1 hour ago, Rexler Brath said:

Anyways, why do you read this rubbish of an article when the author clearly has no clue what he is talking about?

This (rather old) article is mostly aimed at the fighting game genre and is pretty accurate in its analysis of that genre, if perhaps a bit elitist in tone, and addresses what has been (and still can be at times) a very obnoxious and disruptive part of that community. It's a shame that no other more eloquent articles covering the same topic have become as widespread in circulation, as there are important points to be made here but the tone and presentation are not ideal.

I'm not certain why this topic is being brought up currently on this forum though, as it seems most of the players who could really benefit from it have already moved on from the forum years ago.

12 hours ago, MarekMandalore said:

Put simply, my interest in this game is twofold- I like tabletop miniatures games, and I like Star Wars. If this game system was marketed with generic space fighters, I most likely would have skipped it. So, the Star Wars theme was the clincher for me. That said, naturally, I choose to fly TIE fighters, Interceptors, etc., because these ships REINFORCE that I'm playing a Star Wars game. They may not be the best for winning every single match, and in fact I lose more often than I win, but that is fine with me. I still enjoy the games I play. So do my opponents, whom I recruited to play against me by offering them a chance to play a Star Wars game.

I'll defer to those with more competitive experience than I have as to what, if anything, truly needed bans, nerfs and errata. I tend to simply operate on the assumption that, if I haven't managed to beat something, its not the fault of the game or the list I keep losing to, but rather its the fault of my own (to date) failing strategy. When I first started, for example, I had a **** of a time dealing with TIE swarms. Those swarms were never nerfed or errata'd, but I eventually learned how to take them out.

More or less what I was trying to say, but irritatingly much better phrased.

14 hours ago, Rakaydos said:

Interesting. So in Xwing, we're not talking Akuma style "Literally impossible to beat someone who knows what they're doing" builds, but more like Old Sagat style "Its not the single best option in the game, but it singlehandedly makes half the game unplayable" options like Old PalpFenders, TorpScouts, and Aslam Wardens.

Drat! I was trying to remember the name "Akuma", given the example of Street Fighter, and couldn't. Not being much of a Street Fighter player, I didn't know Sagat was an issue, though.

Yes, there is a fair amount of comparison you can draw.

• "Akuma" - If a squad is just massively better such that there is no realistic counter then it is a balance issue.
  • This would, to me, also apply if a squad can only be beaten by a squad so tailored to the job of beating you that it falls over against anything else.
  • At the same time, I hesitate to identify anything as such a squad just by looking at rules. I'm not good enough at the game....
  • However, the mirror-match-finals test is a good one. The first time I came up against the "you did what now?" syndrome in wargaming was Warhammer Fantasy Battles - the first time I was ever talked into going to a throne of skulls event was just after the first Warhammer Armies Daemons was released, the top four tables all had the exact identical Daemons of Chaos army list. Yes, good players come up with good lists, and there's a bit of a mutually reinforcing loop, but in a game with as many options as a tabletop wargame, if a major competitive event has multiple mirror matches in the finals, I don't think it's unfair to suggest you've got a balance 'problem child'.
• "Sagat" If a squad is a 'gatekeeper' such that whilst it doesn't win games itself, it prevents any [broad squad class] making it to the cut, because if said squad comes up against it, it is at such a massive disadvantage it all but auto-loses.
  • My obvious suggestion is the original one - TIE phantoms (back in the days of the 'quantum phantom') essentially exterminated the 4-5 ship 'heavy swarm' before being gunned down in turn by Han Solo and co. They never actually won anything much themselves, but left you in a situation where they eliminated one squad as a competitive option but weren't a competitive option themselves either, which is the worst possible outcome as it reduces the number of different squads you might see in the 'final tier' of a game.
  • That's the point, really. Whilst I have a 'theme' or 'style' of squad I like, that's personal preference and I have no right to insist that it get a leg up to get me to the finals or regionals, or whatever. I'm supposed to do that by playing well and 'tweaking' it with new deployments, tactics, or slight modifications to the list.
  • But a 'healthy' game should see as many different squads as possible make the top 8/16/32/whatever 'cut'. They don't have to be squads I play, or even squads I like. My preference doesn't matter. As long as they're fundamentally different to one another.

