(...unless of course he's allergic to fish).

Seen a lot of topics on the forum recently requesting help - either with combatting a build which regularly beats the TC, or general advice on playing the game. Which is fine of course - that's what the forum is for. And the number of people responding to these pleas is heartening.

What concerns me though are the answers we're giving.

A lot of the answers appear to be along the lines of "take this" or "use this" or "this build will wreck it", which really isn't ideal. It doesn't take a great deal of effort to specifically tailor a list to beat another list, and it doesn't help in the long run, either, because it's not getting to the root of the problem - it's basically just creating an arms race.

Say someone's finding it difficult to beat a Han/Corran Horn combo. Rather than taking the easy route and instantly recommend the player go out and buy two K-Wings and 4 Y-Wings, it's MUCH more helpful in the long run to identify what the player likes flying, what's specifically causing problems and suggest strategies which may help their flying.

Yes. Don't sell them a build.

...

Well. Yes do that if they need one.

But I'm all for really looking into why people lose.

Make a man a fire and he's warm for an hour - set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.

At the same time, offering ideas which use variations on a ship (other pilots, other talents, etc) are quite sensible.

The problem is that it's an easy kind of suggestion to offer. Beating Twin Laser Turrets with a list is an easy answer - explaining tactics is hard - not least (unfortunately) because tactics may be tied to a build.

At the same time, there are tactics, and you can beat a 'better' squad that someone's pulled off the internet by learning how to fly yours.

It's like my response to the Emerald Octahedrons Of Inevitable Betrayal.

Yes, the green dice let you down. But* it's your fault you needed to dodge 2 hits with unmodified green dice. Somewhere along the line you made a choice - either deployment or maneuver - which put you in a suboptimal position. Try to figure out what it was.

* Barring the classic "Dark Curse with a focus token at range 3 through an asteroid with a stealth device got one-shotted by a Z-95". Which actually happened last week - although fortunately not to me.

Oh, tthere's nothing wrong with suggesting a build if they've specifically asked for one, or given a list of what they own and asked for suggestions on how to get the best out of it, but list tailoring shouldn't be the stock response when it comes to help in general.

you can't however teach someone how to judge a bank through a forum or give them a comprehensive list of responses to every situation.

People give list advice because it's something concrete that'll help rookies.

It's far easier to teach in person than through a forum.

I think a lot of the threads like that are written by players who really are convinced that a list is unbeatable. Showing them that it can be beaten pretty easily with a counter is not a bad option to get them out of a rut.

you can't however teach someone how to judge a bank through a forum or give them a comprehensive list of responses to every situation

You can, actually - someone did a 'flight school' thread a while ago which explained the size of the various templates in small ship bases, the angles your trailing edge ends up on when banking or turning, and the fact that no-one can get out of their own starting position's firing arc without boosting or barrel rolling.

I think that understanding the stuff in that thread improved my skill as a player by about 18,000%.

But it also requires a lot of effort - images, etc, to really work, and people don't have the time or inclination to do that.

General but non-obvious tactics (like deployment, or blocking) deserve whole articles.

...the fact that no-one can get out of their own starting position's firing arc without boosting or barrel rolling.

Important detail, that. The fact that almost everything has some kind of MA makes the sound tactical advice about firing arcs and position rather dated. Many articles on these subjects are about the situation during, say, wave 4.

Make a man a fire and he's warm for an hour - set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.

At the same time, offering ideas which use variations on a ship (other pilots, other talents, etc) are quite sensible.

The problem is that it's an easy kind of suggestion to offer. Beating Twin Laser Turrets with a list is an easy answer - explaining tactics is hard - not least (unfortunately) because tactics may be tied to a build.

At the same time, there are tactics, and you can beat a 'better' squad that someone's pulled off the internet by learning how to fly yours.

It's like my response to the Emerald Octahedrons Of Inevitable Betrayal.

Yes, the green dice let you down. But* it's your fault you needed to dodge 2 hits with unmodified green dice. Somewhere along the line you made a choice - either deployment or maneuver - which put you in a suboptimal position. Try to figure out what it was.

* Barring the classic "Dark Curse with a focus token at range 3 through an asteroid with a stealth device got one-shotted by a Z-95". Which actually happened last week - although fortunately not to me.

The problem here is replying with builds only perpetuates the belief that this game is won in the metagame rather than the game itself.

I always preferred light a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day, light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life...

If I were to give one piece of advice to new gamers, old gamers, whatever. When playing a casual game with friends, do a lessons learned after the game.

What went right.

What went wrong.

Could either of these be mitigated by either side?

How?

Doing this for 10 mins after every game (or longer) all but guarantees learning and improvement.

Sometimes it's the will of the dice, I'll be honest. sometimes it just is. I've seen games where statistically long odds either way happen and the game just goes one sided. I've seen it in all supposedly balanced games. X-wing and Infinity, two of the most popular are no different. But usually, even then something could have been mitigated.

Only twice out of many of my games have I had to say "to be honest, this was all the dice". Both times my opponent agreed. Only one of these two games was x-wing.

One great training technique we used to do is the opponent had to guess which maneuver you'd do just before you revealed your dial. Really got you thinking about move anticipation.

