They could institue a rule such as "If you reveal a maneuver that would result in you ship bumping and not moving, then the opponent gets to choose your maneuver for you." Since space ships (other than shuttle) are not intened to be stationary.

This rule could make blocking much more interesting as a tactic also. Block your opponents movement and get to choose his maneuver for him. Of course that might make blocking too good, so the rule could only apply to hitting you own ships and getting null movement.

I would be in favor of something like this, if you bump yourself roll and attack die and on a hit (or whatever dice facing FFG would feel appropriate) each ship suffers 1 damage

Just to make it clear once again I said "Bump yourself" so if you are blocked both ships are still fine (although this could be added IF blocking is seen as a problem)

Side note, Assault Missiles (and the Imperial EPT that has a similar effect) would be a fairly good way to prevent this (or at least make them consider whether it is worth the risk, if you stay clumped up I will start raining AoE damage on you. (Unfortunately those new Ion Torpedoes would be useless because they would still be doing the 1forwards)

They both willfully entered into a game of cat and mouse (err. cat and sloth), and the phantom player got outplayed in the end.

Watching his opponent blank 7 green dice is "outplaying" your opponent? Is that the standard we use now to define "skill" at X-wing?

I guess not letting your opponent reroll blank green dice isn't flying casual, jeez what an elitist win at all cost tournament jerk...

That was the first time Richard used a fortress tactic the entire tournament. But since he knew that Whisper would run circles around his build, he probably thought this was the best tactic to win.

That's no excuse for playing like a d*ck

PLaying within the 'Spirit of the game' is an area with shades of grey. What one player considers fair and within the rules another player can consider poor sportsmanship.

There are no points awarded in X-Wing for playing with good sportsmanship. It is encouraged at competitive events that players use good sportsmanship but this also has shades of grey. Playing to win is going to bring out the best and worst of players.

The Fly Casual mantra is not taken up by everyone. I see two camps in this. If the rules allow it, then its fine versus play the game within the spirit of the game using good sportsmanship at all times.

They both willfully entered into a game of cat and mouse (err. cat and sloth), and the phantom player got outplayed in the end.

Watching his opponent blank 7 green dice is "outplaying" your opponent? Is that the standard we use now to define "skill" at X-wing?

I guess not letting your opponent reroll blank green dice isn't flying casual, jeez what an elitist win at all cost tournament jerk...

:-)

My understanding is that this was a specific tactic against a Phantom build. Using traditional tactics probably limits his chances greatly, so he adapted. It's not great-looking, aesthetically, but the outrage is misplaced. He is in a win or go home scenario; is he supposed to line up like the Red Coats under some misguided ethos of "fair play" or is he allowed to use legal moves to try to win? The outrage is way worse than the "crime" IMO.

Yeah, on one hand I think stuff like this is pretty lame, but on the other hand I can almost see it as a valid reaction to the "hard counter" or "rock/scissor/paper" meta that FFG has allowed to develop.

My understanding is that this was a specific tactic against a Phantom build. Using traditional tactics probably limits his chances greatly, so he adapted. It's not great-looking, aesthetically, but the outrage is misplaced. He is in a win or go home scenario; is he supposed to line up like the Red Coats under some misguided ethos of "fair play" or is he allowed to use legal moves to try to win? The outrage is way worse than the "crime" IMO.

Yeah, on one hand I think stuff like this is pretty lame, but on the other hand I can almost see it as a valid reaction to the "hard counter" or "rock/scissor/paper" meta that FFG has allowed to develop.

Single elimination tournament and you're up against a bad match up with that phantom. What he did was probably the best call to make to win the match which at the top 16 should be high on the priority list.

Personally I want to experiment at home with that bumping gives a stress token to both be bumper and the bumpee. Action loss and effect into the next round of movement.

I might have to make d the rules that if bumped a ship can still perform a red manuever since his movement dial was already down. (But now double stress would occur one for bump one for red manuever.)

In terms of the game how it is though, legal move and part of the ya spoof sportsmanship in my opinion but completely with his right. He'll have action loss so find the least deadly field of fire and through dice at him. Just like a double falcon fortress is beat by only attacking one at a time.

Legitimate tactic. Brilliant application. Those pouting on this board are not good sports.

Side note, Assault Missiles (and the Imperial EPT that has a similar effect) would be a fairly good way to prevent this...

It would, however it would also limit your squad selection to ships which are capable of taking said Missiles in the first place. I don't think advocating taking a particular secondary weapon as a way with dealing with a very particular scenario is a very effective answer, to be honest.

PLaying within the 'Spirit of the game' is an area with shades of grey. What one player considers fair and within the rules another player can consider poor sportsmanship.

Only up to a point - if you aren't prepared to dogfight in a dogfighting game then the question of sportsmanship is cut and dried

They both willfully entered into a game of cat and mouse (err. cat and sloth), and the phantom player got outplayed in the end.

