The more information that is present, the meta game should stabilize faster and more efficiently. Hopefully the Regionals thread is helpful in this regard. There is a lot of stuff in wave 4 to digest.

I just figured out that you're a logical positivist, and more importantly, that the entailments of that stance underly almost all of our modeling disagreements. This makes me happy, although I suspect no one else cares.

No, I care, but before you explain more about how you're MJ's antithesis in this regard, I'm not sure that I'm going to understand you. (That is, unless I start wading into all your old debates, for which I simply don't have enough time.)

By 'logical positivist' do you mean the assumption that agents are rational with full-to-perfect information? Or, do you mean the assumption that the agents and structures of the game can be meaningfully analyzed by applying the scientific method? The former seems to relate to MJ's assumption that his analyses will help agents have that full-to-perfect information, whereas the notion that his thread could help to achieve that would undermine the assumption to begin with.

I mean it more generally, actually*. One possible summary of logical positivism is that it considers meaningful knowledge to be composed of those statements which can be demonstrated to align with observed properties of reality; the set of all possible such statements composes objective reality.

I'm a post-positivist, which means I accept that objective reality is out there somewhere, but that the bias inherent in the process of observation limits our ability to determine its nature. Among other implications, that means there are statements which appear to align with perceived reality, but do not reflect a deeper objective truth--a thing can appear to be true without actually being congruent with reality.

So with respect to MJ's modeling, he sees that it provides a reasonably good summary of the current metagame and is satisfied that he has done a good job--it works, so for him that's a sufficient demonstration that it's true. I see the potential for problems in its foundational assumptions, and remain concerned that it may be wrong despite superficial alignment with the current metagame--it works, but that's not a sufficient standard to demonstrate its quality.

What led me to the realization was exactly what you implied a bit upthread: MJ sees himself as cataloging the metagame from outside. The metagame is something he's just taking notes and providing information about, and that's very positivist--the experimenter standing entirely apart from the phenomenon he's observing. By contrast, I see the metagame as the result of a continual process of (social) construction, and providing information about its current state (particularly information that wasn't easily accessible before Rakky Wistol and MJ started that set of projects) is probably having an effect on the process itself.

(*I don't mean to over-explain things with which you might be familiar, but not everyone is, so apologies in advance if you've heard this all before.

Also, I'm not a philosopher, although my field requires a working knowledge of the philosophy of science. Consider this my summary, rather than an objective one, and inclusive of my biases and errors. Which, come to think of it, is a very post-positivist thing to say.)

Coming back to local maxima (because I was away from the thread for a bit), thanks MajorJuggler for that graphic and the explanation!

I think that "performance" of any squadron in X-Wing isn't just one value, but really depends on what squadron it is facing. Performance of Phantoms against squadrons that aren't prepared to meet Phantoms is absolutely stellar. It doesn't really matter whether it's a good Phantom squadron or a sucky one - it'll often win against a squadron and pilot that don't know how to handle a Phantom when they're facing it.

Similarly, as long as Phantom players aren't really used to handling Falcons, it doesn't matter whether they're facing a good Falcon squadron or one that just happens to be a Falcon squadron in the first place; the Falcon squadron will probably win.

What we might be seeing (and this is just a theory): As long as enough players bring Phantoms against players who aren't prepared to face Phantoms, and players who know there will be Phantoms bring Falcons to face them, then Phantoms and Falcons will dominate the rankings. Because the Phantoms eliminate those who aren't prepared to face Phantoms, and Falcons will benefit from their overall strength and the fact that they'll face a higher percentage of Phantoms in the higher rankings.

So once people figure out counters to the Falcons, and then counters to those counters, and a varied and prepared playing field is around, then it will start to matter whether a Falcon list is any good or not. It won't just be "any Falcon list", but "a particularly good Falcon list" as opposed to "just another Falcon, I know how to handle those despite the bad matchup". So then we'll have local maxima for Falcon lists (that also handle Swarms well), and Phantom lists (that also handle Falcons well), and 3-4 rebel lists (that also handle Phantoms well). And then, we'll have a somewhat stable meta, and not something that, as is the case now, changes from weekend to weekend.

And then, we'll get Rebel Aces and Wave 5

(I really hope there aren't any "big max" thingies - as that would mean that one squad would dominate them all, and everybody who wants to stand a chance would need to play that squad. Me no like.)

Words like things are heretofore hitherto whereas purple monkey dishwasher.

On a side note, if small elite squads become a staple, does that make many low-agi ships more viable as they are less likely to get targeted 4-6 times a round?

I also want to point out, that at these big 60-70 person regionals, yes there are 10 falcon builds and 6 phantoms or w/e and they get the spotlight, but its not like they are 40 of the lists in the field. More like 15-20%. So it's not like it is all anyone is playing so it wins by default. However they dominate the top 8/top16 for a reason.