" Maxim 21. Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Take his fish away and tell him he's lucky just to be alive, and he'll figure out how to catch another one for you to take tomorrow. "

- Howard Tayler, 70 Maxims of Highly Effective Mercenaries

I do agree that we should be supportive of multiple flight styles and squad compositions. The fun thing may be hard to pull off, but I know we have the experience to figure out how to make interesting and/or strange lists work, and I think we should take it as a challenge.

Will you dare to ignore the Meta?

To learn any given subject (Xwing) you must also teach and by teaching at the basic level to an idiopathic student or opponent you then have to break the subject down into simple pieces to the very core. By doing this you also learn as you need to know what you are teaching. (Douglass Adams wrote something similar- not word for word quote)

So if you play a ship naked with no talents or upgrades and master its movements, then add combinations one by one you can master that units abilities and skills. There are so many options and combinations that are then tested by the rolling dice to both opposition set up to your chosen set up. This is what I believe is great about Xwing.

Practice doesn't make perfect- perfect practice makes perfect. Then roll the dice

First off, I agree with the idea that we should try to do more teaching after in-person games with new players.

Also, my thoughts on reminding players about triggers has shifted. I don't think it's right to not remind new players of their triggers. Eventually you'll want to ween them off of help, but do they really need to be top players right now? Help them to have a good time first, THEN help them get better. We want to keep the game open an accessible to the most people.

I totally agree with the OP here. If we don't try to identify the problem, we don't solve anything by giving lists. Instead, we're basically suggesting that someone buy $100+ to fly a list that they may not enjoy and will probably still lose with because they need help on their setup and flying. The thing is, they don't KNOW that's the problem, so they take list suggestions at face value and it perpetuates the myth that lists trump all.

And finally, to those going on with the light-a-man-on fire analogy, I find it disturbing that you talk that way about newer players and players that need help. It's a funny saying in isolation, but I would neve apply it to any situation. But maybe you mean to ignite one's passion. I'll just pretend that's what you all meant.

There is the assumption by the OP that everyone giving advice is fit to give advice. A lot of people find a list on the Internet and play it without learning it or customizing it to their play style. For some it is all about the list.

Some posters asking for advice ask a broad question. For those you can only give a broad answer. If someone posted "this is my list and I am haveing trouble with this other list, what would you recommend I change? How should I set up and fly it?" They can get a more specific answer.

There is the assumption by the OP that everyone giving advice is fit to give advice. A lot of people find a list on the Internet and play it without learning it or customizing it to their play style. For some it is all about the list.

Which turns it into a financial arms race, which is an excellent way to disenchant and burn out players.

Many men already believe they know how to fish and will take offense to the idea that they don't just have the wrong pole.

I think that we have reached the limit of the analogy.

The post game autopsy is difficult to perform. Especially with a new player. The noob is over loaded with information. The ship's dial, space rocks, opponent's ship position, etc.. In the case of a first time player a mirror match, single ship with no upgrades maybe the way to go for several games.

There was a technique used when I took driver's ed called annotated driving. The student driver would verbalize what he saw or did. For example, "there's a blue van passing me on the left". It let the instructor know that the student had situational awareness. This takes guessing the move one step further. It also gives the advanced player an immediate idea of what the noob is thinking.

IMO the two hardest things to teach a person are anticipating the opponents next move and knowing when to break off and reset your forces for better position. Some players are just better at anticipating their opponent's next move or reading tells. Getting good at reading the board takes time and experience and I don't think it can be taught. It can be illustrated but not taught. The same applies to breaking off and resetting your forces.

The person doing the teaching is going to need a lot of patience. Initially there's a lot for the noob to learn.

I have to agree with this, list building help is very nice but sometimes I need more help in my knowledge of how I should be positioned. the movement information thread is amazing but have we made something similar yet for setup and maneuvering against squad archetypes?

Getting good at reading the board takes time and experience and I don't think it can be taught. It can be illustrated but not taught. The same applies to breaking off and resetting your forces.

The person doing the teaching is going to need a lot of patience. Initially there's a lot for the noob to learn.

I think you're right about needing patience. Teaching isn't for everyone. Personally, I love teaching, whether it's at the game store, at home, or in the classroom. Teaching's my jam. I'm very lucky that we have had some new players join our group in the past month. It's been super fun trying to teach list-building, obstacle placement, and target priority, to name a few things.

EDIT: "Poor view of teaching" is a poor choice of words. I should instead say, "... you have a different philosophy on teaching than I have."

One great training technique we used to do is the opponent had to guess which maneuver you'd do just before you revealed your dial. Really got you thinking about move anticipation.

That is a very good suggestion for teaching new players, I like!

Many men already believe they know how to fish and will take offense to the idea that they don't just have the wrong pole.

I think that we have reached the limit of the analogy.

There's something fishy about my new accountant.

Also that tie is going to smell like a harbour for ever.

Quite frankly, half of "teach a man to fish" should probably involve a statistical course.

Example:

IG-88 with evade token and autothrusters follows Chewie at range 3 who has a target lock on the bounty hunter. Chewie rolls 3 blanks and thinks "I'll use my target lock!" Is this the right call?

Answer: no.

Chewie's odds of hitting are: 2,35%... save the target lock for later, preferably not a range 3 shot with autothruster activated + evade token.

There's something fishy about my new accountant.

Cod you be a bit more specific?