13 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

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.)

Apparently, yes? All the disclaimers of "This isn't the game I want to play, but if others are enjoying it you do you" are genuine. I don't get to tell you, or anyone else, what they find fun. Frankly, if we made a push to make something like fortressing against the rules it would put the game in an even worse state than it already is. Being force to go out and fight things like the bomb wall on it's terms are just as miserable, if not more so (in my opinion) than being fortressed on.

EDIT: Actually I want to be as clear as possible here, so it's worth restating. I don't hold any moral judgement for any legal game tactic at all. You do you. You enjoy playing ghost fenn/100 point ace/bomb wall/fortressing/fsr2/trip K/whatever? Cool. Don't and are doing it anyways just to win? I don't understand, but I'm not going to make any moral judgement. You do you.

Just now, Brunas said:

Apparently, yes? All the disclaimers of "This isn't the game I want to play, but if others are enjoying it you do you" are genuine. I don't get to tell you, or anyone else, what they find fun.

Of course not. Nor do I. But you (and I) get to shame them if "what they find fun" is actually bull@$%. And you (and I) do that.

That's all we're talking about. We're talking about social pressure. Again, are you seriously claiming you don't exert social pressure? Are you seriously even claiming you're not trying to do so?

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Frankly, if we made a push to make something like fortressing against the rules it would put the game in an even worse state than it already is. Being force to go out and fight things like the bomb wall on it's terms are just as miserable

Bull@#$% false dichotomy, and shame on you. You know better. There is a difference between "sallying out like an ignoramus to tackle the bomb-wall" and "not fortressing." You know those aren't the only two options, so quit BSing me (and yourself).

8 minutes ago, Brunas said:

All the disclaimers of "This isn't the game I want to play, but if others are enjoying it you do you" are genuine. I don't get to tell you, or anyone else, what they find fun.

Whether you like it, wanted it, or whatever you have quite a soapbox and so your opinion not only represents but also shapes many others. Spiderman quote blah blah blah

Edit: Actually want to clarify that I don't think you have an actual responsibility to campaign one way or another on any given issue. Just highlighting that your opinions when expressed do actually carry quite a bit of weight in the form of social pressure and do have an effect both on how other people exert their pressure and how they end up playing the game whether you want them to or not

8 minutes ago, Brunas said:

EDIT: Actually I want to be as clear as possible here, so it's worth restating. I don't hold any moral judgement for any legal game tactic at all.

To quote someone -- geez, can't think who right now -- "I don't believe you."

2 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

Of course not. Nor do I. But you (and I) get to shame them if "what they find fun" is actually bull@$%. And you (and I) do that.

That's all we're talking about. We're talking about social pressure. Again, are you seriously claiming you don't exert social pressure? Are you seriously even claiming you're not trying to do so?

Bull@#$% false dichotomy, and shame on you. You know better. There is a difference between "sallying out like an ignoramus to tackle the bomb-wall" and "not fortressing." You know those aren't the only two options, so quit BSing me (and yourself).

Really, there's no need to be hostile. You can say it's a false dichotomy or you don't believe me without being so aggressive and rude.

Anyways, yes - I absolutely do not try to social pressure people into not playing the best strategies to win games. Our entire message is the exact opposite of that. I don't know how many times I need to repeat "If you're trying to win you should be playing ghost fenn or whatever the most dominant list in the meta is" before people believe I actually mean it, apparently?

On "fixing" fortressing, I straight up don't see a way to do it. Do you have a change that would solve the fortressing problem? Again, we had to add scenarios to the game (which a lot of people don't like), to solve the problem. The common suggestions of if you bump for X consecutive turns then Y or if you don't leave your deployment zone by turn Z then something bad happens are just kicking the can down the road, because we all saw mindlink aces perform mid game fortresses right? I don't see a solution to the problem without a massive rules change. So yes, it is my opinion that any rules change targeting at fortressing is going to cause more problems than it solves.

Just now, Makaze said:

Whether you like it, wanted it, or whatever you have quite a soapbox and so your opinion not only represents but also shapes many others. Spiderman quote blah blah blah

Shaping opinions is fine, though we have no desire to contribute to kill the game or ruin anyone else's fun, which is why we're changing plans for a while. I don't know how many weeks we can go on saying "Are you having fun? No, me neither". I'd rather just talk about something else.

4 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

To quote someone -- geez, can't think who right now -- "I don't believe you."

