Exploits make for bad games. Nobody is ever going to walk away from an exploit-centered game thinking it was enjoyable, or awesome, or probably even interesting, regardless of who wins. That should be enough of a problem to warrant fixing it, whether it's showing up at the top table of Worlds or against that noob who really doesn't know any better.

I did. I walked away from games with both Richard Hsu and Typo with a great sense of having played enjoyable, awesome, and interesting games against people who were excellent both as players and as human beings. Both games were exciting, both games featured a ton of great play. The reason they didn't degenerate was because I didn't insist that either of those guys conform to my idea of how they should go about winning. Nobody watching those games came away with a negative opinion either.

Thats fine Kinetic, and I'm glad you had an excellent game against Richard. But when he utilizes a gimmick in the movement rules in a match that even he didn't think he was going to win, that's an obvious problem. I asked this in the "complaint" thread and never got an answer, what would the community response have been if he had used this tactic in the the Top 8 as well? or the Top 4? or what if he had made it to the Final 2? And decided to fortress in a corner? Would we be having this same discussion? What if he had faced Morgan's list and decided to turtle in the corner until the cows came home?

Discrete: Fortress deployments: impossible to ban.

Maybe impossible to ban, but definitely possible to penalize.

Enforceable: Fortresses: impossible to ban.

But, again, possible to penalize. Old military proverb - once is bad luck, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action. FAQ the bumping rules to include "if a ship collides with a friendly ship and as a result doesn't move twice or more in a row, suffer one damage for each consecutive event". Or well thought out, clear and concise words by someone who's job it is to come up with these things to a similar effect.

ACD: possible to ban. If it's in your list you're kicked out of the tournament for cheating. No ambiguity at all.

Or, y'know, just strike the card from the players' list and let them play without it.

I find that "spirit of the game" is often used freely to just try to be right. The spirit of the game is to have fun by playing the game how is intended, and how do we know how it is intended ? By the written rules, otherwise every person would have their very own opinion on this.

There is not some sort of holystic approach on how to play the game outside of the written rules, which are decided by FFG, not player or community police.

To be honest, i can spot a 40k or Fantasy player anytime they write stuff like "spirit of the game", "WAAC", "etc"... that community was truly toxic to any form of competitive play or player. It eroded peoples perception on how subjective is how we have fun playing with our silly plastic toys, and encouraged by GW, they tried to player/community police by name calling most of the time.

I had a tournament of wh40k, where i was playing table 1, last round, my opponent was a Space Wolves player. I was going to shoot some Land speeder Typhoons over my rhinos. He didn't want me to shoot over my own vehicles, because on his own perception he said that was not intended. Of course, i gently cited the rulebook about line of sight on vehicle's weapons, asked him to come over and check that i truly had Line of Sight, therefore i could shoot him. He didn't want to come over, accepted withouth a word (just a "ggrgrgg hmm.... okey"). All the match was a freaking nightmare, not because of rules, but because how hostile he was. At the end, i ended up winning, he didn't shake hands or anything, he just went to his friends to tell how of an unsport i was.

Luckily most people around here know how i am, i will always try to follow the rules the best i can, wether they are good for me or for my opponent, and i always remind my opponent stuff, i didn't win my first and second tournament for that reason (i don't expect my opponent to do the same, well, because i never take back actions/movements, etc myself...), and talked him down on his nonsense, but that's the kind of crap you have to deal with, trying to not be pedantic, with people, who don't really want or know how to compete in a reasonable fashion.

You could see that every tournament, the struggle between competitive players trying to have their competitive piece of competition, and non competitive players trying to have thier piece of a social event. At the end, expectations are everything, and only the people who kept looking for what they wanted on their own, withouth expecting every single one of their opponent to share their feelings toward the game, would have fun. Those who didn't, wouldn't have fun, and would make the experience sh*tty for somebody else.

Ok, sorry, i think i rambled too much.

TLDR - Problem isn't the game, or "how it is intended". It is on people's feelings on how the game is intended. Their expectations won't match everybody elses expectations, and if they can't accept it, wrong stuff will happen.

it is people refusing to accept there are other ways to enjoy the game, where what you perceive as "cheap", is not.

I think everybody, on some level, is always playing to win. Even 'scrubs.' You see something quirky in a squad configuration that other people don't like - I'm drawn to it. I want to make it valuable and dangerous where it wouldn't be.

My girlfriend, who refuses to try to win King of Tokyo with VP, is 'playing to win' in her own way.