My other comment on that second article is the one about 'exploits'.*

Tactics is one thing - clever flying, and deployment, and so on. But there is a real question of 'at what point does a card combo you've spotted become an 'exploit'?'

• Snap Wexley gets a free boost. Because of intensity, that free boost becomes a free focus or evade as well. Nice, but hardly an 'unfair exploit'.
• Because Poe never actually spends a focus token (in normal situations) the 'intended' function of intensity (the 'exhausted' side and the flip mechanic) gets short-cut. Better, but is this an 'unfair exploit' yet? I would say no; no-one is under any illusion it shouldn't work that way?
• Jake Farrel's I-boost-so-focus-so-barrel-roll-so-evade-and-flip-the-card-twice-as-part-of-the-nested-actions-so-it-never-actually-gets-flipped** is relying on your reading of a specific rules interaction. At that point, I think, even if you believe it should work, that it's fair to say it's a 'rules glitch' you're exploiting.
• In the spirit of confession - TIE strikers have something themselves:
  • Because you make 2 separate maneuvers, you can Adaptive Ailerons move across a debris marker, receive a stress, then execute a green move and clear the stress immediately, essentially ignoring the stress token element of a debris marker.
  • You can only pull that off by doing a green move (and the striker's green dial is so-so at best) if the aileron move gets the front of your base clean across the token.
  • It still leaves you with the risk of a critical.
  • It is, nevertheless, an "exploit" and has got me focused range 1 shots that people haven't expected. Should it be allowed? Not sure. It clearly works within the rules but it does feel a bit janky.

The point here is that Street fighter is a computer game. 'Computer says no' is a real thing - if you try and pull of the exploit you think you've figured out and it doesn't work, there is no court of appeal. Do the same thing in X-wing, and you may set the internet on fire for weeks, but (short of an FFG FAQ) if the logic was murky enough to make arguing it worth the time in the first place, there can be no definitive answer.

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The “constant patching” approach by developers also often leads to laziness on the part of the players; there’s less reward for trying as hard as you can within the given rules, because if you are successful, your tactic will just be patched into obsolescence anyway. You might be a footnote someplace, but you won’t still be winning. It gets worse in most massively multiplayer games, where you can actually be banned—permanently—for playing within the rules they created, but playing in a way they had not intended.

I think this is my biggest problem with the entire article; the assumption that any winning tactics will be banned. People have won events without using 'that list off the internet'. Yes, trying to win by finding 'exploits' is an approach of diminishing returns because if the exploit shouldn't (in the view of the game design body) be there, it will be corrected***, but suggesting you shouldn't try as hard as you can to find tactics within the rules, or master timing (literal reflex speed, I guess, in Street Fighter, more 'ability to eyeball distances to within 0.1 bloody mm' in X-wing), or different deployments, is patronising and defeatist because it suggests the game can only be won by "breaking the rules". This is not the Kobayashi Maru scenario and your opponent is potentially just as fallible as you are.

This is why when someone steamrolls you with a "combo! combo! combo!" squad that basically wins in list-building, people's response tends to be a half-hearted monty-python-esque "and there was much rejoicing", but when you pull off a "will no-one think of the paintwork!" move that somehow skirts a debris cloud and drops into a gap between two enemy ships with about 1/4 of a centimetre spare on either side, despite your irritation you can't help but respect them for it.

* Before this rant starts, let me be clear: Genius/Targeting Synchroniser works. I don't see this as an 'exploit' because there is no inconsistency or lack of clarity in the sequence of rules. Something can be incredibly powerful to the point you can argue it as broken without there being any question as to whether it works.

** Let's not start arguing here about whether it does work this way. It was genuinely believed and argued for by people; that's enough for this discussion.

