1 hour ago, PhantomFO said:

This is a game people play for fun. If you are not having fun and there is something else you'd rather be doing, why should you be expected to gut out another 3 hours because there's still two rounds left?

Agreed. But then why would you drop out?? You came to play X-Wing, and each game should be a new opportunity to have fun. But if you are only having fun when there is a glittering acrylic prize in sight. . .

It is fun, but a long day is a long day. Also, when you have a 3+ hour drive home after the event I can understand someone dropping out a bit early.

The only time I can think of a time that dropping maybe should be penalized is when it happens after the cut to single eliminations are made AND there is no mechanism to replace a player in the elimination bracket. If there is a "top eight" that wins some prize I see no problem with letting someone make it to the top 8 before dropping and allowing someone else to step in for a chance to win the top prizes; this is with the understanding that the T8 earn something but there are more rewards for placing higher so newly promoted are playing for those extras.

I don't think it's bad sportsmanship at all, and ESPECIALLY when the event itself has a mechanism of when X people drop they get to do Y.

I'll drop whenever I want for whatever reason I want. I don't need anybody's permission, and I'm not interested in looking for it. My life, my entrance fee, my time, my decision.

The last Regional I went to was a 4 hour drive away from home and I worked the next day. I ended up within 50 MOV of the cut so I stuck around, but other people from my area cut and ran early since they had the same 4 hour drive to make and weren't close to the cut. I'd never consider that bad sportsmanship by them.

At a convention with a lot of other things to do and see, or side events to make, unless tournament X-Wing is the most fun thing to do there for you I don't see why anyone should keep playing it and miss out on the rest of a convention once they stop having fun or are out of the running to compete.

People have family, kids, lives, jobs, and a thousand other drains on their free time. If they stop having fun with a game and want to go spend it elsewhere it's not going to bother me.

Dropping is fine and perfectly acceptable.

Just inform the TO.

17 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

Agreed. But then why would you drop out?? You came to play X-Wing, and each game should be a new opportunity to have fun. But if you are only having fun when there is a glittering acrylic prize in sight. . .

I dropped after game 6 at an Open.

At that point I could not qualify for day 2 and the dicerape I just suffered left me in No mood for a meaningless game 7 (Didnt care to try for 1 set of TL)

In the game I lost 2 Defenders in 2 rounds of shooting (hit hit crit crit crit blank blank blank followed by hit hit crit crit crit blank blank blank.

To really rub it in my homing missiler with TL and focus did 0 damage to a Ghost.

At that point I was in absolutely no mood for game 7

In large tournaments when there are 2 days of swiss, dropping out seems fine to me. Lighten the load on the tournament and help it go faster.

20 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

Agreed. But then why would you drop out?? You came to play X-Wing, and each game should be a new opportunity to have fun. But if you are only having fun when there is a glittering acrylic prize in sight. . .

Because it stopped being fun for whatever reason. Having a day where you do nothing but lose games can very easily get un-fun.

I think it is poor form to drop out unless you have a specific conflict that requires it - unplanned events do come up and need addressing. Dropping out because you're not doing well isn't good in my mind. Just make it about learning instead and try to pick up lessons from others... My strategy is to fail iteratively - if I win I won, if I lose I try to take away at least one lesson from it.

System Opens are a different animal from regular tournaments. A lot of people at the Endor tournament dropped after two or three losses so they could play in the hangar bay events. It led to a weird situation where I got a bye at 2-3.

On 3/24/2017 at 9:12 AM, Elavion said:

It's fairly common in X-Wing, and I never really understood it anyway. I actually enjoyed those last few meaningless games even more when I went to the tournament with a highly competitive mindset and failed, they helped me chill out.

I kinda wish all tournament rewards were either randomized or given to every participant.

cough cough Stele Open cough cough

On 24/03/2017 at 0:38 PM, Dave Grant said:

Don't want to derail the Open Thread, so a new topic.

At Hoth I noted a few people dropped out after it was clear they couldn't make the day 2 cut.

Is this acceptable tournament behaviour??

I think its poor form, and something I have not really seen in 23 years of wargaming tournaments. But this was my first in US, and first with X-wing... so maybe different tournament "culture" exists.

I'm going to hazard a guess and Assume you're a Brit

From what I've seen in the US tournaments (Not just X-wing), is that it is indeed standard practice, where as in the UK there is more of a fight till the end.

Strangely, this is also mirrored in the elections of both countries.

For lots of players, the prizes are the main draw of big official events. If they get to a point where they know there's no chance of winning prizes, it's fine if they go do something else.

For a small three-round casual tournament, I consider it bad form to drop with a 0-2 record, and doing that sort of thing repeatedly will get a player disinvited from future events of that kind. But they'd still be welcome to Store Championships and other events where a more competitive attitude is expected.