54 minutes ago, Oberron said:

A little off topic but are you from Europe/British area? Because that also could have been a reason for the impass since there are differences with American English and British English.

I am, but I also checked both definitions (Cambridge online is particularly good for this) and there was no significant difference. Both have the order and teach meanings.

26 minutes ago, VanderLegion said:

When you can be in physical contact but not "touching" in game terms, linguistics really mean nothing for determining how cards actually work.

Ha! Yeah, I dig you on that count. But we do have the explicit rules to make sense of it now.

But in the end we are still stuck with either using the wording we have or accepting that absolutely any card could mean anything.

2 hours ago, InquisitorM said:

I am, but I also checked both definitions (Cambridge online is particularly good for this) and there was no significant difference. Both have the order and teach meanings.

Ha! Yeah, I dig you on that count. But we do have the explicit rules to make sense of it now.

But in the end we are still stuck with either using the wording we have or accepting that absolutely any card could mean anything.

I had a hunch from when you used the pound symbol, I was referring to more of context structure of words and how they can be different then the normal use. Don't want to get into that to deeply because that is just more off topic and I don't think either of was want to play your pedantic game any more.

When you can be in physical contact but not "touching" in game terms, linguistics really mean nothing for determining how cards actually work.

Correct, which is why we look at any other supporting rules and rulings for help on such matters, such as FCS and the rule under target locks about abilities that say to acquire target locks and target lock actions. But even that is not a 100% thing (omega leader and modifying, or the word immediately for examples). We are but puppets on strings and FFG is in control.

7 hours ago, Oberron said:

A little off topic but are you from Europe/British area? Because that also could have been a reason for the impass since there are differences with American English and British English.

English and the version you call " American English " aren't actually that different. Apart from the way Americans seem to forget about some vowels in some words, or rearrange them altogether, their meaning generally remains the same.

11 hours ago, Wazat said:

Dear gods ... I came here wanting to contribute to the discussion, but I do not want do be dragged into the awful war that's going on in this thread. When I followed the link from the FAQ discussion, I expected something much more interesting than a mutually aggressive curb-stomping over the slanted meaning of words like "instruct" and "the" and "jesuschristFFGjustreplytothequestion".

I think arguing about specific words takes us down a rabbit hole of horror with no bottom. FFG doesn't use words consistently. There's no answer down there, and it hurts watching the conversation tumble deeper and deeper into the ugly abyss.

My guess was always that a game effect is simply any effect that triggers in the game, but I don't want to invite deterministic curb stomping. I always saw the opportunity to spend a focus token for focus->hit, or spend a target lock to reroll, as a game effect that triggers during the Modify Attack/Defense Dice steps, no different from Calculation. But I don't want to invite aggressive curb stomping. At this point, contributing or discussing my thoughts here is not an option. There's no way to step into this thread to share ideas; all anyone can look forward to is getting picked apart with clever non-answers designed to exhaust the "opponent", not to resolve the question.

You could threaten someone's life on the internet, but if you really want to hurt them, pick apart every word they say in the most petty, tedious way possible. Oldest trick in the book. I really thought this could be an interesting discussion, but dear lord this was a rotten read; I just started skimming and finally skipping posts. It's like watching two grammar nazis go at it, and feeling sick to my stomach instead of entertained or enlightened. I have no optimism for future posts, especially replies to my own post. Grammar nazis love nothing more than fresh blood.

This above all else is why FFG needs to address basic questions like this in their FAQs... the forums cannot resolve such questions by picking apart flawed language and arguing over its "perfectly obvious meaning", and never will. This discussion will always devolve to awful pedantry and pettiness. Not even "Frank" can resolve this, whatever his answer; unless it's the official FAQ, it won't be something you can take to the table to settle the question with someone who disagrees.

Especially someone who loves to argue...

It's not normally this bad.

We've actually been able to have really helpful discussions sometimes.

21 minutes ago, Parravon said:

It's not normally this bad.

We've actually been able to have really helpful discussions sometimes.

paragoomba

1 hour ago, Oberron said:

paragoomba

But not with that idiot.

10 minutes ago, Parravon said:

But not with that idiot.

It keep the ball rolling and since you're posting here. what do you think about "game effects" and what it means? Any further insight or view point?

Being a game designer myself, I read these rules and generally see the designed intentions. But I'm constantly surprised by the way others read these rules and come up with some truly bizarre interpretations. And then try and "rules lawyer" their way around them.

Paragoomba was a prime example of that.

15 minutes ago, Parravon said:

Being a game designer myself, I read these rules and generally see the designed intentions. But I'm constantly surprised by the way others read these rules and come up with some truly bizarre interpretations. And then try and "rules lawyer" their way around them.

Paragoomba was a prime example of that.

Wasn't he mostly wrong about several things....?

As for designed intentions and such, I feel you are sidestepping my question without directly answering it for a specific purpose. I assure you I'm only wanting other thoughts and opinions on the subject, I'm going trying to spring any "AH HA!" traps or anything and I don't want the game that inquisitorM and I had to scare people away or not want to talk about the topic. If you wish to keep it to yourself I'll respect and honor that wish.

