes is a game, maybe two, for Juggler's players to adjust to the usual rules. Hell, wave 4 is going to have far more impact on people's perception of the game than Juggler's houserules.

Being good at a game, developing it as a skill, requires playing it with the standard rules. Yes, they can know what the numbers mean on an academic level. That doesn't mean they understand the difference in ship performance between an 18 point Y-Wing and a 16 Point Y-Wing actually is. Maybe its just me, but if I got taught a game with House Rules I'd be annoyed as hell and want to learn the real game first.

Funny thing really, most house rules are minor variants on the standard rule set. One or two attack changes and a barrel roll on the Falcon still teaches everyone to play by 99% of the standard rules.

Again, you're painting a few houserules as if they handicap players forever, while all it takes is a game, maybe two, for Juggler's players to adjust to the usual rules. Hell, wave 4 is going to have far more impact on people's perception of the game than Juggler's houserules.

If your going to introduce new players then teaching them the real rules of the game would make more sense. Then explain as to why you feel the need to change things around.

This can also let the new players understand and hopefully not confuse them. Also if they play with the real rules maybe they won't like the house rules. Instead of them being told this is how you play.

Ffg play tests this game. Over time some ships lose their appeal im sure but it's still not broken, and ffg will do something like they are doing with the rebel aces if they feel a fix is needed

To me adding, subtracting attack /defense value,adding actions to ships that don't have them, and increasing /decreasing costs of ships must really break the game, and I really can't see how this would be fun. Unless I guess you don't mind winning knowing that what your doing is probably broken. Otherwise ffg would have already done this.

Again I'd hate to be those players that decide to play in competitive events. Ya yout can read a card,but habits can be hard to break if that is your norm.

Plus if they decide to get their own pieces and teach new players, they will probably adopt those house rules and make their own. Teaching new players a game totally different than ffg intended which again if those players decide to play competitive, or teach, then the broken rules continues on.

In chronological order: math, almost a year's worth of tournament results, and FFG's upcoming Rebel Aces pack all provide evidence that the A-wing is overcosted. It's obviously not as a bad as the TIE Advanced, but nothing is. The TIE Advanced is overcosted by about 4 points relative to a TIE Fighter.

Related to wave 4, the E-wing looks like it is almost certainly overcosted by a point or 2, and the math on that ship should be far more certain since it has no unique capabilities, but that's a different topic.

In any event, there is a very good case that the math can in fact predict how well a ship will do. In the context of the TIE Phantom, its cloak action is so different from anything in the game so far, that its impossible to say much about it aside from its baseline jousting value. But the math shows that with ACD always on, the jousting value is actually really, really good. You will be stuck spending points on PS bid, but its ability to arc-dodge so well is really going to push the elites over the top.

Wow, this thread makes me feel like a genius now. Apparently you have to be a Mensa member to read the core rulebook and cards.