*** Example: R4 Agromech/Deadeye. I was expecting this and not due to any view on metagame balance of Torpedo-armed Contracted Scouts but because, at the time, I flew the TIE fighter All-stars and I knew Deadeye could be used against Dark Curse, which means by default he couldn't be the defender. This wasn't a 'Nerf' in the way that essentially removing half the ship's upgrade bar was an out-and-out 'let's clobber it because we think it's too good', it was 'making you actually follow the same rules as other units in the game'.

Doesn't matter what type of 'player' you are, if your entering a tournament expect WAAC lists, if your playing casually speak to your opponent and see what kind of game they want, and if they want a WAAC game and you're willing to play them ask for list advice and tips to raise your own game.

Yesterday I played on Vassal with my favourite squad (I already won two store tournaments with that) and I was obliterated by bombs.
Did I cried? Did I start to call for nerfs? No, I just sit down and analyzed my game and tried to find a solution - is there any possible way to deploy ships or obstacles, is there any way of play that will give me the possibility to counter bombs with this list.` If it happens that my list is countered too hard by bombs I will have to find another configuration of ships to play, I won't cry for nerfs just so my list can be acommodated to top tier.

That being said there is one thing in this article that author didn't touched upon. It never comes down only to winning - if that would be the case all X-Wing players that are winning or play to win would have no problem with switching to another game because for them, according to the article, style of play does not matter, only winning counts - so by definition that would mean all games that are competitve are interchangeable, which is not true.
When someone starts to play X-Wing he is about to discover that it is based on some fundamentals that makes core of this game: hidden movement, maneuvring, dogfight mechanics, green & red dice used as RNG tools. So I think a significiant part of balance talk comes down to this point - to maintain core gameplay of X-Wing. Otherwise it will stop being X-Wing. For example, let's assume extreme case - that FFG introduces new mechanic that completely reveals dials of all enemy ships. Even if said mechanic would be counterable I would oppose to that to exist in this game because it would shatter the core of the game, the core which I happened to like and which caused me to play in the first place - hidden movement.

For me the closest thing to "revealed dials" in X-Wing are bombs - when I started X-Wing meta was based around maneuvring and blocking (Worlds 2015 were my favourite to watch and my favourite final is from Worlds 2013 - I watched them when I wasn't even playing this game, and those clips made me curious with the X-Wing in the first place). I dislike bombs because they are not part of dogfight mechanic of this game, makes green dice useless and they add up to fiddliness. But I don't whine, don't start threads crying for nerfs (yet), for now I try to find a working solution - be it by adjusting my lists or style of play.

P.S. I remember about 1,5 year ago on this very forum people were amazed when some dude won the tournament using bombing ships. I remember telling them then: "Give it about month or two and you all will start to hate it with a passion". As it stands I was right. Still think Sabine crew card is the most broken thing that happened to this game.

There are really two sides to this discussion.

One side is the people saying that the game is broken because you can not play the ships you want to play. X-wing without x-wings and all that.

The other side really are the ones saying that there are mechanics that lands in the game not being fun anymore.

I actually respect them both, but I have a lot more respect for the ones that posts the second argument. It all boils down to "What should the game be about". Should the game be all about Alpha strike ultra high PS aces chugging Torpedos in your face? Should it all be about fat ships placing a string of bombs where they can not be avoided? Should it be about super-nimble regenerating turret bombers? Should it be about super synergetic correlations between a Group of ships like fairship?

Dont get me wrong, the need for play skill is still there. But are we having fun?

For me the answer is still yes but I have to say that its becoming increasingly harder for me to recriut to the game.

I think the OP’s linked blog makes the fatal flaw in writing, trying to simplify people into groups and categorize their motivations and goals into boxes. People are complex, feeling, and thoughtful lot who react sometimes to moments and sometimes because they lie at an event horizon modifying their outlook on life that almost no one knows save their closest few.