37 minutes ago, Oberron said:

Wasn't he mostly wrong about several things....?

As for designed intentions and such, I feel you are sidestepping my question without directly answering it for a specific purpose. I assure you I'm only wanting other thoughts and opinions on the subject, I'm going trying to spring any "AH HA!" traps or anything and I don't want the game that inquisitorM and I had to scare people away or not want to talk about the topic. If you wish to keep it to yourself I'll respect and honor that wish.

Paragoomba was mostly wrong, but he refused to see that. A lot of the things he claimed he would do in a game would range from dodgy to the perfect definition of " unsportsmanlike behaviour ". And that was his major problem. He would expect a player to allow him to certain concessions, but deny that player the same courtesy. And he would proudly post about these exploits. Some of his shenanigans were pretty much cheating. But he's gone now, and the forum is better for it.

As for trying to define a "game effect", I feel that it is a term that covers an extremely wide variety of occurrences within the game rules including the pilot and card abilities. To try and nail it down to cover a particular situation could be seen as just baiting an argument trap. "This is a 'game effect', but this isn't..." is a line of logic that is fraught with danger. One could argue that the moment the first ship is moved, it has created a "game effect". And I think they could be right. Others could argue that moving a ship is not a "game effect", but merely a "game mechanic". And they would be right also. Which would lead one to believe that those two terms are sometimes interchangeable.

I don't think there's likely to be a resolution that will satisfy everyone.

And in relation to Targeting Synchronizer, I'm not going to offer comment on what is or is not a "game effect". I think I know enough about the game and the intent of the card in question to make a logical conclusion as to what it means.

Okay, not going to read through the whole thread given how toxic the posts that I did read were. So, sorry if this was already brought up.

I also started out thinking that a game effect instructing you to spend a target lock is anything in-game that requires you to spend one, including standard reroll. I would still prefer if that is the ruling that FFG arrives at whenever they do give us a clarification.

But... if that was their intention, wouldn't they just have worded it like the equivalent effect for focus on Esege Tuketu, "When another friendly ship at Range 1-2 is attacking, it may treat your focus tokens as its own." -> "Other friendly ships at Range 1-2 may treat your target lock tokens as their own." ? This would allow two new combos with Adv. Targeting Computer or M9-G8, but would FFG really complicate the text that much just to counter those two combos? Even if they did, wouldn't they have gone for "Other friendly ships at Range 1-2 may spend your target lock tokens as their own." ?

So, while I fully understand that the text can be read as "any game effect, including standard rerolls" (and did read it that way myself initially), that effect could have been worded in a much more straightforward way, implying to me that they specifically chose this wording to exclude something, likely normal rerolls.

2 hours ago, Tobl said:

But... if that was their intention, wouldn't they just have worded it like the equivalent effect for focus on Esege Tuketu, "When another friendly ship at Range 1-2 is attacking, it may treat your focus tokens as its own." -> "Other friendly ships at Range 1-2 may treat your target lock tokens as their own." ? This would allow two new combos with Adv. Targeting Computer or M9-G8, but would FFG really complicate the text that much just to counter those two combos? Even if they did, wouldn't they have gone for "Other friendly ships at Range 1-2 may spend your target lock tokens as their own." ?

So, while I fully understand that the text can be read as "any game effect, including standard rerolls" (and did read it that way myself initially), that effect could have been worded in a much more straightforward way, implying to me that they specifically chose this wording to exclude something, likely normal rerolls.

It could not, if they had worded it like that, Omega Leader and Vader Advanced Targeting Computer would have had multiple Target Lock. Do you really want all your squad nullified from modification against Omega Leader because the other team use a squad of Targeting Sync

Well, I just scanned through most of that, this is a pretty crazy thread.

For my part I'll just throw in that I'm of the opinion that Targeting Synchronizer means that any time a ship may want or need to spend a target lock it may spend yours instead.

I would define game effect as anything that can change the board state. So yes regular target lock rerolls can be done. If it was only supposed to apply to cards it would say "Card effect" instead. If it was meant for specifically ordinance they would have put "When you need to spend a target lock for ordinance"

It does also create an odd hole where apparently it would not work for Homing Missile and a couple other things that only require you have the Lock rather than spend it but I assume that's intentional or it would be phrased the same way Sara Beys ability is.

10 minutes ago, sharrrp said:

Well, I just scanned through most of that, this is a pretty crazy thread.

For my part I'll just throw in that I'm of the opinion that Targeting Synchronizer means that any time a ship may want or need to spend a target lock it may spend yours instead.

I would define game effect as anything that can change the board state. So yes regular target lock rerolls can be done. If it was only supposed to apply to cards it would say "Card effect" instead. If it was meant for specifically ordinance they would have put "When you need to spend a target lock for ordinance"

It does also create an odd hole where apparently it would not work for Homing Missile and a couple other things that only require you have the Lock rather than spend it but I assume that's intentional or it would be phrased the same way Sara Beys ability is.

It specifically DOES work for homing missiles - the bit that says they can treat 'attack: target lock' as 'attack' does that.

19 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

It specifically DOES work for homing missiles - the bit that says they can treat 'attack: target lock' as 'attack' does that.