I get the points of the article - and I agree with most of them. It's great when there's no ego brought with you into the drift and you have an enjoyable game with mutual respect, as KO's example up above was. It doesn't always go that way when somebody decides to not temper this mindset with being respectful and sportsmanlike - and that's how people get scared off of some games. (It's also why my girlfriend doesn't like going in game shops anymore. But I digress.)

The thing that really sticks in my craw about this article despite all its salient points is just his choice of wording. Any article that tries to label something as 'degenerate' is already turning me off. I do not mind if someone obliterates me with legal techniques no matter how 'cheap' they seem.

I doubt I would want to play the author of the article in any game, and my reluctance to do so has very little to do with the 'play to win' mindset.

GrantZilla, yes, everybody plays to win, but the expression is mostly about people who doesn't handicap themselves for own set of morals/ethics or whatever else while still playing by the rules.

The moment that person doesn't care about the rules, he will stop being a competitive player, to become just a cheater.

In your example about your girlfriend, while she is trying to win, she is handicapping herself. So she is not truly playing to win. I hope i made myself understandable.

Dreadstar, your opponent was simply an asshat. There is no universe where you could possibly misconstrue the LOS rules for 40k as intending that you can shoot over your own vehicles. Can you see the target from the firing model? If yes refer to cover rules, then you get to roll dice to hit. I've had opponents who tried to claim that Nob Bikers got a cover save in melee from the smoke cloud because the old Dark Eldar codex Grotesques had a cover save in melee. They're obviously trying to scrape for a loophole. Thats the kind of gameplay GW has promoted. They've encouraged ultra competitive gameplay at all costs. But that discussion is not for here.

Darkstar, you are - and I certainly clown her about that - but there's a line that can be easily crossed there on both sides.

Her go-to line is "Victory Points Are For Suckers!" - which I should totally get on a t-shirt - but she plays the game the way she wants. The difference there is, outside of some good-natured ribbing - she doesn't complain that the game is broken, or that in that example, hanging back and stacking VP rolls is 'cheap.' Contrast that with someone cutting circles behind an asteroid field, waiting for the engagement. Or fortressing. There's a counter for nearly everything, and your original battle plan may not hold up in a furball. That's what's great about the game, despite how badly I seem to roll with it currently. I see it being really distasteful to complain that something is busted when there's so many, many ways to mix it up.

On the flip side of that, a person that uses these techniques because they are high-percentage, only plays the game for the win...that doesn't bother me. That's the guy you gotta beat. It's when that guy combines that mentality with a mocking, condescending tone that it really becomes insufferable. Granted, it makes you want to beat him more, but...that would mean playing the f**** again.

tl;dr - Being a d*** can spoil anything, but to me it seems worse when combined with high-percentage techniques. As with all things, YMMV.

Thats fine Kinetic, and I'm glad you had an excellent game against Richard. But when he utilizes a gimmick in the movement rules in a match that even he didn't think he was going to win, that's an obvious problem. I asked this in the "complaint" thread and never got an answer, what would the community response have been if he had used this tactic in the the Top 8 as well? or the Top 4? or what if he had made it to the Final 2? And decided to fortress in a corner? Would we be having this same discussion? What if he had faced Morgan's list and decided to turtle in the corner until the cows came home?

My point wasn't about the specific thing or players involved. My point is that the reason my games against these two great players were entertaining and did not involve "not in the spirit of the game" maneuvering was because everyone involved was playing to win, not despite of it. That prevented the tactics that others would like to ban, without doing anything arbitrary. There is absolutely no conflict between playing to win and flying casual. It is entirely possible to do both simultaneously, and in fact that is exactly what has happened at the highest levels at every tournament I have been to.

Dreadstar -

The reason 40k has so many issues is that it is a degenerate game (by the definition provided in the article). The game itself has issues, not the players attempting to win under the rules it sets out. Of course, it is entirely possible to be a jerk in any game, but that isn't what I am attempting to address here.

My problem is that Richard wasn't playing to win that match. He effectively sat out most of his half of that game, only breaking out to desperately kill a single ship to win. Joshua could have easily played keep away and denied him any shots but instead decide to engage and the rest is history. All during the match and afterwards Richard referred to how this was his form of protest against Phantoms.

Yes, he was. The only loss he had up to that point was against me and my Phantoms. In that game, he decided that losing actions and tactical initiative was too high a price to pay in order to counter my maneuverability. He was defeated soundly because his list was specced to kill Falcons and was vulnerable to maneuvering Phantoms. Since he isn't stupid, he took what he learned there and the next time he faced a Phantom he tried something different. He decided to forego actions and tactical initiative to counter Phantom maneuverability. It paid off. It was always more likely that a single TIE would be destroyed first, and by limiting the length of the shooting engagement he made it more likely that he could win by that margin. It was well conceived, well executed, and it paid off.