...in other words, judging people is stupid, and you’re ignorant for attempting to join the ranks of this easy-entry club; this consistent failure of writers of all stripes sadly. Sorry mate, I have no idea, but the writer might be a decent bloke and it might be fun to share a pint with ?.

Forums are open to all types of yelling in the void, relax; and please, never get caught crying about those who cry....it’s madness.

Scrubs are a thing no matter what game you play, but not all the people who complain 'OP - nerf now' are scrubs. There are levels of power that a card can have. Fortunately, the game of X-wing has a points system which we can use to give an impression of the true value of cards, in my take on their respective tiers.

Tier 5: Cards that are unplayably bad, in all circumstances. Examples include saboteur which, even in a list designed around it, would be better without it. THese cards are often intentionally placed into a game as a learning tool for newer players.

Tier 4: Cards that are incredibly poor, but can technically improve a list. Examples include Expose, Outmaneuver, Marksmanship and Mercenary Copilot. They don't truly contribute anything, since they take up valuable upgrade slots, but their inclusion can be useful in game.

Tier 3: Cards that have actual value, but are surpassed by better versions of themselves. Dorsal and Blaster turrets, Assault Missiles, Luke Skywalker and Autoblaster Cannons are good examples. This is the point at which winning games becomes possible, but truly dependent on dice and therefore still unplayable in tournament sense.

Tier 2: Cards that are definitively good, but remain unbroken, or require excellent play to make use of. Examples include Lone Wolf, Predator, Expertise, Fire Control System, R2-D2, Ion Turret, post-nerf Palpatine and so on. Now you've got a list built on reliable elements, giving you the grounds for reasonable tournament results. You simply don't have the efficiency to beat other cards.

Tier 1: Cards that are outstanding in value, and eclipse all other options in their respective area. Examples include Harpoon Missiles, Bomblet Generator, TLT, R3-A2 and such. You're in nerfable territory here (as Zuckuss has shown), but incredibly dominant in the tournament scene. THese cards share two common characteristics: incredible reliability (like TL + guidance on harpoons) and phenominal efficiency for their points (like Bomblet and TLT). Examine the cuts at every regionals on the past year. You'll find they all contain at least some of these cards, because nothing else will hold up over 6+ games against equally skilled opponents.

Tier 0: Cards - and combinations of cards - that are outright broken. The juggernaut here being the JM5K, which despite receiving four direct nerfs is still a phenomenal ship. Other examples include Sabine + Trajectory Simulator + PS 10 Nym, pre-nerf phantoms, Fat Han etc. These combos push out entire swathes of a game, and stagnate the meta. Typically, no true counters exist, and wins are against such lists are the product of dice anomalies and brilliant play.

Many lists have triumphed because they require superior skill to win with, such as pre-Autothrusters Soontir Fel, or T-65s. Other lists triumph with a combination of skill and list building, like Palp Aces (currently). Then you have the netlists where, against an equally skilled player flying their own list, you will win.

NyManda is the latest in a long series of netlists where the value of the list's components is so great that they outweigh nearly all discrepancies in skill. It's technically possibly for four T-65s to beat Dengaroo, but one player would have to be stupid and the other Thrawn himself. Their mere presence at a tournament - a single netlist - destroys the vibrancy of the competitive meta. Anything else a player can take drastically lowers the chance of them winning the tournament, since that netlist will inevitably find its way into the cut.

Make no mistake - playing an internet list means you're playing the metagame, not X-wing TMG. You're subjecting 6+ people to a round of tedium that, unless they've also flow a meta list, have an incredibly low chance of even scoring MoV points. What's more, you're forcing them to either fly the exact same narrow pool of tiers 1 and 0 cards or resign themselves to never making the cut.

3 hours ago, Astech said:

Make no mistake - playing an internet list means you're playing the metagame, not X-wing TMG. You're subjecting 6+ people to a round of tedium that, unless they've also flow a meta list, have an incredibly low chance of even scoring MoV points. What's more, you're forcing them to either fly the exact same narrow pool of tiers 1 and 0 cards or resign themselves to never making the cut.