And that's fine, I can't make you believe me. My opinion is:

1. I don't personally enjoy games of competitive X-Wing anymore
2. The reasons I don't enjoy competitive X-Wing are because of the current dominant playstyles not being enjoyable to play against
3. I don't hold anything against people that do enjoy those playstyles, or enjoy winning enough to just "power through" it

It's not people that like playing the current power lists fault that those things are good, or that I don't like playing against them. Frankly, they're unrelated to my feelings on the game entirely.

Naming lists one doesn't like as "cancer" or anything else derogatory is exactly applying negative social pressure to use a squad one doesn't like.

3 minutes ago, Brunas said:

Really, there's no need to be hostile. You can say it's a false dichotomy or you don't believe me without being so aggressive and rude.

Whatever. I've listened to every podcast you've done, so I know you know a false dichotomy when you offer one. My assumption, frankly, was that you were being disrespectful to me by doing so. (Either that, or I've overestimated your intelligence and education. ( ... See what I did there? Fallacies are fun!))

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Anyways, yes - I absolutely do not try to social pressure people into not playing the best strategies to win games. Our entire message is the exact opposite of that. I don't know how many times I need to repeat "If you're trying to win you should be playing ghost fenn or whatever the most dominant list in the meta is" before people believe I actually mean it, apparently?

Yes, you absolutely mean it, and people are definitely getting what you're saying: "If winning is that important to you, bruh, well, I mean, I guess you gotta do whatever you gotta do. Me, personally, I just can't stoop to that."

Are you honestly saying that's not what you're intending to communicate? (If so, you're doing a very bad job of not communicating that.)

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On "fixing" fortressing, I straight up don't see a way to do it. Do you have a change that would solve the fortressing problem?

Enh. It would be possible to work up some limits on ships self-bumping. Off the top of my head, something like: "If a given ship overlaps a friendly ship two turns in a row, without altering physical position, on the third turn (and each subsequent turn) that ship suffers one damage." It would need to be refined, but it's 100-percent doable. (The developers, in fact, are on record as saying that they would take action against fortressing, if it ever became a viable strategy ... and from what I hear on your podcast, that day has apparently come. (I won't hold my breath for them to do anything effective, however.)

Every social interaction, at its core, will have an impact on all involved actors. It can be by design, or it can just happen.

Thinking back à few months, the Krayts had to admonish players not to be mean, noting that you're playing at it and not actually condoning the behaviour. The thing is, even playing the role on a podcast normalizes behaviour. And in many instances people just adopt this normalized behaviour without considering why it was normalized and even if it's one that should be.

Fortressing or running Wookiees to make a point will be understood by some. For many, it just normalizes the choice, not the motivation for the choice. People don't go "oh he ran the degenerate list to make a point and I want to make a point to too" they simply stopped at "he ran the degenerate list and it worked!"

I enjoy your faith in humanity's capacity for self improvement on an individual level. It does not exist. Most people are on auto pilot through life, that's why you get to comments like "I think we're all bad at x-wing". In all instances, the best solution is not to think too hard about things, we're overloaded as it is. So when someone takes the time to figure out the obvious, we're all surprised and to some degree just copy.

Today's version of it, for me, was Dee noticing 4 nus and an academy for the first time. He called it the "cat flap" because it's so blindingly obvious, yet almost no one put it on the table.

With the amplification of a podcast, you can be certain it'll pop up more.

We're not spending our days actively thinking up news ways to play, we're doing it tweaking our existing mental models based on what we've experienced thus far.

Seeing my son grow up with x-wing gives me awesome insight into this. Early on, he was just copying lists and not finding success with them. He just jumped to the conclusion that the list (just like fortressing) was THE solution as opposed to just one factor. He had no pre existing mental model of what wins in a game. Nowadays, he creates his own lists and finds his own synergies, but because I spare him the madness of the internet, they're more variations of our own local meta (which is weird and casual) than of the wider podcast/forum/reddit influenced groupthink.

All this to say that we each have our impact on the meta, some just have a louder voice. If the podcasts, for a few months, started making fun of people who don't allow missed opportunities, a more laid back approach to the game would evolve.

Normalizing behaviour makes it more likely to happen. It's what behavioural economists think they invented.

4 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

Naming lists one doesn't like as "cancer" or anything else derogatory is exactly applying negative social pressure to use a squad one doesn't like.

Exactly!

And I have no idea what Biophysical's take on it is, but my opinion is that there's nothing wrong with that. (I get where Dee Yun is coming from, and one of the reasons I like him is that he's a thoughtful person, but enh.) If your expressed disdain is broadly shared, it will get traction and have an effect. If not, people will shrug and start thinking you're a whiny little b---h.

