Hi everyone,

I just wanted to let you know the latest in the Listener Series™ has dropped - Listener 4: How to 'Git Gud', and other aspects of being good at games.

This episode covers how to approach and prepare for competitive x-wing, as well as defining what "good" means (relative to x-wing), and general game theory concepts.

Additionally, the Notes to Listener 4 have additional content beyond the podcast, and may serve as a useful resource for people of any skill level.

Thanks,

Travis

Through section 1 thus far. I think it's having its desired affect of both irritating me because I see myself in some of the "bad player" habits, and also intriguing me with its insights. One thing I've only just now started to come around on is when to spend mods and when to not.

Extremely interesting episode! Through the second part so far.

I disagree on some points. Or rather than 'disagree' it's better to say I clearly don't want to git gud, or at least not until relatively recently.

One point where I actually do disagree so far, on list building: I still believe that the ability to quickly understand the list of your opponent and identifying your win condition gets massively improved by list building.
You touch upon it when you mention that it's necessary to understand why something is or isn't good depending on the meta of the time.

It could be a misunderstanding if you are talking about list building with the intention to use that list to get into a cut, where netlisting usually is the better choice.
I think list building should be encouraged except for the time someone plays to get into the cut. I realize that time is limited, so balancing out enough practice with that netlisted list and list building to get to know various components is not as easy. But a 100:0 split is probably not ideal, if that makes sense?

2 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

Extremely interesting episode! Through the second part so far.

I disagree on two points. Or rather than 'disagree' it's better to say I clearly don't want to git gud, or at least not until relatively recently.

One point where I disagree so far, on list building: I still believe that the ability to quickly understand the list of your opponent and identifying your win condition gets massively improved by list building.
You touch upon it when you mention that it's necessary to understand why something is or isn't good depending on the meta of the time.

It could be a misunderstanding if you are talking about list building with the intention to use that list to get into a cut, where netlisting usually is the better choice.
I think list building should be encouraged except for the time someone plays to get into the cut. I realize that time is limited, so balancing out enough practice with that netlisted list and list building to get to know various components is not as easy. But a 100:0 split is probably not ideal, if that makes sense?

I agree, but the focus is that the overwhelming number of players appear to not really understand why lists are winning, or seem to fail to grasp the underlying win conditions/strategies.

Far too often we see triple/quad wookies allow players to easily fall behind them, miranda players get too aggressive, etc, which indicates they don't really see to 'get' what's going on. If that is the case, then those players probably aren't truly ready for independent list building (rephrased, if they don't know why the 'best' lists are winning, it's exceedingly unlikely they're going to generate a list to beat the 'best' lists).

That said, once the fundamental level is made, then yeah, I think list building is actually really useful (if followed up with specific, goal-oriented testing). This allows someone to try and think "well, why wouldn't this beat that?" and proceed to see if it would work. I mean, the ion projector was super non-obvious to many of us at the time a priori before we tried it, as an example.

38 minutes ago, gennataos said:

Through section 1 thus far. I think it's having its desired affect of both irritating me because I see myself in some of the "bad player" habits, and also intriguing me with its insights. One thing I've only just now started to come around on is when to spend mods and when to not.

We all have an inner bad player that needs to be killed with extreme prejudice from time to time. Sorry -

Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to.

7 minutes ago, Brunas said:

We all have an inner bad player that needs to be killed with extreme prejudice from time to time. Sorry -

Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to.

My inner bad player becomes stronger when I strike it down. I need to make peace with it before I'm flying U-Wings and Rebel Hawks.

Two quick notes:

• Rolling all hits after a focus/target lock requires high amounts of intelligence
  • Definitely is worthy of celebration.
  • Ideally as loud as possible. Shout "skill" if you have to.
• When your opponent starts to complain about their dice embrace the moment.
  • They are actually showing you respect. Let them know how correct they are.
  • "All of of my decisions are perfect. None of your decisions matter. Pray that I roll only blanks. Its your only hope."
  • 

1 hour ago, Brunas said:

Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to.

This strategy/mindset only works when you're shirtless

oh dice can always be a factor if the game involves them. No list completely avoids dice problems, all you can do is mitigate it. Running naked dice lists is just asking to roll blanks all the time, but its entirely possible for 3-5die attacks with focus/tl to actually cause no hits via blanking out. Unlikely, but it happens.

I agree most of the time someone complains about dice they really just sucked a fat one and used dice as a scape-goat. I've both won games in tournaments because my opponent consistently kept trying to attack me every turn rather than break away so he can get mods or be far enough away where i cant arcdodge him and won games because my opponent did do all that but just flatout never rolled anything.
One game in particular my opponent should have destroyed my upsilon shuttle. 3hp with a full power Sabaac behind it that i couldnt hit for 2 turns while i veered around to catch him. In 3 rounds of combat, rolling 4-5 attack dice against my shuttle, he did 2 damage. THAT is dice plain and simple, by all rights that shuttle should have been dead (which was more than half my list).

I agree on the action economy part. I always, ALWAYS tell people range1 is a trap and you shouldnt gun for it, range2 is safer both because it avoids getting potentially hammered yourself and you rarely use re-positions to get R2 so you have mods. Only time you should ever boost/roll to get a R1 shot when you already had a R2 is if you A) dodged an arc in the process, gj you avoided some damage or B) you already got a TL on the target, so while its not doublemodded, its still modded. And even then, if they would also get R1 on you, unless theyre at like 1hp and you can easily pop them before they fire back...dont boost just focus

13 minutes ago, RunnerAZ said:

This strategy/mindset only works when you're shirtless

*starts formulating plan for next tournament.

