Mistakes

By AtomicFryingPan, in X-Wing

Generally speaking in a competitive environment I am not one to allow a mistake to be corrected. Mistake are part of the game and so is dealing with them. I expect that if I were to make a mistake that I would have to pay for it.

That being said, if the guy across the table from me is new, clearly has no clue how to fly, has hit three rocks by turn two, doesn't know what the dice do, my be 9 years old, then ok. I am not a monster and will help the guy out.

Always crush the 9 year olds!! Lol but I agree and expect to pay for my mistakes.

I think these things are made doubly hard by the fact that X-Wing really has a great community of people who don't want to have the tournament scene start devolving into uber-competitive harsh alpha-gamer type of play. So there is a built in social pressure to keep it friendly, for right or for wrong.

I don't disagree with you. Being strict does not mean being a jerk. But perhaps being strict in such a high profile game fosters the development of a play environment many don't want to be in?

I love the Fly Casual motto, but how do we as a community find a good balance here.

Well, that is the real trouble, isn't it? :) I, unfortunately, just don't know how we find a good balance.

I mean to counter my point, what happens if next year a mistake is made in the finals and the person isn't allowed to do a take-back? Is their opponent going to unfairly look like a jerk to some just for properly enforcing the rules?

Maybe it is best if we just let the players involved decide what they want to do, and we stay out of over-analyzing their choices after the fact, myself included. It happened, one player chose to do what he wanted to do, and let's not dwell on it. If someone wants to be "nice", lets not act like he is doing the "right" or "wrong" thing, and conversely if someone wants to be "strict", well let's not judge if he is doing the "right" or "wrong" thing. I'm as guilty of over-analyzing people's choices as anyone, but that act is probably worse overall for the community than just letting the players decide and just letting it be.

Depends on the other player.

If I am playing a likable guy, I would let them do it, or remind them myself.

If I am playing a guy that is moving his ships a little sketchy, or rolling his dice a little weird, or anything else off-putting, then no, i'm probably not going to let you have an action if you forgot.

I was there talking to his brother about it he said that he had to because everyone would have thought he was ****.

I think in an attempt to "fly casual" we often go to far the other way. Anyone who would of thought less of him for not offering is IMO as much of a poor sport as anyone else.

IMO no one should be expected to let someone fix an mistake. I also don't think we should automatically think better of someone who does. As I said above, beating someone at their best kinda means that they don't get outside help, which is exactly what they're getting if you let them fix a mistake.

Now if Whisper attacks, and the other guy goes to start his next attack and the Whisper player then remembers and asks to cloak before anything else happens. Cool I'd have no issue with it. But clearly the game has progressed well beyond that point.

So I think this all taints the win a lot more then if the other guy won without letting him fix that mistake, if he would of in fact gone on to win.

Hate my phone doesn't let me quote uggh

Edited by AtomicFryingPan

but that act is probably worse overall for the community than just letting the players decide and just letting it be.

Sadly we've come to the point where many people seem to think not letting someone take back a mistake is being a jerk. In one thread, and this was admittedly a outlying case, but someone actually said they'd commit assault if they weren't allowed to take back mistakes.

IMO it's fine to offer, but it should never be expected, and no one should be thought worse of if they don't.

I come form the world of competitive pool. There are no do-overs, asking for any lenience in the case of an error would be unthinkable. At first this struck me as overly harsh but I realized that there are many advantages to this approach:

- It removes resentment due to 'tainted' wins.

- It makes everyone a better player, the more painful mistakes are the more likely you are to focus and play your best.

- It doesn't punish the player who is playing better.

- It doesn't put anyone in the position of making a decision that is very uncomfortable. It is unfair to ask your opponent to forgive your errors, especially in front of a crowd.

It is unfair to ask your opponent to forgive your errors, especially in front of a crowd.

Well put.

I come form the world of competitive pool. There are no do-overs, asking for any lenience in the case of an error would be unthinkable. At first this struck me as overly harsh but I realized that there are many advantages to this approach:

- It removes resentment due to 'tainted' wins.

- It makes everyone a better player, the more painful mistakes are the more likely you are to focus and play your best.

- It doesn't punish the player who is playing better.

- It doesn't put anyone in the position of making a decision that is very uncomfortable. It is unfair to ask your opponent to forgive your errors, especially in front of a crowd.

I would rather beat someone at their best in that kind of scenario.

That's just it, you're not beating them at their best... You're beating them at their best plus your help.

In this situation I don't think so. It as an obvious move. It was a binary choice, cloak or not. I have not seen the game so I am just going by what I read.

Keep it in the perspective of tournaments like nationals. Also Mirrimon if they made a less than optimal maneuver would you tell them then let them change it?

This is a harder case, I guess it depends on how obvious the mistake was. Probably less likely since there are so many options for maneuvers compared to use ACD or not.