As you mention, examining tournament winners does not capture the entire field, but at the Plano regional, I would estimate that named Falcon builds constituted about 35% to 40% of participants. Phantoms were similarly (though less significantly) over-represented, but only a handful of those placed near the top. I only recall seeing one list that resembled a traditional TIE swarm and one Wave 3 type 4-Rebel build, though others could have escaped my attention. I think this supports Vorpal Sword's comment about Major Juggler's thread driving the meta.

On a side note, if small elite squads become a staple, does that make many low-agi ships more viable as they are less likely to get targeted 4-6 times a round?

Low-Agility ships have the advantage of not particularly caring how hard their opponents hit, because they're relatively unlikely to dodge damage anyway: at Range 2, getting slapped by eight dice distributed across two HLCs has about the same effect as the same eight dice distributed across four TIE Fighters. The tipping point used to be that it was a lot cheaper to get more TIE Fighters than it was to get another HLC, but I'm not sure that points to a relative increase in the survivability of low-Agility ships--just a difference in how the damage will be packaged when it arrives.

EDIT:

...I think this supports Vorpal Sword's comment about Major Juggler's thread driving the meta.

Just to clarify--I still think MJ's aggregation of Regionals results is important and beneficial for the community. I think people misinterpret it as "this is the exhaustive set of lists that work right now" rather than "this is a fuzzy sample of what a lot of people think will work right now", but that's not the fault of the person doing the hard work.

Ran a local 16-player event at my FLGS yesterday. Was expecting lots of Phantoms and Falcons clogging up the scene, but there were two Phantoms (both Echo) and one Falcon in 16 builds. The tournament seemed to be dominated by swarms (mostly Rebel). I was very surprised.

I feel compelled to point out that the most successful "Phantom" builds include Whisper or Echo plus 4 or 5 TIEs. This makes them a variant of the TIE Swarm / Mini Swarm, with a named Phantom replacing Howlrunner. So you aren't seeing the disappearance of the TIE Swarm so much as an evolution including Phantoms rather than Howlrunner.

The TIE Swarm is alive and well. The extreme preponderance of Falcons (and their success) is something new. The near complete disappearance of low-PS rebel builds is also new.

But I think what little impact the Regionals thread has on the meta will be positive overall.

Positive in what regard? Now, I totally dig what you do, but I'm a nerd. However, reading your threads lets me know what the meta is, because without them I wouldn't have the first clue.

There are lots of positives, you can pick any one of them

• It is well received and useful for the community.
• It should help the meta "shake out" faster than it would in localized vacuums.
• Regionals, Nationals, and Worlds represent the pinnacle of X-wing gaming, in that order*. These games are the standard for top-level X-wing play, and the players and builds that win at Premier Events are "King of the Hill" until they are dethroned by the ever-changing meta. We now have a history of results recorded for all time. It will make some future X-Wing historian happy with the treasure trove of data.
• I get to run statistics on everything, which I think is fun. Next time I'm recording all the squad list results in a text file and will write a script to parse and compile the statistics automatically. It takes too long to fill out fields in Excel manually.

* And VASSAL as well, although I don't know where exactly it fits within that hierarchy.

I mean it more generally, actually*. One possible summary of logical positivism is that it considers meaningful knowledge to be composed of those statements which can be demonstrated to align with observed properties of reality; the set of all possible such statements composes objective reality.

[...]

What led me to the realization was exactly what you implied a bit upthread: MJ sees himself as cataloging the metagame from outside. The metagame is something he's just taking notes and providing information about, and that's very positivist--the experimenter standing entirely apart from the phenomenon he's observing. By contrast, I see the metagame as the result of a continual process of (social) construction, and providing information about its current state (particularly information that wasn't easily accessible before Rakky Wistol and MJ started that set of projects) is probably having an effect on the process itself.

Yes, I understand this perfectly. I teach this stuff at a rudimentary level. Being a pragmatist, I go with the 'is this sufficiently useful for understanding?' criterion. While they're a inherent part of the process, I'm not sure that the ontological, epistemological, and methodological debates really get us anywhere particularly useful. Also, the more esoteric and metaphysical they get, the more they make my head hurt.

I want to introduce a derivative of Godwin's Law: As an ontological discussion grows longer, the probability of a reference to Jürgen Habermas or Karl Popper approaches 1.

I agree with you that MJ's thread are quite an important part of the developmental process of 'the meta'. He is not the uninvolved observer. Given that he hopes that the Regionals thread will be useful, I trust that he doesn't either.