But the exertion of social pressure in that way is absolutely legit. It may work; it may not. That's the precise beauty of it as a mechanism for change.

5 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

Yes, you absolutely mean it, and people are definitely getting what you're saying: "If winning is that important to you, bruh, well, I mean, I guess you gotta do whatever you gotta do. Me, personally, I just can't stoop to that."

Are you honestly saying that's not what you're intending to communicate? (If so, you're doing a very bad job of not communicating that.)

Yes, apparently we are doing a bad job of communicating it. If I were going to adepticon this weekend, I would be playing Miranda Nym or Ghost Fenn. Two of my least favorite lists in the game. No, there's no "I can't stoop to it". There's no judgement behind it. Seriously - if I were going to judge what someone was playing, it would be in the other direction. All of my tournament successes have been playing the absolute best list or next to it list at the time.

11 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

Naming lists one doesn't like as "cancer" or anything else derogatory is exactly applying negative social pressure to use a squad one doesn't like.

It's not an attempt at social pressure, though it may have ended up as one. You'll notice we all play explicitly cancer in competitive events. The cancer is referring to "The cancer that is slowly killing the game we enjoy" not "The people playing this are bad people". Apparently that's been poorly communicated.

6 minutes ago, drjkel said:

Normalizing behaviour makes it more likely to happen. It's what behavioural economists think they invented.

Deleted the rest to avoid a wall of text, but I liked this line the most. Re:Normalizing bad behavior - I'm not sure this is true or if the community is getting bigger and therefore there will just be more bad behavior. I think it's self-centered to think we might be a cause/contributor, but it's on the radar.

@Boom Owl Its not mind reading when someone literally says to your face or over a podcast, "Stop flying cancer"

I'd quote people and @ them, but i'm on a phone so whatever.

There's a difference between deriding a list and the player that uses the list.

While a something like a campaign to rename Ghost Fenn to "Small ***** Special" would maybe make your local meta more interesting (as no-one wants to imply that they have a ***** of below average size) it also means that the problem still exists and goes unnoticed, to pop up elsewhere or at another time. It's best to have a permanent solution to problems, and permanent solutions need to come out of FFG, lest the X-wing community decide to band together and make an equivalent of 40k's ITC.

The issue lies with FFG and their lack of actual attention paid towards longterm development to the game.

This is half of the reason i'm super supportive of almost any hypothetical FAQ- i get a couple weeks of fun where the meta is unknown, and that FAQ signifies developer attention.

If I don't get a system open invite at the one open I can go to, i'm going to put up a sign that says "Let me know when they nerf the cancer, I'm playing TF2" and dip out until then. If I do get an invite, i'll probably only go to the occasional event, or try to make a campaign league format to expand on the missions that the podcast community made.

Half of what I want out of Coruscant is a different format so that there is no optimization time and knowledge of what is good anyways.

9 minutes ago, Brunas said:

Deleted the rest to avoid a wall of text, but I liked this line the most. Re:Normalizing bad behavior - I'm not sure this is true or if the community is getting bigger and therefore there will just be more bad behavior. I think it's self-centered to think we might be a cause/contributor, but it's on the radar.

All typed on a phone... I'm not doing that again!

Basically, we're all responsible, but some of us have a much louder voice, because podcast, and it's one directional and asynchronous, so you don't get to see your listeners drawing the unintended conclusions to address them as they happen. Since you mostly share the same views, it doesn't dawn that people may be getting the entirely wrong message out of the exchange.

I'm personally a fan of going to extremes to prove a point, but I'm told it's not always the best way. I don't believe it

1 minute ago, drjkel said:

I'm personally a fan of going to extremes to prove a point, but I'm told it's not always the best way. I don't believe it

I AGREE

2 minutes ago, Kaptin Krunch said:

While a something like a campaign to rename Ghost Fenn to "Small ***** Special" would maybe make your local meta more interesting (as no-one wants to imply that they have a ***** of below average size) it also means that the problem still exists and goes unnoticed, to pop up elsewhere or at another time. It's best to have a permanent solution to problems, and permanent solutions need to come out of FFG, lest the X-wing community decide to band together and make an equivalent of 40k's ITC.

The issue lies with FFG and their lack of actual attention paid towards longterm development to the game.

See, that's where I check out. I don't believe they can reasonably fix it as it stands. Theirs is a corporate culture issue, on which we have no impact, and which they generally seem to be fine with.

