Was it a **** move not letting opponent change his dial turn 1?

By Joe Censored, in X-Wing

2 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

If X-Wing is destined to change into a game solely for people who applaud kicking someone in the teeth when he's down, so be it, but I'm going to fight it. I'm equipped to fight it, and as long as I'm a player of the game, I'll fight for people who think there should be more to it than "just following the rules, no matter what."

*Slow clap*

1 minute ago, BlodVargarna said:

*Slow clap*

... And on the other side are the people like this.

Prosecution rests.

Interesting Covenant Cast today on incentivising tournaments in the wrong way. Definitely I think X-Wing can get far too competitive and prizes might have something to do with it.

I would let my opponent change the move but no doubt I'm far too nice. I defer to my opponent on most questions of range/arc/bumping etc because in general they care a lot more.

Maybe that's also a way of behaving badly if I think about it!

To the OP- I believe you should have let him change it. Does the make you a ****? No, just someone who wanted to win X-wing and there is nothing wrong with that. Clearly your opponent was like minded if he quit which is WAY worse behaviour. I remember an opponent let me change my obvious mistake half way through a tournament round. I went on to win that round and felt AWFUL about it. Since then I never ask to correct dial mistakes (which I still make) and refuse to do so even if the opponent offers. Just shrug my shoulders

9 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

I disagree that there's any "venom." All of the venom is on the other side. (Hell, you even have your own sycophantic cheering section, which I'm guessing mildly embarrasses you. If I'm right, that's to your credit.) I'm simply making arguments.

I also object to the characterization of me "going after the op's actions," because it's misleading. I actually applaud the OP's actions, because while he made a mistake, he was also Decent Human Being enough that he felt genuinely bad about it ... bad enough to bare his soul here, ask opinions, and -- holy Mother of God, rarest of rare -- change his mind. I think the OP might be the best person in this thread, so please stop trying to rhetorically characterize my arguments as attacks on him.

And as for why I'm so vocal about situations like this, there are intertwined reasons:

(1) I've been playing from very near the beginning. Competitive X-Wing has changed, in a way that I feel is very negative, and in such a way that it even drove the very first World Champion out of the game. (And Doug and I did not see eye to eye in everything, believe me.) And it continues to get worse, in fits and starts, partially because of the developmental direction of the game itself, but partially because of the type of player being increasingly drawn to it.

(2) I feel compassion for players like the OP -- who did something that a significant fraction of the community thinks is fine, yet he felt terrible about -- and the OP's opponent, who faced a "you're kidding" moment, to the extent that he didn't feel it was reasonable to even play the game. If you actually knew me, you'd find it hilarious that I am non-ironically using the word "compassion," but I am. If X-Wing is destined to change into a game solely for people who applaud kicking someone in the teeth when he's down, so be it, but I'm going to fight it. I'm equipped to fight it, and as long as I'm a player of the game, I'll fight for people who think there should be more to it than "just following the rules, no matter what."

Fair. I certainly agree that the op taking this as a learning experience to perhaps take a more merciful action next time is a commendable thing to do. And I agree that blindly following the rules isn't always the best option. But I do still feel counting those who do just stick to the rules as below decent and/or just in it to win is a horrible generalization that harms more than helps.

In the end, I respect the end goal you are striving for, though I don't agree with some of the tactics.

and like you said, I don't know you. Your posts here are but a single thread in your life's tapestry. I do apologize for making some assumptions beyond my knowledge.

29 minutes ago, 2Hard said:

I remember an opponent let me change my obvious mistake half way through a tournament round. I went on to win that round and felt AWFUL about it. Since then I never ask to correct dial mistakes (which I still make) and refuse to do so even if the opponent offers. Just shrug my shoulders

Yeah that's an interesting point. I would always offer a change of dial but probably never ask for one. But then, if my opponent didn't offer me a change, I would secretly be annoyed! Or if I offered a change and it really benefitted my opponent I would resent the fact he accepted it!

It is a psychological minefield :huh:

you did the right thing. I played a tournament game in another system and my opponent forgot to do something. So me being nice said, no worries mate do it now. He thanked me and we went on to my turn, guess what I forgot to do the same thing, in his words "to bad your fault play on", now I got burned in a big way, thinking I was doing the right thing and being nice, tournament yes, but wanted to play in a spirit in which I always play, and up until this point had been reciprocated. So mate you did the right thing and now I would do the same.

For the record it was a 40k game and I even had the weaker by far army, raven wing bikes army vs his grey knights in 6th ed for those that know the system... end result one very annoyed me who can actually play, he was tabled turn 3 and I lost 3 bikes in total.