I don't expect my opponents to give me the same consideration, but it is important to me to win on my terms.

I come form the world of competitive pool. There are no do-overs, asking for any lenience in the case of an error would be unthinkable. At first this struck me as overly harsh but I realized that there are many advantages to this approach:

- It removes resentment due to 'tainted' wins.

- It makes everyone a better player, the more painful mistakes are the more likely you are to focus and play your best.

- It doesn't punish the player who is playing better.

- It doesn't put anyone in the position of making a decision that is very uncomfortable. It is unfair to ask your opponent to forgive your errors, especially in front of a crowd.

I could get on board with that and like froggies said we can do that and not be a jerk about it.

Isn't that kind of the current approach on rules for 'missed opportunities'? Or is the suggestion something like this: Player A makes a mistake, and Player B is strictly forbidden by the rules from allowing a take-back even if he wanted to? And I don't know how would that be enforced?

Edited by GiraffeandZebra

My generally house rule... as long as it is the same turn or even phase and as long as the "take back" doesn't effect the game, as agreed by the opposing player it is ok.

Something like... 3 activation later "crap I forgot to focus"... opponent: "ok I didn't plan or do anything based on your mistake, fine".

In Nationals final game, I would probably not have let him cloak. It's at the top level at a certain point you have to assume everything is intentional ESPECIALLY a cloak... its not a "forgot" to place a focus token mistake. For all you know the opponent didn't want the extra 2 boost, until they realized something.

In this situation I don't think so. It as an obvious move.

all the more reason to not miss it. Especially when Phantoms quite literately live and die by the cloaking device. Failing to cloak a Phantom is effectively saying "Well I'm done with this ship, you have my permission to blow it up now."

I would say giving your phantom 4 green dice instead of 2 against 2 range 1 TL+focus yt1300 shots is a game changer lol.

I've only flown in one competitive event and the entire day was unenjoyable because of the issues discussed in this forum (part of it was also that I also just jumped straight from the casual environment to a regionals). My first game, my opponent was pushing forward much faster than I was used to, to the point where he skipped my ships or giving me a chance to complete actions, etc., because he was focused on his movements. I just assumed I needed to adjust to competitive play. Well, ends up we're both flying Chewie, and he blows up my Chewie and pushes the game forward to my last ditch Z-95 shot that only gets one hit and not the needed two in before I really think about the simultaneous rule. I fired w/ my last Z and miss, and I'm like oh well you're gonna win, but then I remember wait Chewie was supposed to fire, so he's nice and lets me back the game up, and it's a total cluster. He concedes once I fire Chewie and take out his Falcon; but then decides my Z needs to fire over again too, so I roll the two dice and don't get that last hit I need that time, so I end up losing. Whatever. It was my first game and I was the one who messed up, and we ended up doing it all the "optimal" way in the end, and he really deserved to win, but it was just an unsettling way to end a tense game. I was already kind of on edge because I had thought I won earlier because his Falcon was flying very very close to the edge and appeared to be 2-3 mm off the table after activating a 1-turn, but by the time I got around to that edge of the table, some human "error" had adjusted the base. I was just in over my head, whatever, other dude deserved to win, this was my first tournament -- I thought I'd go on to have fun the rest of the day.

A few rounds later, I'm 1-2 playing a dude at 0-3. It's my turn for my B w/ Advanced Sensors to activate. I'm holding the movement dial in my hand and I say quite clearly "advanced sensors" and then flip the movement dial onto the table face up. I lean over the table and start to take my action, but my opponent protests that I can't take my action now that my movement dial has been revealed (yes, he was, in the strictest sense, correct). I didn't forget to take my action, I didn't forget advanced sensors, I wasn't changing the course of the game at all -- nobody's decisions were impacted on either side -- I merely placed my movement dial on the table face up after indicating my intent to use advanced sensors. But, you know, he was right according to the rules, the card says to take your action before revealing your maneuver dial, so I couldn't do much more than be a jerk to him. And I was a jerk. The whole rest of the match. Because it was obvious that he had enforced the rule just so he could gain an advantage and prevent me from target locking one of his ships at range 1.

I tried to be nice the rest of the day to the rest of my opponents - reminding them about swarm tactics, letting them go back and take forgotten actions when it didn't really affect the game and was just an honest mistake -- but I found that being casual was never reciprocated.

So lesson learned. I'll try not to be a jerk about it, but I'm not going to remind my opponents about the rules and will not expect them to remind me about the rules and will not ask for any do-overs. Just a hard line rule I have to use to keep myself from getting annoyed in the future.

Nobody would have judged that rebel player for refusing, but accepting makes him a pretty **** awesome guy.

I generally solve the ACD problem by saying upfront that I assume you auto-cloak after firing, and generally the player accepts this. I only want them to declare when they're decloaking.