Being that I don't believe they'll fix it, I run alt format events often, always with different rules, because I don't want to create a meta, I want people to get out of their comfort zones and try something new. So far, I've had way more hits than misses.

2 hours ago, Brunas said:

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?

For the record I don't think I did anything illegal. Certainly nothing enforceable. I don't feel bad at all for fortressing. It's the tactically correct move vs Turrets. I would be happy to engage them but I would be stupid for not using a wall to my advantage when my opponent is using broken/cheesy combos against me. I do feel bad for taking as long as I felt I reasonably could in my game vs Nute. Nute knew what I did. But even he said it wasn't illegal.

@Jeff Wilder to answer your question, I don't think you can enforce whatever people's red line is or ask them self enforce. #floorrules

Regarding "Policing With Shame". That's a terrible name. I *Do* think we have a responsibility to the community to call things out. I don't think we should be using that very often but we have. I think we've called out sloppy play before. That being said I feel that personally, and I won't hold accountable any other podcast to that responsibility.

17 minutes ago, Brunas said:

It's not an attempt at social pressure, though it may have ended up as one. You'll notice we all play explicitly cancer in competitive events. The cancer is referring to "The cancer that is slowly killing the game we enjoy" not "The people playing this are bad people". Apparently that's been poorly communicated.

It does end up as one. When I hear "This list is cancer and it's killing the game... but no judgements, you do you" it's the equivalent of "No offense but..." or for a more Carolina example "<cripplingly true insult>... bless their little heart". Also it doesn't have to be that they're bad people, just perhaps making bad choices for the long term health of the game and there's absolutely nothing wrong with saying that.

And... do you only fly cancer? You've stated repeatedly that fortressing wookies was to prove a point, not just to win. You're the guy that took Kylo/Sootir and a bid. Zack's obsession with FSR and Ego seems at least as rooted in it being a good list as his like of that Rebel playstyle and his desire to continually tinker with variants and put his stamp on it so he can thunderously remind us all that we stand amongst his achievements not ours. I feel like Travis has multiple times mentioned flying a non-deal list because he likes it better. Not to say there has been absolutely no cancer flown but it seems, at least to me, like you people are far more wholesome than you pretend or apparently would like to be.

Wow. This devolved into a far more interesting conversation. I'm not sure how much traction you (pod casters) would get convincing the player base of anything... Individuals, certainly. Over time that might grow. I'm not a believer it would be hugely effective, considering how many players don't even listen to podcasts.

Tricky bit is how much of a message you apply impacts the results. Too little and nobody notices. Too much and people tune out. It's an interesting experiment should somebody want to attempt it.

1 hour ago, Makaze said:

It does end up as one. When I hear "This list is cancer and it's killing the game... but no judgements, you do you" it's the equivalent of "No offense but..." or for a more Carolina example "<cripplingly true insult>... bless their little heart". Also it doesn't have to be that they're bad people, just perhaps making bad choices for the long term health of the game and there's absolutely nothing wrong with saying that.

And... do you only fly cancer? You've stated repeatedly that fortressing wookies was to prove a point, not just to win. You're the guy that took Kylo/Sootir and a bid. Zack's obsession with FSR and Ego seems at least as rooted in it being a good list as his like of that Rebel playstyle and his desire to continually tinker with variants and put his stamp on it so he can thunderously remind us all that we stand amongst his achievements not ours. I feel like Travis has multiple times mentioned flying a non-deal list because he likes it better. Not to say there has been absolutely no cancer flown but it seems, at least to me, like you people are far more wholesome than you pretend or apparently would like to be.

That's unfortunate. I'll try to clarify, because it's worth clarifying. Apathy is a hard emotion to convince someone you have, because if you're apathetic why are you trying to convince everyone of anything. Bless your heart is probably apt if it's coming across the wrong way, haha.

Two things - first came up while I was out for a bit, I feel like we had this exact conversation (on the podcast) a few months ago. Basically, "wouldn't it be nice if we could just peer pressure all the cancer out of the meta" and quickly clarified that it was a joke, because it would end terribly. Am I imaging things?

Also, re: playing exclusively cancer - I never really fortressed with wookies, though I probably should have. I was fortressing fair ship in otherwise unwinnable matchups, but probably should have just been fortressing every game. I hate pretty much everything about fsr2, but I actually do somewhat enjoy trip playing trip wookies. It's an interesting puzzle to set up every game though it got less interesting when I realized pretty much any reasonable combination of moves was a good enough "solution".

