1 minute ago, drjkel said:

The point of the game is to kill more points that you lose. A fortress decides to do it by not moving, essentially making the same decision every turn. Your dance around a bomb wall was both players prodding what options were available to them to break the stalemate. In one of those, both players need to think about their dials and their action.

It's not a huge difference and I doubt I'd have the patience for either one. I'd probably crack and think "whatever, I'll see what can be done and try to learn from it!" and just try to attack.

Heh... There was no dancing around the bomb wall. He walled me in with slamming K-wings (pre-nerf) and I just went... "That's fine," and made sure I was turning in a way that allowed me to put guns in the right direction. We stayed on opposite sides of the wall. It was a tournament, I had the dice advantage handedly, so I waited it out. That said, if the difference here is that a fortress player doesn't worry about their dials until a moment presents itself, then, there... you have your dividing difference between what I did and what a fortress player does.

Now, I have played against the Sol Sixxa/Nym bomb wall list that creates it's tiny corner walls bombs. I even told my opponent straight out - the best plan is to not engage - but lets see what happens... I beat him, but it was ugly. I stand by my first response for that scenario.

5 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

That's genuinely interesting to me.

So ... you're willing to forego enjoyment in the one tournament for the X% (your estimate goes here) chance that you'll win and be able to fully enjoy the next tournament?

Do I have that right? It seems really odd (and thus interesting, as I said).

Not entirely forgo, but say lose 50% of enjoyment for 60% change for double enjoyment in the long run. Right now, I estimate my odds of being able to attend a larger tournament at close to 20%, with minimal enjoyment so I just forgo that nd work at the 10% chance with full enjoyment. It is an economic decision.

Philosophical argument on fortressing is one I find interesting - e.g., what is and isn't fortressing. I think everyone agrees that it's not the way the game is intended to play.

Maybe if I give a few examples on the Scale™ of Fortressing® it'll help clarify? These are ordered in my person thoughts of "degrees of fortressing", but that's entirely subjective, from "most fortressy" to "least fortressy"

-------------------------------------------------------------

1. Fortressing FSR2 every game
2. Fortressing wookies to determine the correct angle to break out
3. Complex stalling/fortressing tactics (examples given below)
4. 4King defenders forever or 1turn rolling silencers/interceptors
5. Indefinitely stalling a lambda shuttle with another ship in front of it

-------------------------------------------------------------

Here's an example of a complex fortress, the one I ended up making for Ricky so he'd have a chance v Fat Turrets etc:

He'd then 1 straight to set up the double LRS lock:

From there, the actual fortress starts:

Here's the breakouts for anyone interested: https://imgur.com/a/WLGEe - the circles are just places to try and get rocks so they can't corner a rock on you and make life hard.

Now, that would be a straightforward obvious fortress, BUT:

We've set up a nascar track! Ships are moving! Actually, this is usually strictly better than fortressing, because now we can easily cover anything trying to come in from an up/left angle, because of how fast we can SLAM this gunboat around the fortress. The vast majority of the list isn't moving or doing anything, but now that one ship is moving it's no longer a fortress? This is an even more degenerate fortress, but it passes the "not fortressing test" as far as I can tell.

I think the gut "that's not wholesome response" stops kicking in once you get to 4+, but 3/4 are in the dangerously fortressy section. For whatever reason we've all accepted that it's fine for a lambda to stall forever, which is different from fortressing. Please note I'm not passing moral judgement, just a community observation.

This thread needs more 'Murica.

God this game should have kept the Wings of Glory overlap rule, which uses 2d alternate bases to let the ships actually "overlap" and pass each other at different altitudes.

3 minutes ago, skotothalamos said:

God this game should have kept the Wings of Glory overlap rule, which uses 2d alternate bases to let the ships actually "overlap" and pass each other at different altitudes.

It's kinda weird that it didn't, isn't it? It would have made everything so much easier. (And better, IMO.)

6 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

It's kinda weird that it didn't, isn't it? It would have made everything so much easier. (And better, IMO.)

Did they have larger ship bases in Wings of Glory? I'm just thinking of the mechanical problem of a larger base entirely enveloping a smaller one. Solvable by marking things of course, but could get unwieldy?

That’s why I think the fortressing divide where one version is playing and the other version isn’t is meaningless. A ship is technically moving around that racetrack but it’s absolutely still a fortress.

2 minutes ago, Brunas said:

Did they have larger ship bases in Wings of Glory? I'm just thinking of the mechanical problem of a larger base entirely enveloping a smaller one. Solvable by marking things of course, but could get unwieldy?

They do, yeah. (Google "Zeppelin Staaken Wings of Glory" and click on Images.)