I'm glad Big k made that post, because it nicely illustrates just how wrong the dozen people who took the position that the OP's opponent "learned" and "won't make that mistake again". What he learned was that the OP is an ********. What he does with that knowledge? Dunno, but it won't be positive (again, see Big k).

And I know Jeff said it but it bears repeating and emphasizing: negative reinforcement is not an effective teaching technique. The notion that a short, sharp shock will teach an enduring lesson (in particular, the intended lesson) is folk wisdom that is unsupported by evidence. The opposite is supported by evidence. And so the repeated claims that the opponent will learn? Nothing but self-serving fantasies. "I shouldn't feel bad, really I was helping the guy when I made him take his ship off the board on the first turn." I mean, you do you, but that's just not how humans work.

*I don't think this of the OP. But I'd be shocked if the OP's opponent didn't feel this way.

1 hour ago, mxlm said:

I'm glad Big k made that post, because it nicely illustrates just how wrong the dozen people who took the position that the OP's opponent "learned" and "won't make that mistake again". What he learned was that the OP is an ********. What he does with that knowledge? Dunno, but it won't be positive (again, see Big k).

And I know Jeff said it but it bears repeating and emphasizing: negative reinforcement is not an effective teaching technique. The notion that a short, sharp shock will teach an enduring lesson (in particular, the intended lesson) is folk wisdom that is unsupported by evidence. The opposite is supported by evidence. And so the repeated claims that the opponent will learn? Nothing but self-serving fantasies. "I shouldn't feel bad, really I was helping the guy when I made him take his ship off the board on the first turn." I mean, you do you, but that's just not how humans work.

*I don't think this of the OP. But I'd be shocked if the OP's opponent didn't feel this way.

He only learns that if he's flying casually and chooses to get angry at his opponent for his own mistake instead of learning from it.

All you have to do is take an extra second or two and double check the direction of the maneuver on your dial. If someone is too dense to understand that, then they deserve to get angry and not enjoy themselves.

That's a great defense mechanism. Make simple, easily avoidable blunders and then instead of making an effort to not forget things or to double check things, you can just blame it on your opponent when your opponent when your demands aren't met.

That surely is the best way to improve, blame others for your failings.

Intentionally avoid meta squads, lose all of your games, then it's not your fault that you lost because all of the turbocharged WAAC players brought Jumpmasters and Fenn Rau.

Insist that playing to win and playing for fun are mutually exclusive. Say that you're playing for fun, not to win. That way when you lose it's okay because you had fun while all of the winners had empty, meaningless wins.

1 hour ago, mxlm said:

I'm glad Big k made that post, because it nicely illustrates just how wrong the dozen people who took the position that the OP's opponent "learned" and "won't make that mistake again". What he learned was that the OP is an ********. What he does with that knowledge? Dunno, but it won't be positive (again, see Big k).

And I know Jeff said it but it bears repeating and emphasizing: negative reinforcement is not an effective teaching technique. The notion that a short, sharp shock will teach an enduring lesson (in particular, the intended lesson) is folk wisdom that is unsupported by evidence. The opposite is supported by evidence. And so the repeated claims that the opponent will learn? Nothing but self-serving fantasies. "I shouldn't feel bad, really I was helping the guy when I made him take his ship off the board on the first turn." I mean, you do you, but that's just not how humans work.

*I don't think this of the OP. But I'd be shocked if the OP's opponent didn't feel this way.

Interesting. I read Big K's post and made pretty much the exact OPPOSITE conclusion. I read that post as "I should have just had him follow the rules as expected and that way if I fail to follow the rules I can't blame anyone but myself." Had the "forgiveness" never happened there would never have been any issues to begin with. It's just when you allow yourself to be walked over and then expect someone else to do the same there is a risk if disappointment there.

9 hours ago, BlodVargarna said:

What I'm arguing is that OP was not a D and that in fact it is the fool who made the idiotic mistake was a D for rage quitting rather than taking his lumps and playing the game and trying to find fun in the joy of playing rather than only wanting to win, which is clear that was what he wanted based on his behavior.

Why do you automatically consider that concede=rage quit? Why can't it be a calm and carefully considered decision ?

In general, losing 40ish points out of 100 before the game starts means you've lost, barring extraordinary luck or skill difference. At that point:

-If your goal is winning games why not concede, since it's an almost guaranteed loss? If you concede you get an hour or so to eat/drink/rest/calm down, which might be a big deal in your subsequent performance tournament.

-If your goal is playing, why not concede since you aren't actually playing the game, rather just moving ships around the board toward a foregone conclusion?

Only reason I can think of to keep playing is to accumulate MOV.

1 minute ago, LordBlades said:

Only reason I can think of to keep playing is to accumulate MOV.

That's another reason he could have kept playing!