Just to clarify--I still think MJ's aggregation of Regionals results is important and beneficial for the community. I think people misinterpret it as "this is the exhaustive set of lists that work right now" rather than "this is a fuzzy sample of what a lot of people think will work right now", but that's not the fault of the person doing the hard work.

I agree with this. Most people don't play at the Regionals level. I know that I sure don't. In fact, I'm starting to be a little bored with the 6a100pntDM paradigm, which this fascination with tournaments, stats, results, efficiencies, etc. reconstructs s being important. Nevertheless, I realize that this is what people play - I think by default, but maybe by authentic preference. As a result, it's more than likely the type of play that I'll be stuck doing more of, rather than more narrative-driven games which would be my preferred paradigm.

I agree with you that MJ's thread are quite an important part of the developmental process of 'the meta'. He is not the uninvolved observer. Given that he hopes that the Regionals thread will be useful, I trust that he doesn't either.

I hope to be more involved next year by actually playing at a Regionals!

In related news, more walls at our new place are painted, and the Man Cave is now being populated by A/V equipment and speakers.... buwhahaha! (X-wing is fun, but so is finally settling into a new place).

On a more serious note, yeah, it's essentially the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle with a one-week delay. Reporting the results affects what people decide to bring next week.

(I really hope there aren't any "big max" thingies - as that would mean that one squad would dominate them all, and everybody who wants to stand a chance would need to play that squad. Me no like.)

Same here. I guess the question is: how deep are the toughs between the maximas, how many local maximas we have, and how much variation there is in the performance of the local maxima and El Maxima Grande.

I'm curious about MJ's prognosis of the Z-Swarm as the Big-Max-to-be. Is he calling it or making it?

(I really hope there aren't any "big max" thingies - as that would mean that one squad would dominate them all, and everybody who wants to stand a chance would need to play that squad. Me no like.)

Same here. I guess the question is: how deep are the toughs between the maximas, how many local maximas we have, and how much variation there is in the performance of the local maxima and El Maxima Grande.

I'm curious about MJ's prognosis of the Z-Swarm as the Big-Max-to-be. Is he calling it or making it?

I'm not calling that a pure Z-swarm will be dominant, but rather that the Z-95 itself is so cost efficient that it makes a variety of builds that much better. Falcon + Z-95s has been the obvious example in Regionals, with some of the efficiency increases also coming from C-3P0 and Predator. A standard 7 TIE Swarm should still be favored against Falcon + support, but not by nearly as much as it used to.

Once people start bringing TIE Swarms again rather than trying out shiny new Phantoms, we will see where the meta will settle. And then wave 5 will come.

I also want to point out, that at these big 60-70 person regionals, yes there are 10 falcon builds and 6 phantoms or w/e and they get the spotlight, but its not like they are 40 of the lists in the field. More like 15-20%. So it's not like it is all anyone is playing so it wins by default. However they dominate the top 8/top16 for a reason.

As you mention, examining tournament winners does not capture the entire field, but at the Plano regional, I would estimate that named Falcon builds constituted about 35% to 40% of participants. Phantoms were similarly (though less significantly) over-represented, but only a handful of those placed near the top. I only recall seeing one list that resembled a traditional TIE swarm and one Wave 3 type 4-Rebel build, though others could have escaped my attention. I think this supports Vorpal Sword's comment about Major Juggler's thread driving the meta.

Ya might be the case at at least one of the big events, but it really was more in the 15-20% range of the field for BOTH falcons and phantoms in Atlanta. Hell I saw 4 corran horns, and only one was a falcon build. You had 3 tie swarms of sorts without phantoms, and a soontir fel mini swarm, a fair number of shuttles and firesprays etc. So maybe the area is just more "ingorant" of the forums or maybe they were less influenced by it. But the falcons still dominated, and I think once the phantoms were knocked down early a couple pegs by the falcons, the finished 3-3 ish by beating up on misc. stuff.

Is the current theory that Rebel Aces will be released before or after Nationals? Or During? I suppose it is probably too close for before...

That'd make a nice Meta shift. Maybe I just want enhanced scopes on some shuttles...

On another note, I am of the mind that the B Wing fits nicely into the Meta. It can't be 1 shot by a Phantom, can barrel roll to make the Phantom's dial choice more difficult, and has 3/4 dice attacks for putting damage through the 4 agility. It is also a great ship against Falcons, reducing the effectiveness of Gunner/Luke, and the has the option for FCS, which is just awesome against big ships. Not to mention, less swarms means less tough matchups.

This is from personal experience AND looking through some of the Regional results. A few choice B Wing squads have slipped their way to the top, and should not go unnoticed.

Plot twist: there is no defined meta at this point.

Find a new meta.. Because yours is obviously broken.