8 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

They do, yeah. (Google "Zeppelin Staaken Wings of Glory" and click on Images.)

Pretty cool!

9 minutes ago, mdl0114 said:

That’s why I think the fortressing divide where one version is playing and the other version isn’t is meaningless. A ship is technically moving around that racetrack but it’s absolutely still a fortress.

I don't know where "the line is" or if it's even necessary to have one. It might be intent, but I can't know if my opponent's intent is to ever leave the fortress until it's too late, so that doesn't really help me! 4 Wookies starting at each other until I get close enough that they all attack me is exactly the same as 4 wookies that are just waiting to commit to a direction until I get close enough for them to do something after all... Half my motivation for making a scale in the first place is to do a slight edit on this anyways:

What if -- just bear with me, we're hypothesizing -- the "line" were actually, "What makes me feel bad for doing it?" Remember Ricky on the most recent podcast? What if that were his "line"? What would change about the subjective experience/worry he recounted?

1 minute ago, Jeff Wilder said:

What if -- just bear with me, we're hypothesizing -- the "line" were actually, "What makes me feel bad for doing it?" Remember Ricky on the most recent podcast? What if that were his "line"? What would change about the subjective experience/worry he recounted?

I think it's perfectly fine to have personal limits on things you enjoy or don't enjoy, personal opinions and taste vary. It's blanket statements that "Fortressing is douchey. It's always been douchey. It will always be douchey. Arguments to the contrary are thin rationalizations that even the people making them don't actually buy into." that aren't actually helpful or useful in a community, especially when using your own metric for which variant of the same tactic meets the metric for douchey. It's the same when people rage about how netlisters are all terrible people and should feel bad they didn't invent their own list, or whichever person it was in this forum yelling about alpha strikes being unsportsmanlike. Nothing's wrong with having an opinion or self-imposed standard it's the putting down of people who don't meet your particular standard that's not helpful or particularly great for the community.

Unrelated, googling wings of glory has led me to this thing, which looks awesome, and which I super need:

20 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

What if -- just bear with me, we're hypothesizing -- the "line" were actually, "What makes me feel bad for doing it?" Remember Ricky on the most recent podcast? What if that were his "line"? What would change about the subjective experience/worry he recounted?

Sure - and I agree, people shouldn't go past their line. The problem is, what happens when you encounter a player who won't feel bad doing it ever? Or enjoys it? Social shaming isn't a good way to change their behavior, I'm of the opinion that if we want to see these tactics disappear (and I think we all do) the rules probably need to change. All of the objectives were created to solve this problem, funnily enough - I'm not sure that there's a smaller change you could enact that would actually work, though I see refusing to engage as an implementation of fortressing, so we'd differ there.

The only time I'm down for public shaming is basically demonstrable cheating, and even that is... dangerous?

@Brunas that's exactly what I came in here to say today.

If someone's technically following the rules, that's not their fault, it's the person who made the rules' fault.

People shouldn't be shamed for anything that's game-legal.

If it's really overpowered, everybody should be playing Ghost/Fenn, and if the devs have a problem with that, they should nerf Fenn and think more carefully about designing new ships.

If it's actually a viable and useful tactic, everyone should be fortressing, and if the devs don't like that, they should change the tournament rules.

We can't (nor should we) try to encourage a """wholesome""" meta via shaming. True wholesomeness comes from within, and depends on the player, not the list. That is to say, I would still call a tournament where everyone is relaxed, low-key, and friendly but they're all flying triple Auzitucks "wholesome" because of the behavior of the players.

16 minutes ago, Brunas said:

Sure - and I agree, people shouldn't go past their line.

You didn't actually answer my question.

6 minutes ago, Kieransi said:

People shouldn't be shamed for anything that's game-legal.

That is bull@$%#.

There is a reason people feel ashamed when they do bad stuff that is technically legal. In life and in games. It's because that stuff is douchey. "It's legal, so there nothing wrong with it" is absolutely the last gasp of the ******.

And Chris, if you're implying that you, and other podcasters, and high-profile players could not, acting together, enact change through social pressure, you are lying, and you know you are lying. You guys have enacted change through social pressure, you're well aware of it, and (gasp) not all of it has been good. (I'm not saying it's been intentionally bad. But I am saying it has happened.)

3 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

That is bull@$%#.

There is a reason people feel ashamed when they do bad stuff that is technically legal. In life and in games. It's because that stuff is douchey. "It's legal, so there nothing wrong with it" is absolutely the last gasp of the ******.

It's a game. As fun as it is, it's not "life".

I don't see how using a particular list that other people don't like automatically qualifies as morally reprehensible.