Richard was playing to win. Joshua saw what he was doing, did what he thought would be successful in countering it, and lost. Nothing to see here, the only spectacle is the drama unfolding on the forums.

On topic, I have played many games at a very high level. I have never played a game where I felt any annoyance at my opponent for the tactics he used, win or lose. In fact, one of the most fun games I have ever played was an absolute disaster for me (the semi-final in the Denver regional) against Christian where it seemed like Cthulhu himself must have risen from the deep to eat my dice and Christian's Corran Horn was immortal due to R2D2. I suppose I could have immediately complained that regenerating ships are not in the spirit of the game, but instead we all sang "Everything is Awesome" every time I tried (and failed) to seal the deal on Corran. Which was a lot of singing, I have to say. :-)

It sounds like that match really came up Milhouse.

Whilst things like fortressing are legal they're legal, and players have the right to use them. Players can use tactics that are either detrimental or viewed as detrimental to other player's enjoyment of the game, allegedly broken builds, if it's within the rules they can do it. If players don't out of a sense of "sportsmanship" or "spirit of the game" (and I use these in inverted commas because they're subjective) the moral highground is theirs but a player that uses any legal tactic at their disposal to win a game is not doing anything wrong in the eyes of the rules.

If something is truly detrimental to the game and catching on to a wide extent FFG will kill it. Then it's illegal and anyone who uses it will be penalised for breaking the rules.

In casual, you've got to play in a way that's socially acceptable within your gaming group, otherwise you'll find yourself with no games to play. If you're a player who prefers winning to playing an enjoyable game to such an extent that you create conflict you'll find yourself with a shortage of games because players simply won't play with you. In a tournament, you can use whatever legal tactic you want. It'll either lose the game for you or draw FFG's attention to it, who will decide whether or not such a tactic belongs in their game.

I'm of the view that fortressing, for example, is quite clearly not in there by design, is thematically jarring, a very negative experience for the other player and has no place in a game designed for fun. If a player tries to use it in casual I'll let them have their victory by conceding on the spot. It's my personal hope that FFG is in agreement with this assessment and will take steps to eliminate the fortressing tactic in the light of the events of Worlds. However, my opinion has no bearing at all on the legality of the tactic and until such a time as FFG rules it illegal fortress all you want in a tournament. The only people who can stop you are FFG and they haven't done so yet.

All that being said, those players who identify as "play to win" players: if every opponent always conceded at the start of every match would you be happy? You've won, haven't you? I'm guessing no. Which then begs the question: are you only playing for the win?

To be honest, i can spot a 40k or Fantasy player anytime they write stuff like "spirit of the game", "WAAC", "etc"... that community was truly toxic to any form of competitive play or player.

Fairly sure that's because GW's stuff is unbalanced broken crap. There you've got a community where you have a choice between use the broken power build or lose.

@iPeregrine: FFG could easily ban fortressing just like that. It's objective if someone's locked their ships together and is making no attempt to move, if FFG bans the tactic as an infinite loop (already against the rules) then a TO can order you to break or be disqualified.

Yes, the problem for 40k is that there is a lot of discrepancies in the rules, making people to get really defensive about rules interpretations. Anyways, i think i shouldn't had brought it up.

The point i was trying to convey that most of the problems that are regarding the players come from different expectations, and inconsistent rulings can definitly make things worse. Luckily for us, we have a pretty good ruling in this game system thus far (not really crazy, yes there are inconsistencies, but workable).

@Bipolar

He played to win the match. He waited to grab a kill later on because he couldn't engage his opponent list. I don't know if you know about football, but imagine Barcelona playing against a third regional team. The regional team knows they can't outplay barcelona on a straight on game, and have to deny any opportunity of goal.

By default, they will patiently hold, and anytime they can do a counterattack, they will put the maximum effort to get a goal out of it.

And it has worked sometimes. Oh, and well, Italians basically invented the catenaccio.

That's playing to win. Playing a Fat Han is quite similar, but with mobility, it is a list based on denying MoV and abusing it.

Or imagine if i have a phantom at 1 hit point and you have two Ties, i know you will have a hard taking it down even if you get to shoot at it, but i decide not to take the risk and i just dance around for half an hour. Would you think i am being an unsport? The game may not be enjoyable from a viewer point of view, but it certainly would be a game played to win.