I'm sure the opponent didn't rage out otherwise OP would have mentioned it. So I'm being liberal with the term. But he quit, that we know.

17 minutes ago, BlodVargarna said:

That's another reason he could have kept playing!

I'm sure the opponent didn't rage out otherwise OP would have mentioned it. So I'm being liberal with the term. But he quit, that we know.

Blood, while I agree with you on the fly casual issue in general and that it's just a bunch of sloppy players that at militant about it, I don't think that someone who (rage)concedes is necessarily an *******. That's in their rights and when faced with such a colossal initial set back, is reasonable.

It may be un-wise to not harvest as much MoV as possible, but that doesn't make them an *******. Maybe they wanted to get food or not waste time on a forgone conclusion just to potentially salvage some MoV.

It has occurred to me that had this happened during a Friday night game against a friend my response would be. "Do you want to carry on playing this game or would you like to restart and it be 1 - 0 to me for this evening?".

I would then make certain that the "flying off the board on turn 1" game would be mentioned every so often in a comical manner.

This can't be done at a the tournament level unfortunately so its "sorry for your mistake. Would you like a beer afterwards? Thanks for the easy win". In as nice a way as possible of course.

17 hours ago, Jeff Wilder said:

I disagree that there's any "venom." All of the venom is on the other side. (Hell, you even have your own sycophantic cheering section, which I'm guessing mildly embarrasses you. If I'm right, that's to your credit.) I'm simply making arguments.

You can disagree, but when you're calling names in the very next sentence, you're lying. As with labeling people "lawful evil." You're not "simply making arguments." You're acting like a self-righteous tool. Are you really that guy? I don't know. I understand the attraction to such positions; you get to feel really good about yourself and pretend you're occupying some moral high ground without actually doing anything of substance. It's currently en vogue.

16 hours ago, mxlm said:

And I know Jeff said it but it bears repeating and emphasizing: negative reinforcement is not an effective teaching technique. The notion that a short, sharp shock will teach an enduring lesson (in particular, the intended lesson) is folk wisdom that is unsupported by evidence. The opposite is supported by evidence. And so the repeated claims that the opponent will learn? Nothing but self-serving fantasies. "I shouldn't feel bad, really I was helping the guy when I made him take his ship off the board on the first turn."

I like this argument. The idea that 'only by punishing a mistake can a lesson be learned' is simply wrong. It's one of the most important lessons I ever learned as a teacher.

@SaltMaster 5000, refering to someone as being 'dense' for not double checking their dials is a bit extreme. Fatigue/Anxiety/Overconfidence/Forgetfulness could be reasons. If someone genuinely does not have the cognitive ability to remember to check their dials (or are, as you put it, 'dense'), then you would truly be a **** to punish them so hard on turn one.

9 minutes ago, Bonza said:

I like this argument. The idea that 'only by punishing a mistake can a lesson be learned' is simply wrong. It's one of the most important lessons I ever learned as a teacher.

@SaltMaster 5000, refering to someone as being 'dense' for not double checking their dials is a bit extreme. Fatigue/Anxiety/Overconfidence/Forgetfulness could be reasons. If someone genuinely does not have the cognitive ability to remember to check their dials (or are, as you put it, 'dense'), then you would truly be a **** to punish them so hard on turn one.

Forgetting to double check isn't dense.

What's dense would be to get angry at your opponent instead of taking it as a reminder to double check in the future.

Blaming others for your failings instead of improving yourself is dense.

5 minutes ago, SaltMaster 5000 said:

Forgetting to double check isn't dense.

What's dense would be to get angry at your opponent instead of taking it as a reminder to double check in the future.

Blaming others for your failings instead of improving yourself is dense.

Mmmm.... I think getting angry at someone else for your own mistakes makes you a jerk :)

Yeah - blaming others for your own mistakes is unproductive, but I'm not sure if that's what happened in this particular situation.

Anyways, I seem to have misrepresented your statement, so my aplogies.

In regards to the OP, (No I've not read all 12 pages)

Yes you're a Jerk, but not because you didn't let him change the dial. Because you called over the Judge in an attempt to absolve yourself of the responsibility/ Guilt, knowing full well that they HAVE to rule that it flies off of the table

8 hours ago, Bonza said:

Mmmm.... I think getting angry at someone else for your own mistakes makes you a jerk :)

Yeah - blaming others for your own mistakes is unproductive, but I'm not sure if that's what happened in this particular situation.

Anyways, I seem to have misrepresented your statement, so my aplogies.

I don't think his opponent ever got angry at him according to the OP. I'm just saying if someone were to get angry at their opponent for holding them to their own mistakes, that would be dense.