Destiny had this problem too, when there were people who decided mill decks were morally reprehensible and tried to shame people out of playing something that (per the rules, number of cards released, etc.) is actually meant to be around 30-50% of the Destiny meta.

8 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

You didn't actually answer my question.

Oh, I missed the question - what would change? I think you're saying that is his line, right?

I'm not sure, because outside of recording he mentioned that it was distateful, but it was even more distateful that those tactics are the only thing making "wholesome" lists relevant, and that he regretted not doing it harder? I was pretty tired so I don't want to put words in his mouth more than I already have, @Kelvan if you're around.

On policing with shame - if we did that, wouldn't we still be upset at people for blocking? I don't remember the specific arguments against it, but fast and quick opinion is it and fortressing are emergent behavior of the games design that players use for their advantage.

Blocking is fun to me and foretressing isn't, but I can see how someone would think blocking isn't fun as well?

3 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

That is bull@$%#.

There is a reason people feel ashamed when they do bad stuff that is technically legal. In life and in games. It's because that stuff is douchey. "It's legal, so there nothing wrong with it" is absolutely the last gasp of the ******.

No, they shouldn't - especially not in a competitive setting. In casual, sure, guilt them - ****, I do that all the time - but at a tournament, I fully expect people to be running the best thing, and I don't feel any sort of betrayal for it, and they want to win, so they should do everything possible to do that. More importantly, we are bad people if we attempt to shame people for making the right decision in competitive games, and even worse if we shame people for doing something they might not even understand is wrong. For example, a local player and I are teaching someone to play ghost-fenn so that they can learn aspects of the game while not getting constantly curb stomped. If this player goes to a tournament, they may be shamed from the room for playing what we taught them, and they would feel bad for doing something they don't understand is wrong. Yes, long term players may no more of the intent, but newer people won't. If this guy showed up at our next casual night exited about fortressing, I would be proud because he found a new competitive technique, and understands how to use it to his advantage. In short, games =/= life, and shame should not be attached to the player because they might not understand/are making the right choice.

9 minutes ago, Brunas said:

Blocking is fun to me and foretressing isn't, but I can see how someone would think blocking isn't fun as well?

Catching one of the handful of ships in the game that cares about actions on a block from half way across the board feels like a top 10 gunboat achievement.

It is definitely a fun thing to think about and try to visualize. Especially against Ego.

9 minutes ago, Brunas said:

Blocking is fun to me and foretressing isn't, but I can see how someone would think blocking isn't fun as well?

And that's exactly how social pressure works, and why it is proper to use: it requires broad-based agreement about what is distasteful. There is not, and has never been, broad-based agreement about blocking being distasteful. There is, and always has been, broad-based agreement that fortressing is distasteful.

That's exactly how social pressure works, and is what I was getting at. Ricky was getting mixed messages about fortressing. He knows, himself, that fortressing is douchey, but he's being told by people he respects that "sure, it's bad, but you gotta do it to win," so he overcomes his own (correct) feelings about it. What if he -- or you, or others -- stopped pretending to believe "it's okay to do because it's technically permitted, and besides, how ya gonna win without it"?

Ricky, fortressing is douchey. Your feelings about it are correct. It's that simple.

Remember ParaGoomba Slayer? He famously once bragged about how he would pretend to be playing a game where he would let people roll back mistakes, until it was massively to his advantage to stop allowing them to do so.

That's technically legal. Of course it is. It's also incredibly douchey.

He was pilloried. (As he should have been.) From my understand, BTW, his behavior has changed massively for the better.

Social pressure, in the absence of the developers letting go of their @#$%s and doing something, is absolutely the right way to go.

Use your super-powers for good, Chris.

33 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

And that's exactly how social pressure works, and why it is proper to use: it requires broad-based agreement about what is distasteful. There is not, and has never been, broad-based agreement about blocking being distasteful. There is, and always has been, broad-based agreement that fortressing is distasteful.

That's exactly how social pressure works, and is what I was getting at. Ricky was getting mixed messages about fortressing. He knows, himself, that fortressing is douchey, but he's being told by people he respects that "sure, it's bad, but you gotta do it to win," so he overcomes his own (correct) feelings about it. What if he -- or you, or others -- stopped pretending to believe "it's okay to do because it's technically permitted, and besides, how ya gonna win without it"?

Ricky, fortressing is douchey. Your feelings about it are correct. It's that simple.

Remember ParaGoomba Slayer? He famously once bragged about how he would pretend to be playing a game where he would let people roll back mistakes, until it was massively to his advantage to stop allowing them to do so.

That's technically legal. Of course it is. It's also incredibly douchey.

