Only people who this seems to be an issue for those who want the prizes but lose.

Ok it's time to get this thread locked.

So... is prize sniping gender equal? /trollface

Some people find others get too competitive to consider it fun while others are more casual players that just don't invest a lot of time in the game to really be competitive.

But the solution to this problem is really quite simple.

Hold other tournaments and don't advertise them other than in the store, and/or add rules that make it more casual.

For example, a rule that states that no one ship can cost more than 35 points. A rule that states only small ships can be used. A rule that states only ships from wave 1-3 can be used, ect... Have prizes that aren't useful to other people, like free painting by the local pro painter, or discounts stuff from the store.

There's all kinds of ways to limit an event so it isn't attractive to the hardcore competitive type.

I am in the same boat as a couple other people here. I live 75 miles from a big city with game stores. So our one local store only has like 4-5 people who play. Not nearly enough for a tournement. So when one pops up close I try to make it. I hear the same crap when I get there. "He shouldn't win, he does not even play here." If it was about the prizes I would just save my 8 gallons of gas and buy myself a new ship. Not including food and stuff I will need to buy, I could get a new YT-2400. I only go on tournements days because the few times I have gone up on casual nights there are only like 2-3 people there. So I go when I know I can play, and not drive for 3 hours (round trip) to get one game in.

I don't like the super boring meta builds, though.

Come up with something new, win a tournament with it, and change the meta then?

I do...but it is only a drop in the bucket. I went as the only undefeated in Swiss with my 4 Tie Bomber list and then lost in finals to Phantoms. While it might help some people not take big, turreted ships, it still doesn't help the national meta very much. Me winning a smallish event in NC isn't going to change what happens to those in the Mid-West. Until there are many smaller changes it won't effect the greater internet meta...and that is really where the change happens.

Some people find others get too competitive to consider it fun while others are more casual players that just don't invest a lot of time in the game to really be competitive.

But the solution to this problem is really quite simple.

Hold other tournaments and don't advertise them other than in the store, and/or add rules that make it more casual.

We do.

I've never said "I hate prize snipers". I just try to present the viewpoint of some of the people that hate them. What I see is that there are people who like their little meta and don't play enough to be "competitive" in the greater sense. They like playing in tournaments and winning the prizes in a proper fashion. Not buying them, but earning them. They just don't like to do it in the cut throat meta that exists in other areas. There isn't anything to be done to fix it. People will travel to any venue to play. Other people will purposely find smaller venues to get an easier win. It's just a thing. I just find it a bit sad when a local meta gets smashed by some "professional" level players who pop in for the prizes.

The nearest SC to me was about 80 miles, and I don't care to make that commute on a regular basis. Several other players in the thread have chimed in with similar situations. Do you realize that your petty, arbitrary rules would literally bar a number of people from competing anywhere?

We've been riding the "your rules are ill-formed" "well, I didn't mean you, just the jerks" "but most people aren't jerks, you're just salty because you didn't get easy focus tokens" "prize snipers are real" "but are vastly outnumbered by nice people who just want a good game" "if I leave now, I don't have to confront evidence I'm wrong" merry-go-round for 19 pages now.

I know, and I'm entirely willing to agree that the problem--to the degree that it actually exists beyond three or four people--isn't about players who travel but about jerks wherever they happen to be playing that weekend. (Every "prize sniper" is local somewhere, after all.)

But apparently we're going to have to go around that merry-go-round again, because Vanderbeam hasn't figured it out yet.

I'm not saying all the people who come in are jerks. I never said that. All I'm saying basically boils down to this

It seems to me that the problem here is the system. If store championships are truly to determine store champions it should be only for people who play/purchase at that store. If it is to determine placement for higher tournaments, each person should be limited to 1 SC. If they are just to provide tournament emphasis and encourage participation, then I suggest changing the name, but it is fine as is.

or this Store championship = championship for the store.

Or have those words lost their definitions?

If it was called a district championship, then I'd be fine with people traveling...

I've never said "I hate prize snipers". I just try to present the viewpoint of some of the people that hate them.

I get that, and understand your point. But at the same time people who have an issue with it, simply need to stop reloading and shooting themselves in the foot over and over.

If someone is from a small gamestore, with a casual mindset, and unwritten rules about no phantoms/fat hans. Then that's cool, but they can't complain when they hold a sanctioned competitive event and have people who don't play that way show up.

It's not even really about the prizes, because there are prizes in the game night and other kits. Plus other ways of rewarding them. Like say a system using tickets that you get everytime you win a match, turn in X tickets and you get a focus token, turn in Y tickets and get a range ruler.

My point is that with just a little thought people who don't want to go up against a 'touring pro' because they're no match for someone, can avoid it.

or this Store championship = championship for the store.

Or have those words lost their definitions?

If it was called a district championship, then I'd be fine with people traveling...

So, basically, you have been fighting this whole thread over semantics? wow.

Why is it so hard to understand that store championships which are FFG sanctioned events are not limited to people who normally play at that store. If you really want to determine a "store champion" that is what leagues are for and FFG will even provide you with a kit that has a medal for your "store champion"

I've never said "I hate prize snipers". I just try to present the viewpoint of some of the people that hate them.

I get that, and understand your point. But at the same time people who have an issue with it, simply need to stop reloading and shooting themselves in the foot over and over.

If someone is from a small gamestore, with a casual mindset, and unwritten rules about no phantoms/fat hans. Then that's cool, but they can't complain when they hold a sanctioned competitive event and have people who don't play that way show up.