@GrantZilla

I understand how the article can rub you off the wrong way, with some of the elitism and agressive writing in there, but that would be overlooking the point of the blog post by its language and not by the value on the blog itself (which is quite old btw, i remember reading it a lot of years ago). But that's me, i don't really care that much about politically correct stuff.

And about being a ****. Yes, some people are dicks, but that goes both ways, i assure you.

@TiePilot

Exactly, but people tend to blame the players, instead of the rules. Like i am seeing here in a very very minor scale.

And about players who play to win and enjoying somebody conceding. Tie pilot, i am not sure what you are trying to convey here, but i doubt any competitive player would enjoy it. I know i wouldn't, and i would certainly be pissed off by losing the opportunity to play out a game. I think you are stretching it too far the meaning of the playing to win.

It is just about not handicapping yourself when you play. It is not about winning being the only thing that matters. Learning and improving is the most important part to play to win, and being able to showcase that in the table is far more important, interesting and rewarding than just winning the game, but actually playing well the game. Having a thoughtful experience. How well you executed it is what decides you win the game or not, not your opponent just defeating himself.

Personally, the Falcon Fortress (or soon to be Turreted Fortress) is boring and kind of stupid for the game. A Lambda Fortress or what Richard Fortress is a far more interesting dilemma. Figuring out the proper approach, and which arcs you want to be in.

But, you know, "spirit of the game" and all that. How many times have I seen that same arguments against Falcons?

Personally, the Falcon Fortress (or soon to be Turreted Fortress) is boring and kind of stupid for the game. A Lambda Fortress or what Richard Fortress is a far more interesting dilemma. Figuring out the proper approach, and which arcs you want to be in.

But, you know, "spirit of the game" and all that. How many times have I seen that same arguments against Falcons?

This is a dogfighting game, get your large ship turrets out of mah game

But, again, possible to penalize. Old military proverb - once is bad luck, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action. FAQ the bumping rules to include "if a ship collides with a friendly ship and as a result doesn't move twice or more in a row, suffer one damage for each consecutive event". Or well thought out, clear and concise words by someone who's job it is to come up with these things to a similar effect.

Great, now all you've done is change the ideal fortress strategy from one that never moves to one that alternates moving and bumping within a small area and accomplishes the same end result. And you've also created undesirable situations like having a ball of ships in the middle where everyone bumps on the first turn and then has to make desperate "get out of the ball" maneuvers just to avoid taking automatic damage if a normal maneuver doesn't clear the ball.

Who the hell has been claiming that Fortressing is OP for you to be able to equate it to Falcon complaints Sithborg? No one, and for you to make that comparison is just willful distortion of the argument, on top of your sarcastic references to "spirit of the game". Whether you care about it or not, the percentage of the community that likes and adheres to Fly Casual isn't something you should be mocking.

But, again, possible to penalize. Old military proverb - once is bad luck, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action. FAQ the bumping rules to include "if a ship collides with a friendly ship and as a result doesn't move twice or more in a row, suffer one damage for each consecutive event". Or well thought out, clear and concise words by someone who's job it is to come up with these things to a similar effect.

Great, now all you've done is change the ideal fortress strategy from one that never moves to one that alternates moving and bumping within a small area and accomplishes the same end result. And you've also created undesirable situations like having a ball of ships in the middle where everyone bumps on the first turn and then has to make desperate "get out of the ball" maneuvers just to avoid taking automatic damage if a normal maneuver doesn't clear the ball.

Bolded for your benefit, Peregrine. If I can come up with a ruling which prevents ships from turtling up in the corner for 45+ minutes with ten seconds thought, I'm pretty sure someone who's intimately familiar with the mechanics of the game can do something similar, but do a much better job of it.

The point is that there is zero, nada, zilch conflict between "Fly Casual" and "Play to Win". You can be casual, friendly, and relaxed while playing your best with tactics that are optimized towards winning. Nobody criticizes the Giants for being poor sports based on the "evidence" of them winning the World Series. Good sportsmanship does not require poor play. Poor sportsmanship DOES include complaining when your opponent beats you in a way you didn't anticipate.

Nobody is mocking the Fly Casual theme. Richard is a good example of it, as is Paul Heaver, Doug Kinney, Morgan Reid, Dallas Parker, and dozens of other guys I just don't have the space to mention. In fact, all of the high-level players I have met from every country around the world have been outstanding ambassadors of the game. The only time I have ever felt people were losing sight of that ideal is on this forum, and occasionally from afar as someone was put out by the "cheesy" tactic they were unwilling or unable to devise a counter for.