Watching his opponent blank 7 green dice is "outplaying" your opponent? Is that the standard we use now to define "skill" at X-wing?

Yes, if the tie fighter player was perceptive, he would of prevented his ties from getting shot at at all. My understanding is he had initiative and would have one the game if the game ended with no shots fired. Tie fighters are fragile and commonly one or two shot - there's nothing out of the ordinary about it dying to a single round of shooting.

And FTS, this isn't an infinite loop. Hell, this isn't even considered a looping of effects.

So I guess you're saying that the Rebel player couldn't stay in that position forever if he wanted to?

It's an infinite movement loop. Once it's in place, each ship can choose ...

It is neither a loop nor infinite. An infinite loop is a series of game effects that occur automatically and have no possible end condition.

Having both

"Whenever you gain a focus token, also gain an evade token"

"Whenever you gain an evade token, also gain a focus token"

on the same ship would cause an infinite loop as soon as it gained one of the tokens. The game rules would start triggering back and forth (looping) and there is no end condition so it continues forever without some clause to force it to stop (the infinite loop rule)

If a player can choose to end the sequence by doing something else, it is NOT infinite. If it doesn't result in the rules recursing back and forth through the same effects it is not a loop.

Mechanically this is no different than a ship performing 1-turns continuously and flying in a circle. The player can choose to do that forever as well, doesn't make it an infinite loop.

It's a perfectly fine and valid tactic, and I don't consider it unsportsmanlike. It's boring, yes, but legitimate. In the game that everyone is getting a huff about, the other player was equally stalling in his own way. It's my understanding he had plenty of time to go over there and blow the fortress up. They both willfully entered into a game of cat and mouse (err. cat and sloth), and the phantom player got outplayed in the end.

If the fortress player was stalling actual time, say taking 10 minutes to assign his dials the same maneuvers, then yes that would be unsportsmanlike, but I haven't heard that was the case.

Disagree.

Legitimate, but probably should not be.

(Although smart if he decided he couldn't catch the Phantom. Which, I think he would have at least been able to try).

I think this particular fortress is not as problematic as the 2 Falcons.

To say that this game is minutely well-designed is only wishful thinking.

One only has to look at the rules and text wording to know that its not well formatted. There are numerous instances of wording that is vague and has to be clarified. This can be compared to the rules formatting of Magic.

Developers have also placed in hard counters versus soft counters, which is now known to be a very bad thing for a game of the modern day with a meta-game. See Starcraft 2 design.

(This is also what caused the player to try this strat, which... is a good idea.)

Anyway, there are two exploits here:

One thing is the fragility of Imperial units. And green dice. The damage deck is also quite heavily in the favor of the Rebels, as the Direct Hits are much more powerful in the effect of one shotting Ties than they are against any other ships.

Two is the edge of the board, which really actually doesn't make a lot of sense in terms of game flavor either. Its kind of a required thing though.

They both willfully entered into a game of cat and mouse (err. cat and sloth), and the phantom player got outplayed in the end.

Watching his opponent blank 7 green dice is "outplaying" your opponent? Is that the standard we use now to define "skill" at X-wing?

Yes, if the tie fighter player was perceptive, he would of prevented his ties from getting shot at at all. My understanding is he had initiative and would have one the game if the game ended with no shots fired. Tie fighters are fragile and commonly one or two shot - there's nothing out of the ordinary about it dying to a single round of shooting.

Actually, from what we can gather from that article, the Imperial player felt like he should at least give the game a go, and decided not to play for time and did the "spirit of the game" thing. And got punished for it by the dice luck. Maybe not the smartest move, but you can easily see that the enjoyment of the game and the consequence of the game was placed upon the Imperial player. He probably felt a little pressure to play the game as a game, versus also playing to time.

Honestly if it was me I would have just ran and played for time and taken evades all day.

Done 1 turns in a circle until he decided to come out.

Even then, note that this tactic favors the Rebel players as its much easier to kill a Tie than to kill the Rebel ships. So, there really isn't a good option here.

I think that this just goes to show how nearly all games are played differently in competitive atmospheres. I've seen two X-wing games in the last 24 hours: The Gen-con final where two Falcons almost 'ballet-danced' along one edge of the table for three or four turns in a most 'un-realistic' way and the game last night between Sable and Typo where the Falcon was k-turning around in the corner of the table for a number of turns before drifting around behind Sables ships. What's my point? In tournaments games become abstracts. It's about percentages. It's about given yourself the best advantage you can. It's about exploiting faults in your opponents list. It's about maximising opportunities. And that's because the aim in competitions is to win. OK, you can win whilst be a good sportsman/woman but to be honest, these examples are not bad sportsmanship. Cheating is bad sportsmanship. Winning or losing without grace is bad sportsmanship. These are all examples of using tactical skill or knowledge to beat an opponent. Would people want to play that way in friendly, informal games? Hell no! But then you're playing friendly games for different reasons.