My mistake, I was going off memory and not referencing the exact text. Which is usually asking for trouble.

2 hours ago, muribundi said:

It could not, if they had worded it like that, Omega Leader and Vader Advanced Targeting Computer would have had multiple Target Lock. Do you really want all your squad nullified from modification against Omega Leader because the other team use a squad of Targeting Sync

The second version ("Other friendly ships at Range 1-2 may spend your target lock tokens as their own.") takes care of that since neither Omega nor Adv.TC actually spend target locks.

9 hours ago, Parravon said:

English and the version you call " American English " aren't actually that different. Apart from the way Americans seem to forget about some vowels in some words, or rearrange them altogether, their meaning generally remains the same.

for your convenience:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dialects_of_the_English_language

4 hours ago, Tobl said:

The second version ("Other friendly ships at Range 1-2 may spend your target lock tokens as their own.") takes care of that since neither Omega nor Adv.TC actually spend target locks.

Still leaves a weird situation with advanced targeting computer. ATC says you can add a crit, if you do, you can't spend target locks during the attack. Currently ti's not an issue, becuase i fyou spend your TL first, you don't have one to add the crit, if you add the crit, you can't spend the TL. But if you have someone ELSE's target lock, what happens ifyou spend their TL first, THEN decide to trigger ATC? It doesn't say you can't do it if you've already spent a TL, and when you spent the TL, there was nothing saying you couldn't spend TLs during the attack, so seemingly you'd be able to do it. But the design of the card is intended to prevent you from being able to do both.

30 minutes ago, VanderLegion said:

Still leaves a weird situation with advanced targeting computer. ATC says you can add a crit, if you do, you can't spend target locks during the attack. Currently ti's not an issue, becuase i fyou spend your TL first, you don't have one to add the crit, if you add the crit, you can't spend the TL. But if you have someone ELSE's target lock, what happens ifyou spend their TL first, THEN decide to trigger ATC? It doesn't say you can't do it if you've already spent a TL, and when you spent the TL, there was nothing saying you couldn't spend TLs during the attack, so seemingly you'd be able to do it. But the design of the card is intended to prevent you from being able to do both.

But that's also true if we consider rerolling to be a game effect that instructs spending, which I'm arguing that wording is equivalent to.

56 minutes ago, VanderLegion said:

Still leaves a weird situation with advanced targeting computer. ATC says you can add a crit, if you do, you can't spend target locks during the attack. Currently ti's not an issue, becuase i fyou spend your TL first, you don't have one to add the crit, if you add the crit, you can't spend the TL. But if you have someone ELSE's target lock, what happens ifyou spend their TL first, THEN decide to trigger ATC? It doesn't say you can't do it if you've already spent a TL, and when you spent the TL, there was nothing saying you couldn't spend TLs during the attack, so seemingly you'd be able to do it. But the design of the card is intended to prevent you from being able to do both.

ATC says you can't spend target locks during the attack if you add a crit result. If you want to add a crit you can't spend target locks at all during the attack.

When attacking with your primary weapon , if you have a target lock on the defender, you may add 1 critical result to your roll. If you do, you cannot spend target locks during this attack.

1 hour ago, Oberron said:

ATC says you can't spend target locks during the attack if you add a crit result. If you want to add a crit you can't spend target locks at all during the attack.

When attacking with your primary weapon , if you have a target lock on the defender, you may add 1 critical result to your roll. If you do, you cannot spend target locks during this attack.

The problem is that you can't spend target locks IF you add the crit. You haven't added the crit whe you spend the TL. And it doesn't say you can't add the crit if you've ALREADY spent a target lock.

Yup, it's the same precedent (in the converse situation) as Accuracy Corrector and HotCoP. The game doesn't have memory or foresight of future use of abilities.

It would have to add a clause precluding the use of the ability if a TL had been spent as well as precluding further spending. I'd expect an FAQ or erratum to that effect.

12 minutes ago, VanderLegion said:

The problem is that you can't spend target locks IF you add the crit. You haven't added the crit whe you spend the TL. And it doesn't say you can't add the crit if you've ALREADY spent a target lock.

This is off topic at this point you should make a new thread about it and I'll comment there.

5 minutes ago, Oberron said:

This is off topic at this point you should make a new thread about it and I'll comment there.

Honesly there's no point in making a new thread about it because AFAIK it's not possible right now. The whole reason i brought it up was a possible issue if they'd changed the wording on Targeting Synchronizer as suggested above.

10 minutes ago, VanderLegion said:

Honesly there's no point in making a new thread about it because AFAIK it's not possible right now. The whole reason i brought it up was a possible issue if they'd changed the wording on Targeting Synchronizer as suggested above.

in that case lets me explain it like this. How can you follow the rule "If you do, you cannot spend target locks during this attack. " if you spent a target lock for a re-roll during the attack? If you try to add a crit result after spending a target lock you have broken that rule. I hope this kinda clears it up? I was in the same boat before in another table top game that had similar rule wording. Break no rule unless a rule tells you you can.

If they change the wording on Targeting synchronizer like they have for other cards then so be it but I don't think they will, but clearing up what they mean by a few things would be nice.