Who the hell has been claiming that Fortressing is OP for you to be able to equate it to Falcon complaints Sithborg? No one, and for you to make that comparison is just willful distortion of the argument, on top of your sarcastic references to "spirit of the game". Whether you care about it or not, the percentage of the community that likes and adheres to Fly Casual isn't something you should be mocking.

'Spirit of the game' and 'fly casual' are not, and should not be framed as the same thing. The designers can say what is in spirit of the game. That's it.

And you'd have to be blind to not see the amount of complaint threads about fat falcons not being in the so-called 'spirit of the game'.

Bolded for your benefit, Peregrine. If I can come up with a ruling which prevents ships from turtling up in the corner for 45+ minutes with ten seconds thought, I'm pretty sure someone who's intimately familiar with the mechanics of the game can do something similar, but do a much better job of it.

No you can't, because those concepts are all subjective opinions. If you ban turtling in the corner for 45 minutes then people will just turtle for 44 minutes. If you define the "corner" as a given region of the table then people will just put their formation 1mm outside that area. Which is the whole point I was making about "fortress" not being a discrete thing where you can clearly and objectively define what is and isn't a "fortress". It's a subjective opinion that a given strategy is "too much", a threshold which each person sets differently.

I come from the fighting game community that David Sirlin's playing to win article originated from. One of the things that has really bugged me about the X-Wing community is how often I see sportsmanship brought up as a tool to disparage or discredit another person based solely on their in-game tactics (fortressing, runaway/evasive play, using phantoms/falcons, etc.)

If fortressing or whatever new tactic that people want to complain about at a given time is actually a problem for the game it needs to be dealt with by FFG in a clearly worded update to their tournament rules. It also needs to be demonstrated to actually be a problem in a tournament environment rather than just a knee-jerk response to a popular but unproven community complaint.

The tabletop gaming community generally seems like a pretty chill place but sometimes there is room for improvement in taking a mature and rational viewpoint on competitive aspects of play. I have seen people claiming they would ostracize individuals from their community or even physically assault them just for the tactics they employ in game. People can definitely be poor sports, but going on witch hunts under the banner of sportsmanship over in-game tactics rather than personal behavior does not demonstrate either maturity or respect for the community.

My opposition is largely thematic. Very few people would be bothered by fortressing if this were a eurogame, but it isn't.

Fortresses aren't overpowered, but they do grate thematically and shatter the "Star Wars-ness". Pretty much every mechanic in the game can be rationalised as to what it represents in-lore, try and picture what fortressing looks like and it's just silly.

Add that to how unpleasant an experience it is for the opponent and you've gone something that in my view makes for a worse game rather than a better game for its presence. Yes, you can counter it. Yes, it's not overpowered. But it's not fun to play as, it's not fun to play against and it's not thematic in a thematic game, and therefore it's not something I think should be in the X-wing player's toolbox of tactics at all, which is why I think FFG should kill it.

And about players who play to win and enjoying somebody conceding. Tie pilot, i am not sure what you are trying to convey here, but i doubt any competitive player would enjoy it.

Precisely my point. There are very few players to which the victory is all that matters. They want to outplay their opponent.

That same desire is one of the things that makes fortresses jarring to the opponent. The majority of X-wing's gameplay is anticipating the moves of the opponent.

And you'd have to be blind to not see the amount of complaint threads about fat falcons not being in the so-called 'spirit of the game'.

A heavily upgraded Millenium Falcon flying around and shooting at things can't really be viewed as an unintended use/abuse (depending on who you ask) of the game mechanics. Regardless of whether or not it's believed to be balanced it's indisputably playing the game as intended by the designers.

I have seen people claiming they would ostracize individuals from their community

Not using a tactic in a casual gaming group that loathes that tactic I'd describe as basic social tact. Players don't have a duty to play against you. In a tournament they have to or they'll lose the match but in casual if you don't want to play in a way your opponent is happy with find a new opponent.

sigh

I have seen enough Militant Casuals to not take the scripture of Fly Casual completely to heart. Which, given the name calling that has been happening against Richard and those that disagree with you, is just another example.

If you want to continue to decry the Fortress and use Richard as your scapegoat, go ahead. But, you will continue to ignore the source of the issue, the lack of incentive to force engagement. Which, when you get to Single Elimination without the use of Margin of Victory, makes a lot of cheesy strategies more viable. I'm not saying it isn't an issue, but I think I recognize the true issue.