So far the only lesson I've learned today is that from now on every at tournament I'm going to ask my opponent "Fly Casual?" and if he responds with "Fly Casual" i'll continue playing as i have been, but if he responds in the negative i should utilize every rule lawyering trick i picked up playing 40k and badger my opponent on every ambiguity because hey, we're being competitive here, and good sportsmanship has no place.

Side note, Assault Missiles (and the Imperial EPT that has a similar effect) would be a fairly good way to prevent this...

It would, however it would also limit your squad selection to ships which are capable of taking said Missiles in the first place. I don't think advocating taking a particular secondary weapon as a way with dealing with a very particular scenario is a very effective answer, to be honest.

Well these upgrades are also useful in almost any situation where being clumped up is favorable, Swarms/Howlrunner/Biggs/Most Synergistic builds/In general formation flying.

It isn't perfect but it certainly is an option if your opponents choose to play this way

It is neither a loop nor infinite. An infinite loop is a series of game effects that occur automatically and have no possible end condition...

Quibble about specific definitions all you want, it's still an exploit. By moving into that position and choosing the same maneuvers every turn, the player could quite easily have stayed in that position - not moving, huddled in a corner - until time expired, and that's a fact.

PLaying within the 'Spirit of the game' is an area with shades of grey. What one player considers fair and within the rules another player can consider poor sportsmanship.

This is the reason this thread won't see a consensus. I'm fine with that because people have a right to play the game they want play. I'm vocally very against this behavior not to change any forum users mind. I'm vocal about it to draw attention to the appropriate parties at FFG to have them review and evaluate if this is the type of behavior they want to approve of in their competitive games. That this is inside their vision of how X-wing should be played. They will need to review this and evaluate the pros and cons of the behavior and make a decision going forward.

I was harsh on Hsu earlier but that was a personal/emotional reaction. I would have felt the same even if he lost. I don't expect or really care if others felt the same, but I do care if FFG wants this to be part of the future of the game. Like most on this forum, I am deeply invested in this game, both emotionally and financially. I want to know so that I can either adapt to this new (and sad future) or move on.

Quibble about specific definitions all you want, it's still an exploit.

So your word trumps ffg when they said it's a legit tactic?

Quibble about specific definitions all you want, it's still an exploit.

So your word trumps ffg when they said it's a legit tactic?

Link please?

So far the only lesson I've learned today is that from now on every at tournament I'm going to ask my opponent "Fly Casual?" and if he responds with "Fly Casual" i'll continue playing as i have been, but if he responds in the negative i should utilize every rule lawyering trick i picked up playing 40k and badger my opponent on every ambiguity because hey, we're being competitive here, and good sportsmanship has no place.

Good luck winning worlds.

So far the only lesson I've learned today is that from now on every at tournament I'm going to ask my opponent "Fly Casual?" and if he responds with "Fly Casual" i'll continue playing as i have been, but if he responds in the negative i should utilize every rule lawyering trick i picked up playing 40k and badger my opponent on every ambiguity because hey, we're being competitive here, and good sportsmanship has no place.

Good luck winning worlds.

Shouldn't be a problem since its expected to win at all costs and i do in fact know how to play that way, i just rather wouldn't.

Well, there's no point arguing about whether it's sportsmanlike or not. That's a matter of opinion and I get the impression most people involved here aren't open to changing theirs.

Personally, I don't like it, but the idea of "a fix for it would introduce more problems than it solves" got me thinking. What if you had a token assigned each time you bump someone, to a maximum of two (just to save on tokens), if you have two then [some penalty happens], if you complete a manoeuvre all such tokens applied to your ship are removed. "Ah, but this could be exploited" you say. Yeah, and exploiting that actually sounds like a cool tactic. Ramming somebody to potentially hurt them, at the possible cost of hurting yourself, is surely better than ramming yourself painlessly, and adds a cool new tactic, which in my opinion would be more interesting than this one.

I think it would be fun to figure out how to beat that tactic. If you come right down the right side of the board edge (to the left of the fortress), you can avoid the arcs of all but two ships, I think (not sure, though). Take out the ship or ships on the left side, then fly in and bump the fortress repeatedly, shooting freely at the ships you have in arc, and forcing them out. I'm just brainstorming here...

Also, if you focus fire at range three, you'll probably have an advantage due to having actions that the fortress ships won't have. That gives you a significant damage advantage (an advantage, of course, as you get closer, too). So, you TL or focus at R3. If you have TLs, don't spend them. Next turn, while they're bumping each other, you get probably R1 shots with TL/focus (this assumes you're playing Rebels, or Empire ships with TLs). They don't have any protection, either for offense or defense.

Given average rolls, you *should* be able to do more to the fortress than the fortress does to you, if you can minimize the fortress' arc coverage. (BTW, I said to the left of the fortress, because the X in front is pointed the other way).

Again, I haven't worked this out, but I'd rather figure out how to beat it than complaining about its existence.