It's not even really about the prizes, because there are prizes in the game night and other kits. Plus other ways of rewarding them. Like say a system using tickets that you get everytime you win a match, turn in X tickets and you get a focus token, turn in Y tickets and get a range ruler.

My point is that with just a little thought people who don't want to go up against a 'touring pro' because they're no match for someone, can avoid it.

First off, you will never be able to stop people from complaining.

Next, you get things wrong. It's not always that they aren't a match for a "pro". Sometimes it's that they don't want to play a "pro" list. I've been to Wave 5 tournaments where you face Fat Han after Super Dash after Decimator after Fat Han after Super Dash after Fat Han. There are many people who just find this boring. Who just don't find it interesting to play against only rock, paper, and scissor. It's nothing to do with the ability to win against the top meta, but the sheer monotony of it.

It can also be that some of these wandering prize hunters are jerks. That's been discussed and while not everyone is, there are some out there.

Sometimes the casual players just don't want to put in the effort to deal with x, y, or even z...just in case some out of towner shows up. Personally, I do, but hey....I hang out on FFG forums all day b/c my job is boring. Others don't have that luxury. They just don't have the time to invest in it.

Now, I do want to point out that if you have to travel 2 hours (or more) to get to a SC b/c that's your closest...well...then that is your local store.

or this Store championship = championship for the store.

Or have those words lost their definitions?

If it was called a district championship, then I'd be fine with people traveling...

So, if they named them Regionals again, you would be happy?

First of all, nobody is being "robbed"; that's entitlement talking again, and you can't have something taken away that wasn't yours in the first place. Second of all, you can't win more than one bye anyway, so even if you take first place another player is going to get it.

you can't have something taken away that wasn't yours in the first place.

/thread.

If you complain about prize snipers, you might be a redneck

No. You are probably a casual player who dislikes the "meta" and "pro" players.

No. You are probably a casual player who dislikes the "meta" and "pro" players.

But that's not the problem. The problem is players who don't want to play against "meta" or "pro" players and also want the prizes those players compete for.

If you want to play local, casual games, play in local, casual games. You have every right to do that, and no one is stopping you. The price of doing that is that you don't win the competitive kit prizes.

I'm not involved in the tourney scene in X-wing...3 hours away from the closest venue that cost host a tourney so I don't even bother checking if they even do.

But I've been involved in other competitive games before when I lived closer to venues.

Prize sniping as presented in this post is not prize sniping.

Traveling to a venue to play is perfectly fine. Traveling to multiple venues to attempt to win prizes is fine. Traveling to multiple venues to win as many copies of the same rewards as possible to sell them on Ebay is problematic. And that is prize sniping.

Casual or hardcore players that are kind and generous should compete in as many tourneys as they like. These players typically pass on rewards they've already won if they win them again. The loot spreads, people are happy, everyone gets a piece of the action, and the general happy reputation of X-wing players would spread.

If someone was hitting up 5 or 6 venues in his general area in an attempt to win prizes just to sell them...well, that kind of undercuts the nature of the game.

Thankfully the FFG prizes don't constitute an advantage for future play like other games have. Tournament winnings in other games rewards new and unique units that tended to have some distinct advantage in play. So a good player would win some unique units that would give them an even greater advantage. After a few tournaments, the player would be unstoppable. Then they would start hitting up all the available venues in a 2 hour radius and they'd suck up all the prized units and sell them on Ebay for outrageous prices. $100+ for 1 unit kind of stuff. That behavior, and the design of giving winners a unique advantage helped to kill some of those games.

Luckily, FFGs prizes are much more mundane and offer no advantage. So the loss of a few trinkets to a traveling pro isn't such a big deal.

How can prize sniping, even with the FFG style prizes hurt a game? It kills people's interest in the game.

Someone that plays casual and likes to compete at local tournaments here's of an official tournament with prizes. He knows all the local players and their lists, so he starts working on a way to compete with them. Then on tournament day, the venue is filled with new faces. People that have huge collections and they clean the clock of the locals and take all the prizes. Now all the locals lose a little interest in the game. Casual play and local tournaments decline. No one has interest in big tournies as they just draw in the elite. The local players stop playing, stop buying, the venue stops carrying the game. FFGs profits take a hit.

Again, no idea if this is even really a problem in X-Wing. The prizes don't offer the same sort of advantages, so there is no real need for it. Hopefully people aren't hoarding rewards.

@kmanweiss beautifully said.

But do they ever offer door prizes as well?

This would be more of what I assume would "sniped" for.

Alt cards and hokey religions are no match for a $$ door prize. LOL

If you complain about prize snipers, you might be a redneck

No, rednecks never complain about any kind of sniper.

Again. Buy them on e-bay if they are that important. I dunno. It seems like an idea.

Do they turn up in the Mystery Machine with a hot blonde and a ginger girl with a bob?

"Those pesky kids"

Do they turn up in the Mystery Machine with a hot blonde and a ginger girl with a bob?

"Those pesky kids"

Who are you describing? Daphne is a redhead, and Velma is a brunette. I mean, I suppose Fred might qualify as a "hot blonde"...

You pesky kid you've foiled my trolling

@TophatGorilla:

Yer wrong there, feller! Us a here rednecks do hate them snipers! Ya wanna get 'em ya gotta get close an person'l! ya'h take yer pitchfork and strap it to this a here sawn-off shotgun and you go a huntin'! Yeehaa! Pass me teh mountain dew, boy!

Que banjo music...

Sometimes those new faces are locals that don't come to the local meet up due to work or personal life. I know quite a few that do that.