There is actually a solid case to be made that playtesters have a harder time with competitive list creation because they are splitting their time with multiple metas. They have to be familiar with what is going on now in the tournament scene but also try to keep up with what is being playtested at any given moment. They could be several waves ahead for all we know and they have to keep it all straight. They are sacrificing their time to play with unreleased content that could be better spent perfecting a list for the current meta. Think of how much better that player would be if they just focused on what's happening in the actual meta.

This.

He have an unfair, huge, proven advantage.

Tom Reed is a great player. He's not a great player with deep knowledge of the game because he's a playtester; he's a playtester because he's a great player with deep knowledge of the game. Don't get bitter because a better player won those events; get better and win the events yourself next year!

i think that the OP doesn't go far enough. Playtesters should only ever be allowed to test one wave. after it is complete, they should be locked up, or maybe even executed, so that they are never able to play x-wing again. this way, the playing field is completely fair for everyone, and no-one ever gets an advantage.

furthermore, the OP should be given a little sticker confirming that he is a unique and special snowflake, and that he deserves special treatment, even though no-one else does. this is the most important part, because otherwise we run a serious risk of making him cry.

whoa. relax. if you don't relax NOW i start to cry.

i think that the OP doesn't go far enough. Playtesters should only ever be allowed to test one wave. after it is complete, they should be locked up, or maybe even executed, so that they are never able to play x-wing again. this way, the playing field is completely fair for everyone, and no-one ever gets an advantage.

furthermore, the OP should be given a little sticker confirming that he is a unique and special snowflake, and that he deserves special treatment, even though no-one else does. this is the most important part, because otherwise we run a serious risk of making him cry.

whoa. relax. if you don't relax NOW i start to cry.

tears for the tears god!

If there were substantial cash prizes for winning tournaments, maybe I could see a reason to disallow play testers from tournaments. But we aren't at that point, and I'm kind of hoping we never do get there.

I agree totally with you Kdubb; money should never, ever, ever, ever get into something like gaming. Money F*s up everything its nasty, greedy hands gets into. I'm not sure I can make my point a more visceral response; if I could, I would.

I think testers should be able to play all they want, tournaments or whatever; we want very good players to test these ships out pre-manufacture. It's like a test driver of Formula One cars not being allowed to race them....that thought is illogical in spades.

As far as the Jumpmaster list he plays, well, there is another issue altogether. This poor chap did nothing but jump on the easy to fly and beat the s*&$ out of others bandwagon. FFG screwed the pooch on this one; they listened to the b*%$hing and moaning far to much when they were designing the toilet-seat. When they were discussing cost, EPT and the movement dial, they were in a weird, intimidated mood I'm guessing....I don't know. I know this happens; when the Previous Imperial Phantom was exposed as an OP that discouraged new players from entering the addiction, FFG actually nerfed the ship from awesome to a very playable one because of the b*%$hing on forums like this one. However, FFG has yet to fix the toilet screw-up (beyond the 'fix' that actually caused negative issues for many ships (like the Punisher) rather than just dial-back (pardon the pun) the toilet specifically) and probably will never do that as they don't want to be seen as being able to be manipulated, or, probably more likely, admit they screwed up on that one.

Man, I ramble too much. Sorry. Maybe too much caffeine...I need a spin on my Buell.

Peace

So Tom Reed is one of those people responsible for that is the UTTER CRAP of triple jump masters with dead-eye... Awesome! Well done..

All this talk of playtesting makes me wonder how the process actually works. I'm sure each one signs a non-disclosure, so no details needed. But does FFG just tell you whether it's a small or large base with a handful of stats and abilities along with some unnamed upgrade cards or do they provide more specifics? Like this is the new Upsilon shuttle and this upgrade is Kylo Ren. I doubt you would get an actual model. And do you just playtest at your house, with other playtesters, or Vassal? Just curious...

So Tom Reed is one of those people responsible for that is the UTTER CRAP of triple jump masters with dead-eye... Awesome! Well done..

All this talk of playtesting makes me wonder how the process actually works. I'm sure each one signs a non-disclosure, so no details needed. But does FFG just tell you whether it's a small or large base with a handful of stats and abilities along with some unnamed upgrade cards or do they provide more specifics? Like this is the new Upsilon shuttle and this upgrade is Kylo Ren. I doubt you would get an actual model. And do you just playtest at your house, with other playtesters, or Vassal? Just curious...

