As I was thinking back over my games this weekend and typing up the quarter, semis, and finals matches (don't worry the reports are coming) My thoughts kept wandering back to my second game where my opponent conceded when he still had ships on the board. Granted he was most likely going to lose - 2 bandit squad vs. IGB and Boba with 1 shield each left, but is conceding right? This is a dice game after all, and with my luck blanking is always an option. I know its a freak "what if" scenario, but if he had somehow pegged off one of my ships it would have dropped my MoV by about 50 points, I wouldn't have made the cut to 8 etc. etc. I'd like to get the community's opinion on this.

It should be noted that my opponent was in a good mood throughout the game, he just no longer wanted to play. Additionally I am not insinuating I would have enjoyed continuing the game to establish dominance as the superior plastic starfighter jockey.

In that situation I think it is fine. That is a clear outcome. Would I have conceded? Well no, I never concede till I only have one ship remaining...and the outcome is clear. If I think I can keep it alive that is different.

Should people rage quit and concede when they have lost their first ship and the game is going against them, absolutely not. MoV is unfortunately to important to the current system. Gaining bonus MoV seems innocuous but has a massive hidden cost. When places in the cut are determined by MoV even small changes in opponents and MoV makes a large difference.

It is part of the reason why an X-2, or X-1 system is better in general for advancing. It removes MoV as a tie breaker for making the cut at the expense of adding byes to top finishers (and an extra round/time).

Bear in mind is discussion has nothing to do with partial scoring of any sort, I am against it in general, but removing MoV from one part of the game (the cut) sort of mitigates "some" of its issues indirectly.

[/end soapbox]

Yeah, generic Z95 against big ships with arc dodge is enough of a mismatch that I'm not seeing the problem with the concession. Could he have pulled it out? Sure. But you would have to seriously misplay the rest of the match in order to lose both of your ships and grant him the victory before time ran out.

Morally, it is fine. Nothing wrong with conceding, the rules specifically state how to handle concession- the winner counts as destroying all enemy ships.

Logically, it is wrong because there is (almost) always a chance to turn it around.

In my experience concession is looked down upon....and it shouldn't be. It's criticized for being rage-quitty and granting a possibly un-earned MoV. I've seen it flipped as well, where a guy with a single A-wing left played keep-away to deny his opponent a full MoV win. People called him on his 'dik move' and said he should have conceded. His response was 'MoV ain't free!'.

So which do you choose? I say whatever the hell you want, but don't hate a guy who makes a cut because someone gave him MoV.

No. I can't see a time when conceding would ever be wrong...if it's a rage quit all that tells me is to avoid playing with that person from here on out . I'll concede when it looks hopeless and I am no longer having a good time. If I am not having fun I really don't care what anyone else participating thinks. This isn't a team game...it's an every man for himself environment in a tourney...you can't force me to continue playing if I don't want to...nor can I force you or any one else to continue playing if they decide they don't want to. What the "community" thinks shouldn't be relevant to that persons decision.

If the game is causing someone to rage quit, the "wrong" behavior is playing in the first place, not conceding when it's no longer emotionally healthy for them to continue.

Lonely Shuttle against Turrets or Bro-Bots with Sensors ... yeeeep time to concede!

If its anywhere after the first round of a tourney it's not the worst idea since it can extend your mental down time.

Lol, i am not going to stand at the table and get pummeled just because there is a mathematical chance that i can win. I don't spend all my money on lotto either for the same reason.

If i don't enjoy the game after a point and there is noting to gain, why do i play again?

In that scenario no it's not wrong, yeah he might of suddenly got freakishly hot dice but odds were he's getting tabled anyway so he opted for some free time.

Conceding actually has value in that you get to rest before your next game.

It's only wrong if there's some kind of collusion or intention to manipulate the opponents position upwards. That is fundamentally unfair on everyone else challenging for positions.

To use a Star Trek metaphor, Spock would concede when the outcome of the match was decided (mathematically/logically), but Kirk would play to the bitter end, because - hey, he's Kirk.

There is a quiet dignity in Spock's concession, and something to be admired in undying, though desperate, spirit.

I personally would not concede - I guess I am more like Kirk than Spock - I probably won't pull a win - but maybe I might not get tabled. I guess I would rather be a die hard - and give my best, than a pushover. I am there to game, and every minute I'm gaming, I want to give my best. I guess I am not just there to win or lose - I am there to play - and so I am willing to suck the marrow out of (even) a losing game.

Interesting how the opinions vary a bit from this almost same thread: https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/180164-this-happened-at-our-regional-tournament-thoughts

Give it time, the two threads are pretty much same and will have the same non-conclusion

In many competitive games, conceding is considered to be sportsmanlike. The culture of xwing is very different and the focus on MOV means that conceding is generally frowned upon. The rules go a long way to discourage conceding. However, I honestly would like to see this change. I want to be able to show my opponent the respect of conceding a lost game.

I would like to see something along the lines of encouraging conceding, allowing you mov for whatever you have left alive when you concede the game while granting full 200 to your opponent. As tourney points make such a big difference and MoV is just a tie breaker, I think this could be relatively healthy for the spirit of the game and be difficult to exploit. After all, when you concede a game, there is now someone higher than you on the scoreboard and eliminations are still eliminations.