I'm confused why this is a huge issue- clearly, the fallback should (generally) be a safe, assumed decision by the opponent. I always assume someone focused if they didn't declare an action. There's no reason to go completely overboard here. There's mistakes and bad moves (these I won't allow you to fix), and there's just unfortunate blips that everyone can agree on the best course of redress.

The only time I've ever been a little strict is on trying to claim AS after revealing the maneuver dial...you better not be near asteroids/other ships.

I've only flown in one competitive event and the entire day was unenjoyable because of the issues discussed in this forum...

Sounds like both players were the problem here, and are typical of the things that shouldn't happen when flying casual. I'd also say that due to feeling a bit over your head, you let them push you when you didn't need to.

The rules state quite clearly that trying to push someone or force them to go faster is against the sportsmanship rules, and it sounds like the first guy was clearly violating this. You could of I think should of called a TO over to address it. What he was doing is clearly against the rules from what you describe.

The second case, well he was just being a jerk. But again you could of called a TO over and asked for a ruling, in which case I'd assume the TO would of let you take the action since you said you were going to.

I generally solve the ACD problem by saying upfront that I assume you auto-cloak after firing, and generally the player accepts this. I only want them to declare when they're decloaking.

That's fine if you want to make that a rule. But that's not what the rules say, and I for one wouldn't accept such a thing, either as the Phantom player, or as the one playing against them.

I let mistakes slide as long as there's no reason for them NOT to do it. Like, if someone forgets to take an action with their ship, I just tell them to throw a focus token on it. Usually I catch triggers, and say "Action?" after a ship moves and he goes on to the next one, or something similar. But I don't stress it much - people forget the automatic stuff sometimes. If Chewie has no hull damage and R2-D2, I didn't care that he tossed the shield on during the planning phase. If a ship with R2-D2 does a green and he doesn't toss the shield on until later that round, I don't really mind.

That being said, I never ask my opponents to let me do things I forget or mess up on.

I generally solve the ACD problem by saying upfront that I assume you auto-cloak after firing, and generally the player accepts this. I only want them to declare when they're decloaking.

That's fine if you want to make that a rule. But that's not what the rules say, and I for one wouldn't accept such a thing, either as the Phantom player, or as the one playing against them.

Agreed, it's not what the rules say. If the other player rejects it, that's fine with me.

It's just removing a really, really obvious technical requirement. The game doesn't fundamentally change by allowing it. Clearly you intend to recloak 19 out of 20 times if you have an ACD on there.

That being said, I never ask my opponents to let me do things I forget or mess up on.

Agreed. It's not fair to them to put them in an awkward situation. They shouldn't have to make a hard decision if I messed up. To me, this is why I discuss things beforehand- if I can prevent this from even happening, then we never get to this point.

The game doesn't fundamentally change by allowing it.

I would disagree. This allows the other person to no longer think about cloaking or decloaking. For a friendly casual game that may be ok. But even then it leads to sloppy playing because you can stop thinking about a core part of the game.

Scummy, . I don't really understand your first scenario, but the second one, i can bet the guy was quite on his nerves (0-3), so he tried too much to play by the book, but i will be honest, i always try to play my games "by the book" in the first place. It is one of the things i see from people who tend to house rule, and many of the things people allow by their own interpretation of flying casual, are house rules.

I never reveal a dial before i decloaked or did my advanced action. I always take my actions even in pointless circumstances (not at range). And i will always follow the step by step show maneuver move ship, take action, show maneuver move ship, take action, even on casual games (i can allow my opponent to make them however he wants if i feel like it, but i won't do it myself). That way, what happened to you, doesn't happen to me, or atleast, it is less likely to happen to me. If you play with your friends, i understand that you don't mind that much etc, but you tend to get bad habits by doing so. And forgetting actions, or not doing the stuff by the book, are bad habits, specially against people who doesn't know you, and can get suspicious about it, even if it is not ill intended.

I won't tell you were in the wrong there, since you already said the action you were going to be doing, and it is just a pointless nitpick what your opponent did, but if you played the "by the book" you wouldn't have had that problem since the very beginning.

I think the problem with the flying casual for me, is that people take it as fly loose half the time, so misunderstanding happens between both sides, specially if both of them don't know each other.

Edited by DreadStar

I think I should start really telling my friends to remmeber their actions haha, theyve played enough games to know now.

Gladly though, they aren't the only ones. I forget quite a bit too.

Dread star...I dont fault my opponent in the first example at all, only meant it as an illustration of how ridiculous things can get flying "casually" when both players are trying to be accommodating. The second example was how not picky things can get playing by the book. I agree with your points; the whole experience made me realize the importance of playing by the book and my flight buddy and I are definitely harder on each other about it now when at the kitchen table. The one thing I learned is that anytime you start breaking the rules, more than likely somebody will be irked in the end. The same goes if you play by the rules too I suppose. But at least the rules provide some objective guidance that can be resolved by a judge if needed.