Very likely that nobody involved would be able to explain that process, due to such a Non-Disclosure Agreement.

So Tom Reed is one of those people responsible for that is the UTTER CRAP of triple jump masters with dead-eye... Awesome! Well done..

Not calling this Tom guy out but was gonna say this very thing. If play testers are so good how did that crap happen? You can't tell me people that are Paul Heaver good didn't immediately see that.

It's worth noting (before this turns into a witch-hunt) that the "responsibility" for any release would rest solely with FFG.

It's worth noting (before this turns into a witch-hunt) that the "responsibility" for any release would rest solely with FFG.

Oh agreed on that just a shame really more than anything. I am a mediocre player and I saw it the first day I saw the stat card. I didn't know it would be the phenom it became but I totally saw the 3 ships, 9 hp's a piece, and crazy amounts of red dice power behind dead-eye. I still can't believe ffg claims they missed that one.

Eventually, if you get big enough that you're basically printing money, like those Mages of Seattle, you hire a bunch of full-time in-house playtesters whose only job is to continually try to break your game, and who are forbidden from professionally competing. But if you're just getting some people to volunteer their time, no chance.

As far as the Jumpmaster list he plays, well, there is another issue altogether. This poor chap did nothing but jump on the easy to fly and beat the s*&$ out of others bandwagon.[...]

Loads of good players see all the cards of the expansion, but don't come up with the best lists. 2 obvious cases come to mind - swarms: In wave 1, the power of 7x Academy + Howlrunner was the best option out of the wave, but we got a Darth Vader + Miniswarm at worlds top table. 2nd example: Dengaroo. Nobody saw it coming, until it was there.

The point of Jumpmasters (and specifically the contracted scout) was to avoid the Wild Space Fringer and Outer Rim Smuggler sh*tshows. They didn't want another overpriced piece of garbage that never saw tabletime, and they made what they wanted. I can see that a nerf will appear eventually, but its nowhere near as vital as you seem to think.

When losing to jumps, you need to just git gud. Your rebel regen won't work against the high damage alpha strikes. Try looking for blockers and arc dodgers, like A wings, super Dash, palp-aces, and swarms. Jumps are perfectly beatable, and the salt has been way too high.

First off you can look at the credits for any ship and see who the play testers were on each ship. I know at least 2 of the guys on the Shadow Caster. Second off, just because he is a play tester does not mean he designed the ship. Nor was he the only one testing that ship. If he has been practicing for a year before the U-boat came out then maybe he does not understand his role as a play tester. That role is not to create great lists before the rest of us. That role is to break the ships they are given as much as possible to the designers have a good idea what is too powerful and where they should tweak it. An example would have been to remove the EPT from the generic U-boat. That one action would have stopped the whole triple U-boat fiasco, and brought that version of the ship into line with its points value and power. Another small tweak that could have been made was to make Manaroo's ability not affect ships with stress. IE: if your target is stress they may not receive tokens from Manaroo. She would still be a great ship, but no OP when combined with Dengar. But these things need to be found before the ship makes it into production. And that is the reason for the play testers. They need to explore a lot of combinations of ship and upgrade to find out what is just really broken. I would love to be a play tester but I am not good at breaking lists so I would not be a good play tester. The fact that they have a ship before the rest of us does not do a lot for them, as they can only play against other play testers on that same project. That would limit the benefit they get over the rest of us.

I still can't believe ffg claims they missed that one.

They make no such claim. The podcast everyone points to in support of this position does not actually support this position. Alex Davy says two things happen: sometimes a combo is missed and sometimes a combo is underestimated. He is never explicit, but the implication of the words he uses is that triple jumpmasters were underestimated rather than unintended.

I still can't believe ffg claims they missed that one.

They make no such claim. The podcast everyone points to in support of this position does not actually support this position. Alex Davy says two things happen: sometimes a combo is missed and sometimes a combo is underestimated. He is never explicit, but the implication of the words he uses is that triple jumpmasters were underestimated rather than unintended.

Agreed there is a small but important difference between the two.

The question now though is do they now attempt to slowly creep the game up to the new standard due to the underestimation of the JM5ks, or cut it down to size?