So what would be the solution then? Stop trying really hard to win, so people who aren't willing to really try to win can win despite that?

To me, the math of a competitive game, any game, has been simple: you either are willing to do all it takes to win (within the rules, of course), or you will lose to someone who is.

2 minutes ago, LordBlades said:

So what would be the solution then? Stop trying really hard to win, so people who aren't willing to really try to win can win despite that?

To me, the math of a competitive game, any game, has been simple: you either are willing to do all it takes to win, or you will lose to someone who is.

A "game" requires decisions. The decisions must be meaningful if they are to be enjoyable. The decisions must be difficult if the game is to be good.

Pre-Nerf NyManda (see the new FAQ, a testimony to exactly how broken it was) wasn't just a good choice - it was so blindingly, obviously better than everything else that it wasn't a choice at all. If you want to win above all else, you take NyManda. NyManda is a list that utilises perfect board knowledge , at least 90% of the time, and the rest of the time it's very rarely an issue at all. Nym will always hit with his bombs, and both ships are all but guaranteed to shoot each turn due to their combination of TLTs, harpoons and turret primaries.

Essentially, this means that if you're valuing the arbitrary achievement of "winning" above all else, and playing NyManda, you're not actually playing X-wing TMG . You're following a preprogrammed course of actions and subroutines that a pocket calculator could manage, and hoping your dice are better than the other guy's.

The ideal solution is for FFG to stop giving us broken Tier 0 garbage, but that seems unlikely given both their business model and apparently incompotent playtesters.

The next best solution is for everyone to mutually agree not to play broken, OP jank. Of course, this is totally unreasonable, since some people will always value "winning" above actually playing the game (torpboat JM5Ks being the epitome of this).

The final, and only reasonable solution is for those not willing to take a meta list to instead take hard counters. DeNym meet RAClo, NyManda meet Ion and stress control etc, etc.

The guy literally has an article on his site about game balance and getting as many match-ups to be as close as possible so there wasn't one dominant strategy.

I suggest you consider reading that as well instead of just aping what the Krayts say. You know, -the same people who agree Nym Miranda is nonsense and might still be nonsense after yesterday's FAQ.

3 hours ago, Astech said:

Essentially, this means that if you're valuing the arbitrary achievement of "winning" above all else, and playing NyManda, you're not actually playing X-wing TMG . You're following a preprogrammed course of actions and subroutines that a pocket calculator could manage, and hoping your dice are better than the other guy's.

Nymranda is a list in the X-wing TMG so, by definition, you're playing X-wing TMG when fielding it.

Now, you might disagree on what that squad does to the game, how it makes some archetypes obsolete or whatever, that's your right., What is NOT your right (IMO at least), is passing value judgements on other people's enjoyment and choices in regard to X-wing. Your entire post seems aimed at denigrating those that would not fit into your 'x-wing code of honor'.

9 hours ago, Astech said:

Scrubs are a thing no matter what game you play, but not all the people who complain 'OP - nerf now' are scrubs. There are levels of power that a card can have. Fortunately, the game of X-wing has a points system which we can use to give an impression of the true value of cards, in my take on their respective tiers.

Tier 5: Cards that are unplayably bad, in all circumstances. Examples include saboteur which, even in a list designed around it, would be better without it. THese cards are often intentionally placed into a game as a learning tool for newer players.

Tier 4: Cards that are incredibly poor, but can technically improve a list. Examples include Expose, Outmaneuver, Marksmanship and Mercenary Copilot. They don't truly contribute anything, since they take up valuable upgrade slots, but their inclusion can be useful in game.

Tier 3: Cards that have actual value, but are surpassed by better versions of themselves. Dorsal and Blaster turrets, Assault Missiles, Luke Skywalker and Autoblaster Cannons are good examples. This is the point at which winning games becomes possible, but truly dependent on dice and therefore still unplayable in tournament sense.

