I think Ficklegreendice's main argument against PWT is that it's boring to play against. Pardon if I got that wrong.

I don't think so. It's a different sort of challenge, but it's still a great challenge to play against PWT. I enjoy it.

So the problem then becomes not one of "who is right?" but rather "is it ok for us to disagree and continue to play?" I expect it is ok, but the way people seem to be polarizing across this issue right now would seem to me to indicate not. I just don't understand why people assume theirs is the only way and continue to harp about the issue.

Jacob

IMO,

quit your bitching about turrets

some of you old timers might remember a PC game back before DSL and other high speed internet. the game was MechWarrior 3

you had to learn to do a thing called "LAG SHOOTING" you had to shoot in front of the target to actually hit it due to the data package LAG between your computers. if you were horrible at this or a slow learner you had your ass handed to you. unless you took a missile boat loaded up with streak SRM's, that always hit and did massive damage. I was even guilty of bitching about them, until I resigned to the fact that it was part of the game and my clan and I were determined to beat them. so I came up with this strategy (yes I am bold enough to say I came up with this, my call sign back then is the same as my user name here)

the strategy was to take a faster mech, use terrain to close the distance and then engage at point blank range. yes the missile boat would have a target lock on you and would fire his missiles, but what happened next is what I noticed right away, the missiles turn radius was not sharp enough to come back around and hit you if you were on top of the missile boat. so there in lied the weakness of the missile boat, once you got in close you slowly torn them apart and they couldn't touch you.

I know that doesn't help here in x-wing, but the point is valid. once you stop complaining about something that frustrates you in the game, you will be able to concentrate on beating it instead. I have used fat turrets and won, I have played against fat turrets and won. don't get caught up in "that list is impossible to beat so why should I bother?" I have also destroyed swarms with 2 ship builds and 3 ship arc dodging builds.

And again we get the myth that people complain because they can't beat turrets, that's not and never has been the case.

Then nothing should ever be changed because everything is subjective.

This doesn't follow either. Just because someting is subjective doesn't mean that it cannot be argued, and I certainly did not suggest anything like that.

What I do want to stress is this: be clear about what you think is the right direction to go in, rather than just state facts about the game and assume that every reader will understand what is so good or bad about it. Ficklegreendice's longish post above is exemplary: he says a lot about the impact of turrets, but really skims the issue exactly why it is a bad thing.

And this is, in fact, a very problematic issue, because many apparently like to play with PWTs, making the argument that it is 'no fun' really difficult to maintain. If you're looking for the underlying disagreement, then I suspect it has to do with things that are not mentioned very often. I'm not particularly on any side here, but have noticed that playing with turrets and EU can create situations where the opponent is more or less no longer able to do anything meaningful other than roll dice and hope for the best. But then again, maybe it's up to the opponent to prevent such a situation.

It reminds me a lot of the cycling races I watch: some races are boring for hours until the last km, where there is a sprint to decide who will win. Fans can get incredibly angry when another professes his love or hate for these sprints.

The direction that is best to go in isn't clear to anybody. Fickle has a lot of reasons why he thinks a change should happen, and tends to lean toward a direct nerf or change in mechanics, but that debate is what the right direction is.

That there isn't a clear "this is exactly how this works" from every interested party is not only not problematic, it is the exact kind of discussion a situation like this dictates.

You imply that 'balance' is something that everyone wants here. Maybe the problem is that there is no good idea about what balance is supposed to mean. It will take a lot of tweaking to make sure that the squads at tournaments have the maximum variety. Several other posters already claim that there a lot of variety already, for a game of this kind.

I'm willing to stake my argument on the assumption that balance is a goal of the vast majority of people in this debate.

The primary focus of the debate is what balance means. So yes, the problem is there isn't a good idea of what that means. That is exactly what we are discussing, the proper way to go about balancing PWTs. Some people contend that it isn't a game-breaking issue and we should slow roll any changes because the meta isn't really that unhealthy, other people make the claim that it severely impacts the game in a negative fashion that needs to be addressed earlier.

As a newcomer to the game and forums I'd like to ask a couple of questions.

1) What wave did the YT 1300 arrive in?

2) When did it begin to be seen as a winner in tourneys of regional and above?

3) Has it or any turret a 75 percent win at any competition? By that I mean 7 of the top 10 finishers were pwt's.

If x-wing started in 2012, this being the third year I think it's a little early for people to come un-glued over turrets ruining the game. They may not be fun to fly against but they can be beat. Rather than running a rant, take a deep breath, layoff the caffeine and wait for the year to play out. No one knows what is going to fly at World's or what might get faq'd or if there's a surprise in the Raider or Wave 7 release.

What ever happened to the "fly casual" mentality that we as gamers are supposdd to be noted for? I like this game, I like playing, win or lose, but I don't think I would like to fly against some of the people posting here. That would not be fun.