That is my opinion, anyway. I am not sure how strongly I feel about it, but right now, conceding is so damaging to your score that you always want to make your opponent fight to the bitter end. In a game with such a solid random element, I would not necessarily want luck alone to destroy a clearly superior opponents ship and take them out of the mov running. We should be able to nod our heads in respect to our opponents, cut our losses, bow out and try again at the next table.

I'm of the mind that not conceding is the right choice, especially when you need to scrape every point of MoV possible.

I would like to see something along the lines of encouraging conceding, allowing you mov for whatever you have left alive when you concede the game while granting full 200 to your opponent. As tourney points make such a big difference and MoV is just a tie breaker, I think this could be relatively healthy for the spirit of the game and be difficult to exploit. After all, when you concede a game, there is now someone higher than you on the scoreboard and eliminations are still eliminations.

That might lend itself to some "final round" (before the cut) shenanigans.

If a player reasons that they have sufficient MoV to make the cut with the 100 SP they would get for conceding (according to this scheme), and that in doing so they might get a more favorable match than if they won the round - that might be inadvertently giving players a way to game the system.

I wouldn't ever concede but at tournaments I just day OK and shake there hand and take the free points. Who am I to tell them what to do with there time.

I conceded at worlds last year. A ps3 Awing is not going to do much damage to a Chewy or Han with C3PO, so once I got down to that ship, instead of wasting his time and mine (around lunch as well) I threw in the towel. I had already tried to do that match up earlier and you have to get to range 1 to make it worth your time and you cant do that to well vs any higher PS then you.

It was the right call to make, get some rest, it was like game 3 of 7 that day.

I'd be fine with that concession

moresothan getting in range 1, you're just not going to win a one-on-one with fat han using a 2-dice A-wing since it'll always be able to shoot you even at range 1. At that point, the dice dictate that you auto-lose barring the descent of rngesus himself

conceding is a weird issue. I think the biggest thing is, if someone does not want to play then he/she really can't be forced to play anymore. The problem comes in depending on when we reach that stage, I suppose.

In many competitive games, conceding is considered to be sportsmanlike. The culture of xwing is very different and the focus on MOV means that conceding is generally frowned upon. The rules go a long way to discourage conceding. However, I honestly would like to see this change. I want to be able to show my opponent the respect of conceding a lost game.

I would like to see something along the lines of encouraging conceding, allowing you mov for whatever you have left alive when you concede the game while granting full 200 to your opponent. As tourney points make such a big difference and MoV is just a tie breaker, I think this could be relatively healthy for the spirit of the game and be difficult to exploit. After all, when you concede a game, there is now someone higher than you on the scoreboard and eliminations are still eliminations.

That is my opinion, anyway. I am not sure how strongly I feel about it, but right now, conceding is so damaging to your score that you always want to make your opponent fight to the bitter end. In a game with such a solid random element, I would not necessarily want luck alone to destroy a clearly superior opponents ship and take them out of the mov running. We should be able to nod our heads in respect to our opponents, cut our losses, bow out and try again at the next table.

I think this is echoing a lot of my views. There are a lot of reasons to call a game early. You may say having someone concede a game, especially if they do it early, is depriving someone else the chance to play and while it has some merit there is absolutely nothing that could be done about it. The only problem I really see with concessions is when they are done for the expressed reason of furthering another player by manipulating the system. To me that is a far cry from having a concession to allow both players a break when they may not be available.

As far as I'm concerned the game should have two or three early termination options:

1. The full concession which is what happens now when one player decides to "throw" the game and effectively suicide his team. There's nothing that prevents this unless you really want to bring in a telepath who can say exactly what is going on.

2.0. The partial concession would be an option that a player would have to accept. Here the game ends with a declared winner but MoV awards are fixed at what they would be when the concession is made. The loser does get a higher MoV but it is still a loss while the winner doesn't make out as well. I see this as the "gentlemen's" as the loser saves face/points while the winner is accepting a lower MoV with both players getting a break and not needing to play the tedious endgame where someone is trying to rescue points. If a lower MoV isn't enough penalty for the winner make this concession worth 4 points instead of a full win's 5 points and accepting one takes on more risks.

2.5. Agreed draw. Something that can easily be played by two people and already on the books so just take away the stigma of agreeing to draw from the start. Getting 2 points each may alter early rounds and in the last round could push two undefeateds into elimination rounds when an X-1 might make it anyway or otherwise.

To use a Star Trek metaphor, Spock would concede when the outcome of the match was decided (mathematically/logically), but Kirk would play to the bitter end, because - hey, he's Kirk.

There is a quiet dignity in Spock's concession, and something to be admired in undying, though desperate, spirit.

That was well stated. If we were playing Spock and he conceded, no one would look down on him.

If we were playing Kirk and he kept on to the bitter end, you would still respect his spirit.

If you were playing Bones... well, he's going to complain through all of it and you don't know if he's gonna play the whole game or quit in the middle...

As it is a game (ie played for enjoyment) I think the moment you stop enjoying yourself it's OK to quit. I also agree with other posters about the mental capacity. An uphill battle could gain you a victory, but mental gymnastics required to do so could cost you games down the road.

That said...if you're not enjoying yourself at an upper level competition, you may want to do some soul searching and ask yourself why you're at a regional if a lopsided game ruins your mood.