He was pilloried. (As he should have been.) From my understand, BTW, his behavior has changed massively for the better.

Social pressure, in the absence of the developers letting go of their @#$%s and doing something, is absolutely the right way to go.

Use your super-powers for good, Chris.

I'll get back to social pressure, but wanted to start at PGS because I was thinking along the same lines earlier. However, my personal opinion judging is that in the scenario I'm thinking of (allowing an opponent to move all their same PS ships at once, place focus tokens at the end to save time) then not allowing it on the engagement turn would qualify as unsportsmanlike conduct, because it is being willfully deceptive to an opponent which should qualify under this?

Quote

Unsporting Conduct Players are expected to behave in a mature and considerate manner and to play within the rules and not abuse them. This prohibits intentionally stalling a game for time, placing components with excessive force, inappropriate behavior, treating an opponent with a lack of courtesy or respect, cheating, etc. Collusion among players to manipulate scoring is expressly forbidden. The organizer, at his or her sole discretion, may remove players from the tournament for unsportsmanlike conduct.

At least, if I were the judge and was called that round, I'd allow the player to take their focus tokens (or actions that don't reposition). The first time, that is. If I get called over for the same thing for a different opponent, it would become an actual problem. As far as I can tell, deliberately misleading an opponent as to whether or not it's OK to take certain time saving actions like that (similarly, being inconsistent about cocked dice because understandable people are fine with it if it's mostly flat) easily qualifies as a lack of courtesy or respect.

Now, I don't think we can make the same argument for fortressing, and I don't want to strawman you by even going that way unless you're interested. And yes, PGS/Saltmaster 5k is doing much better! I met him at Krayt Cup and keep in touch from time to time.

On my scale of distateful, fortressing is below... a lot of current top tier lists. One of the main reasons I'm checked out. Which brings me back to social pressure - to be consistent, wouldn't I need to publicly shame all the gameplay which I find distateful, not just fortressing? It would have to be the set of things up to and including fortressing, and as much as I'd like to get things changed, I don't think shaming community members is the right way to go about it.

Quote

Social pressure, in the absence of the developers letting go of their @#$%s and doing something, is absolutely the right way to go.

I think the only realistic solution is forcing a change to be made if it continues to be an issue (and I see no reason why it won't continue to be an issue). What's the term accelerationism? It worked at GenCon, right?

TL;DR

It's a flaw in the tournament scoring structure, not any moral failing by people.

4 minutes ago, Brunas said:

On my scale of distateful, fortressing is below... a lot of current top tier lists. One of the main reasons I'm checked out. Which brings me back to social pressure - to be consistent, wouldn't I need to publicly shame all the gameplay which I find distateful, not just fortressing?

You absolutely do. Are you kidding me? You don't get traction on a lot of it, because you don't have broad-based agreement on it, but you definitely do it. Are you really saying you're not aware of that? (HINT: Back-pedaling from it doesn't erase it, especially when you turn around and do it the next week, and the week after that, and the week after that ... )

That's my point: use your power for something you both agree with and that has broad-based support. You can have an effect. (Everybody can, but for obvious reasons you're in a more effective position.)

51 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

Social pressure, in the absence of the developers letting go of their @#$%s and doing something, is absolutely the right way to go.

That's the rub.

This whole discussion reminds, oddly, of many economics arguments. Economists, by default, tend to build their models based on completely rational individuals acting with complete information to maximize material self interest and fluid market responses to those actions. The arguments for anything that's legal being totally OK if not hinge on at least orbit near the premise that the rules are that way for a good reason and that the developers are group of responsive, unconstrained, supremely competent, rational actors that make well thought out alterations to the game whenever needed. Which, frankly just like the economic models, isn't the reality we live in. Encouraging bad behavior in an attempt to enact systemic change by forcing the issue is an attempt to compensate for that but it both has its limits and has negative impact in intervening period (assuming it ever even succeeds, floor rules anyone...?)

Reality is that there's at least some expectation on the part of the developers, both in the crafting of the rules and in their continued support of them, that people would treat it as a fun game rather than a strict competition. Maybe, almost certainly, X-Wing would be a better game if it had been originally constructed with a tighter more competitively focused ruleset. But sadly it wasn't and that's that. Some element of social pressure is virtually required or else the game would devolve into something even worse than it is right now. We've repeatedly discussed here that based purely on performance several lists/strategies should be more prevalent in the meta than they actually are, that's the result of social pressure. The question is where do you draw the line between what happens naturally and systematic planned pressure? I get the sense that the former is not just tolerated but expected while the later is in many cases frowned upon, even though the only thing separating them is intent.