4 hours ago, Shockwave said:

In regards to the OP, (No I've not read all 12 pages)

Yes you're a Jerk, but not because you didn't let him change the dial. Because you called over the Judge in an attempt to absolve yourself of the responsibility/ Guilt, knowing full well that they HAVE to rule that it flies off of the table

This is the best way to diffuse the situation in case someone were to get angry.

You're not deflecting the responsibility onto the judge, he's just parroting the rules. So you're deflecting responsibility onto the rules.

Besides, the OP isn't guilty or responsible for this in the first place. It was his opponent that flew off the board.

4 minutes ago, SaltMaster 5000 said:

This is the best way to diffuse the situation in case someone were to get angry.

You're not deflecting the responsibility onto the judge, he's just parroting the rules. So you're deflecting responsibility onto the rules.

I disagree, when the person calls the judge over for this case instance then the person is telling you no. I personally would respect a person more if they said "no" rather than calling a judge for this case instance. If the person is angry about it, then calling a judge over doesn't really make much of difference.

GTFOH with the whole oh no people don't learn from negative reinforcement or a short shock doesn't teach enduring lessons? How many of us have burned ourselves and learned from it. When I like like 5 or 6 i went to a hibachi restaurant a placed my hand right on the cooking surface and burnt my hand to hell and guess what I've never done it again. People learn in so many different ways. Some people need to be yelled at, some need to experience Pain, some have to be coddled, some have to be reasoned with, some have to be shown over and over, some have to see it logically, and so on. I've been teaching kids and adults for 11 years and I've seen my fair share of people who have to learn the harder ways.

Op did nothing wrong.

On 7/14/2017 at 2:22 PM, Jeff Wilder said:

If X-Wing is destined to change into a game solely for people who applaud kicking someone in the teeth when he's down, so be it, but I'm going to fight it. I'm equipped to fight it, and as long as I'm a player of the game, I'll fight for people who think there should be more to it than "just following the rules, no matter what."

You claim to represent the "fly casual" mindset. Yet, if you truly believed that, you shouldn't care what the OP did. You should just go with the flow.

The first problem is that you are thinking that "casual" and "competitive" are opposite ends of a spectrum. This is incorrect. They're not on the same spectrum at all.

The opposite of Casual is "Ragingly Abrasive Jerkface"

The opposite of Competitive is someone who puts zero effort into the game. Just makes a list and flys it. Doesn't put any specific effort into winning, makes lots of rules errors and no effort to correct them, etc...

IE: casual is an attitude. Competitive is how you play the game mechanically.

Lots of people get confused, and equate being competitive with being a "Ragingly Abrasive Jerkface" because they see people who are both hyper competitive and are jerks. But they are NOT the same thing.

To use your stupid DnD alignment allegory... You have confused the Morality plane with the Order plane. You are mistakenly equating a person who is being Lawful with someone who is being Evil. Disregarding that Lawful Good and Lawful Neutral exist at all.

IE: Someone wanting to follow the rules, with no deviation from them whatsoever, just means that they are Lawful. But you are going a step beyond and saying that someone who is rigid about this MUST be Lawful Evil because "No takebacksies!". This is incorrect.

People insisting on following the rules does not make them a non-casual gamer. The non-competitive gamer actually needs the rules to be followed as much as anybody. Because he wants a fair game, just like everybody else. When you break the rules, you're not longer playing X-wing. You're playing something else of your own construction. Which is fine. But when people agree to play X-wing, like going to an X-wing tournament, you better follow the rules.

The only person who did anything "wrong" was the OP's opponent. He made a major tactical blunder, and he should be held to it.

“The burned hand teaches best. After that, advice about fire goes to the heart.”

J.R.R. Tolkien

Take-backsies are poison for getting someone to actually be a better player. It actually actively makes them a bad player because you have rewarded the bad playing with a positive reward. Subconsciously, their brain is saying "I can make mistakes because we will just fix it and play like it didn't happen".

Edited by BadMotivator

*double post

Edited by BadMotivator

Well, this I think it's mostly up to you. In a super-competitive environment where you meet tons of people paying the game and you probably will never see them again, then I think you did well following the rules. Where I live, there are about 10-15 (at most) people attending tournaments, so we pretty much all know each other. If anyone makes a first-turn wrong maneuver, we just allow them to change their dial. I mean, it's not like anyone wants to fly their ship off the board turn 1.

Of course, mistakes in the course of the game are still not excused (except the occasional focus/evade token) because the game has its rules written that way for a reason.

Anyway, I don't think you were a jerk by following the game's rules, but the clear conscience factor tells me that if I deserve to win, I should do so on equal terms with my opponent and not try to get a victory out of something clearly unintended. After that, it is a matter of dice and skill.