Re:Soontir/Kylo: Absolute RAW, UNTAMED CANCER. Honestly, it might even be worse than Miranda Nym. At least Miranda Nym ends things quickly. I also absolutely love everything about playing it, but it's a miserable game experience for my opponent. When my opponent realizes that I'm perfectly happy to go to an (unfavored for me) final salvo for me by never taking bad engagements, but forcing them to actively play and prevent me from ever getting behind something while I'm effectively immune to damage is a miserable play experience for them. Zack is on the record as saying similar - just because he likes playing it, doesn't mean he likes what it does to the game, or that it's a good/fun experience to play against. Before we did a podcast or anything, all my results were with Soontir/Inquisitor/Jammer Shuttle, which again I absolutely loved the playstyle of, but miserable experience for my opponents.

Because we focus on what is competitive, we say what we think the best lists are.

Back in January, when I was at Pax South, chris and I talked, and we admitted if I were trying to maximize my chances to get a coruscant invite, I should absolutely play Nym Miranda.

i couldn’t bring myself to do it - I flew there to be as competitive as I could be, but I fundamentally wanted to play what I thought X-Wing (which is not Nym Miranda).

And I scrubbed out, and that was the last xwing I would get to play until at least worlds, and if not then, really nationals in August.

And it hurt, and it sucks, but... I made the personal choice to not ONLY optimize my chances of winning, and that time I paid for it harder than usual.

Such is life.

Pretext : It's a day of the week so I've been drinking heavily, I'm not gonna tag or qoute or whatever, but i hope this observation is helpful to the conversation at hand.

One thing I've noticed, all of us on the podcast have not been good at clarifying when we think what we are playing/doing is also bad for the game. I didn't fully understand the monster I created at gencon at the time, I was super concerned with not being tabled, I liked throwing 5 dice missles, and I had had success with a similar list when I won crossroads in 2016. We all get excited in the moment when we're doing well. It's in post reflection that we see it. Generally, all of us want to push a thesis and we enjoy being right.

We think if you want to win a tournament you should play the best lists. We thing the best lists aren't fun right now and don't look like the game we were introduced to via the core set.

I think there is some social pressure by referring to lists as "cancer" to making it a larger hurdle for someone to choke down their doubts and slap that said "cancerous" list on the table. At the same time, even if we tried to socially stigmatized certain lists, that won't make them not good. Winning with a worse list is hard, so most of the tournaments will still be the most powerful components. And seriously, there is some majority powerful lists right now, even the lower tiers. The problem I think, is that the scale just keeps getting wider, which means the bottom tier lists are just so much worse than even the lower tier "good" lists.

I love flying Corran Horn. I can pretty much only fly him now because of Fenn and Lowhrrick. And Corran is stupid good. He will definitely die, but there are games he just simply can't be killed. Just like Sontir and Kylo, the game basically can't be won at a certain point. And even though Corran isn't at the top of the heap, he can still crush your enemies and see them driven before you. I have hear tons of people saying that Kylo and two boats is "wholesome". Kyle is not wholesome. He is only wholesome in comparison to a ship the gets an evade, two passive mods on attack, passive mods on defense, big ship boost at ps11, and can chose between 4 dice primary (the best natural attack dice in the game) or TLT (the best turret slot in the game) and can attack twice.

I really love this game and the people in it re great. But I am getting pretty concerned that the vitriol is increasing. The polarization of these issues very easily can create toxic environments. If that happens, I will simply stop playing as much. I am already getting there. Beware the silent flameout of the community. Right now I see rage, but silence means the game is dying. At the end of the day, the only real hope is for FFG to invest in fixing these issues that are driving the community apart. Don't be that guy and rage against people for what they play or for fortressing or for doing what is permitted in the rules. Being a **** and ostracizing legal things probably won't convince people, but it just might increase animosity.

In summary: don't be a **** because I want to keep playing X-wing.

One thing about playing tier 1 lists: they are fun for me when I'm playing against other tier 1 lists, but much less fun against lower tier lists.

When playing Nymranda at Nationals last year, playing against Ego, triple Jumps, Dash/Miranda, all were fun, close games. Against suboptimal lists, it wasn't as enjoyable an experience.

I play to win. I enjoy playing other people who also are playing to win. If you have your own rules that require you to lose with honor, well, L5R is over there (and is fun!).

If someone had the gall to try to socially shame me for doing what I enjoy, to my face, I'd probably just laugh at them and assume they were joking.