I'm listening in right now and being a bit introspective about my own play. Things I still need to work on - I'll just add to this list as the 'cast goes on:

• List building - seriously, I'm terrible at it. I make some pretty wild janky combinations that blind side players, but they're not wonderful
• I make bad decisions. I've evolved an unusual style of play due to the type of players I play against. This style has won me tough games, because I don't make the move that my opponent sees as the optimal maneuver. I may have a plan, and my plan might be working... and then I do something insanely stupid that wasn't part of the plan.
• I spend my mods unwisely at times. Or choose the wrong ones in the first place.
• EDIT 1: Self Practice - Yeah, no... I've done a bit of the rock flying and got bored very quickly. I'd honestly prefer to take my experiments to the table on casual night and do the stupid things live. So, I don't self-practice well, I guess.
• EDIT 2: Practice Team -

3 hours ago, Brunas said:

We all have an inner bad player that needs to be killed with extreme prejudice from time to time. Sorry -

Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to.

I call it the beginner's hurdle. Some expectations (Bombs shouldn't work like that! TLT is broken!) have to be killed in order to understand how the game actually functions.

Just now, Koing907 said:

I call it the beginner's hurdle. Some expectations (Bombs shouldn't work like that! TLT is broken!) have to be killed in order to understand how the game actually functions.

You may call it "beginner's hurdle," but man I know plenty of people who are seasoned players that are stuck in that mindset still just focusing too much on what's "broken" and not decisions made during their games.

didn't know these were out there. interested in giving them a listen. Listener 2 does not seem to be available on the apple podcast app. all the other ones are there though.

Thank you for all the effort that went into this. A great listen and hugely informative.

All I know is I need to stop doing Jeremy Howard barrel rolls.

4 minutes ago, defkhan1 said:

All I know is I need to stop doing Jeremy Howard barrel rolls.

Barrel Roll is always the correct choice.

Just got finished listening to it. Great points overall. I plan on listening to it again a bit and really digest the notes. I know there are a few things I need to actively do more such as placing rocks more strategically, try out practicing via situations, not full games, and really get a team together too. We have weekly play, but I think serious talk doesn't happen enough between us. I've just started really getting into Vassal so using that as a tool and maybe getting an online team together could help getting good conversations outside of my local meta.

2 hours ago, PanchoX1 said:

didn't know these were out there. interested in giving them a listen. Listener 2 does not seem to be available on the apple podcast app. all the other ones are there though.

Weird - the apple podcast app on tablets or something? The link in the description of this one should work regardless, but I'll go double check everything is there properly later today.

Mr Nice Guy Games Pittsburgh Regional - was that 2016? It was a one day event in 2015 when I got the cookie.

14 minutes ago, Brunas said:

Weird - the apple podcast app on tablets or something? The link in the description of this one should work regardless, but I'll go double check everything is there properly later today.

On my iPhone, yes. Thanks!

enjoyed @Tlfj200 going full Rumsfeld with with known unknowns and unknown unknowns.

Awesome job guys. I've identified likely the five top reasons I'm bad at this game. Hopefully I can improve on some of them. I'll have to go check the notes still

Still working through listening, but a question-What if your handicaps aren’t artificial? What if you can’t afford every ship, and thus can’t afford every top tier build? Should I even bother to continue to put myself through the pain of playing in a competitive setting with a mindset of wanting to win and hating to lose when I don’t have the best toys?

Perhaps the handicap still is artificial, because I’m at fault for not making good enough friends in my area to feel comfortable asking to borrow their stuff for the tournament.

20 minutes ago, Kdubb said:

Still working through listening, but a question-What if your handicaps aren’t artificial? What if you can’t afford every ship, and thus can’t afford every top tier build? Should I even bother to continue to put myself through the pain of playing in a competitive setting with a mindset of wanting to win and hating to lose when I don’t have the best toys?

Perhaps the handicap still is artificial, because I’m at fault for not making good enough friends in my area to feel comfortable asking to borrow their stuff for the tournament.

I'd say whatever handicaps you have, whether self-imposed or external, the way to deal with them is to have a clear-eyed understanding of what the ramifications of those restrictions are. If you can still have fun with those restrictions, you have your answer.

Speaking from my own experience. I want to play fighters. It's what drew me to this game, and I find the whole cargo hauler converted into super-fighter kinda overdone. Like a 737 with sweet aftermarket mods that can dominate a couple F16s. That's me, though, not my opponent, so I don't whine about the 5th militarily significant space semi that I've faced in a day. I don't even mind facing it, it's just not what I want to play.

This preference for certain kinds of ships means that I occasionally need to do more with less, or as I see it, figure out how to leverage the more narrow strengths of, say, a TIE/D compared to the broad strengths of, say, a Jumpmaster5000. I find this fun, and I've typically put in a lot of solitaire preparation to try and figure out how to handle tough meta squads with whatever squad I'm currently using.

I find this kind of preparation interesting, and I can pretty much track my Regionals successes with how much prep time I've put in with a squad. I can see how this seems awful to some people, however, and it would ruin the game for them. Interestingly, I was only using Vassal to facilitate solitaire play for a while, and hit top 4 in my first Regional with almost entirely solitaire practice. Shortly after that I started with the online component, which was fun, because it let me play more, but was actually worse in terms of serious tournament prep. In my second Regional, with a lot less solitaire prep, I got a 2-3 record (no drop, got the bye). I learned my lesson a bit and went back to solitaire games and got top 8 in my 3rd Regional.

So this went much longer than I intended, but hopefully it was useful.