I have been playing X-Wing since it first came out. I have the financial means to buy as many of whatever ships I want to. I have no real limit to what squadrons I can fly, as I can easily purchase whatever ships I want to ensure I have the cards I need.

Should I be banned from playing in a tournament because I have been playing longer than many people?
Should I be banned from playing against new players in a tournament because I have been here longer?
Should I be banned because I do not need to ask to borrow cards or ships for my squadrons?

No.

And should playtesters be banned from competing?

No.

Having been a playtester (not FFG) I must stress that they are NOT employees. They do not necessarily even get an experience advantage as products may change from tested version to final product.

No, there's no real reason to prevent them from playing in tournaments.

I've been a playtester for other games (also not FFG, and it's been quite a while at that), so I'll second this.

Also, being a playtester doesn't necessarily give them an advantage. At least when it came to the games I playtested, the version I did testing with often didn't match the version that was released, so any playtester has to make sure they aren't remembering details of something that didn't make it to production, both in what they're playing and what they're playing against. (Granted, at least one of the companies I playtested for was horribly disorganized when it came to doing playtesting, so that might not apply to FFG....)

All this talk of playtesting makes me wonder how the process actually works. I'm sure each one signs a non-disclosure, so no details needed. But does FFG just tell you whether it's a small or large base with a handful of stats and abilities along with some unnamed upgrade cards or do they provide more specifics? Like this is the new Upsilon shuttle and this upgrade is Kylo Ren. I doubt you would get an actual model. And do you just playtest at your house, with other playtesters, or Vassal? Just curious...

As for where it's done and with whom - In my day, it was generally at someone's house, and with a local playtest group, all of whom had to sign NDAs. You have to be able to keep things private, so you can't exactly hold playtesting sessions at your FLGS, unless they can provide a lockable room. It would be a violation of your NDA to playtest somewhere that anyone could walk up and observe. I suppose these days things can be done electronically, though. Back in my day, that wasn't really an option, so that might be something that's changed!

Sorry OP but everyone is right about play testers being able to play. I can understand you think they have some advantage but really that is not true.

There is actually a solid case to be made that playtesters have a harder time with competitive list creation because they are splitting their time with multiple metas. They have to be familiar with what is going on now in the tournament scene but also try to keep up with what is being playtested at any given moment. They could be several waves ahead for all we know and they have to keep it all straight. They are sacrificing their time to play with unreleased content that could be better spent perfecting a list for the current meta. Think of how much better that player would be if they just focused on what's happening in the actual meta.

Plus to complain about the u-boat meta at this stage is pointless. Anybody could pick up u-boats and play it now... its been out for like 6+ months, any theoretical advantage that a playtester has is long gone. People have caught up. Even if there is an advantage it fades within a month of release (if not sooner due to Vassal).

Tom's a decent guy (apart from when he's flying my ships off the board ) and wins through natural ability and because his dedication to the game surpasses most others.

If just like to say...

I hate Tom Reed.

Anything that gets him banned from tourneys dramatically improves my odds so I'm 100% behind it.

Also, everyone knows Scott is actually better!

Suck it, Tom!

To quote another:

"If you want to be the man, you gotta beat the man. WOOOOOOO!!!!"

If you can't beat a playtester, then you haven't proven yourself against all opponents.

Oh good this again.

Here is my response: hell f^%&ing no this is a terrible idea!

Complete garbage. There would be no playtesters if this happened.

End thread.

Oh good this again.

Here is my response: hell f^%&ing no this is a terrible idea!

Complete garbage. There would be no playtesters if this happened.

End thread.

Nah there would be testers. They'd just be grossly incompetent for competitive balance.

Unlike the competent folks that tested contracted scouts, palpatine, scyk, kihraxz, star viper, T-70, R3, etc. Scary thought!!

Oh good this again.

Here is my response: hell f^%&ing no this is a terrible idea!

Complete garbage. There would be no playtesters if this happened.

End thread.

Nah there would be testers. They'd just be grossly incompetent for competitive balance.

Unlike the competent folks that tested contracted scouts, palpatine, scyk, kihraxz, star viper, T-70, R3, etc. Scary thought!!

Rule #1 of life in general:

It can absolutely ALWAYS be worse