Tier 2: Cards that are definitively good, but remain unbroken, or require excellent play to make use of. Examples include Lone Wolf, Predator, Expertise, Fire Control System, R2-D2, Ion Turret, post-nerf Palpatine and so on. Now you've got a list built on reliable elements, giving you the grounds for reasonable tournament results. You simply don't have the efficiency to beat other cards.

Tier 1: Cards that are outstanding in value, and eclipse all other options in their respective area. Examples include Harpoon Missiles, Bomblet Generator, TLT, R3-A2 and such. You're in nerfable territory here (as Zuckuss has shown), but incredibly dominant in the tournament scene. THese cards share two common characteristics: incredible reliability (like TL + guidance on harpoons) and phenominal efficiency for their points (like Bomblet and TLT). Examine the cuts at every regionals on the past year. You'll find they all contain at least some of these cards, because nothing else will hold up over 6+ games against equally skilled opponents.

Tier 0: Cards - and combinations of cards - that are outright broken. The juggernaut here being the JM5K, which despite receiving four direct nerfs is still a phenomenal ship. Other examples include Sabine + Trajectory Simulator + PS 10 Nym, pre-nerf phantoms, Fat Han etc. These combos push out entire swathes of a game, and stagnate the meta. Typically, no true counters exist, and wins are against such lists are the product of dice anomalies and brilliant play.

Many lists have triumphed because they require superior skill to win with, such as pre-Autothrusters Soontir Fel, or T-65s. Other lists triumph with a combination of skill and list building, like Palp Aces (currently). Then you have the netlists where, against an equally skilled player flying their own list, you will win.

NyManda is the latest in a long series of netlists where the value of the list's components is so great that they outweigh nearly all discrepancies in skill. It's technically possibly for four T-65s to beat Dengaroo, but one player would have to be stupid and the other Thrawn himself. Their mere presence at a tournament - a single netlist - destroys the vibrancy of the competitive meta. Anything else a player can take drastically lowers the chance of them winning the tournament, since that netlist will inevitably find its way into the cut.

Make no mistake - playing an internet list means you're playing the metagame, not X-wing TMG. You're subjecting 6+ people to a round of tedium that, unless they've also flow a meta list, have an incredibly low chance of even scoring MoV points. What's more, you're forcing them to either fly the exact same narrow pool of tiers 1 and 0 cards or resign themselves to never making the cut.

Man, you wrote many bad posts but this one takes the cake.
You must understand that your idea of X-Wing is exactly only that: idea that is only in your head.
Only common ground for all players that statutes what is X-Wing game and what is not are rules - and they are the only element that tells what is X-Wing and what is not.
Someone playing Nymranda, by the rules, is playing X-Wing TMG. And your delusion does not change that.
You are not an all-knowing judge or moral compass of this game, you are just some dude with totally wrong opinion.

Mrs. Rick and I play like scrubs at home when we are going at it with a new list idea. We allow for missed triggers and some other things. However, after we've played a list once or twice we go into full on competitive mode. We have a meta, so-to-speak, at home in which there are top-tier squads and then experimental squads.

If we find a list we really like and is strong then we try to tech against it. Sometimes we may only play 4 rounds of a game and then start over if the eventual victor is obvious, though that is rare because underdogs do tend to find a way.

What I need to do is start keeping track of win/loss records. I know StarTactics keeps track of records, but not WHAT squad beat what squad.

40 minutes ago, Boba Rick said:

Mrs. Rick and I play like scrubs at home when we are going at it with a new list idea. We allow for missed triggers and some other things. However, after we've played a list once or twice we go into full on competitive mode. We have a meta, so-to-speak, at home in which there are top-tier squads and then experimental squads.

If we find a list we really like and is strong then we try to tech against it. Sometimes we may only play 4 rounds of a game and then start over if the eventual victor is obvious , though that is rare because underdogs do tend to find a way.

What I need to do is start keeping track of win/loss records. I know StarTactics keeps track of records, but not WHAT squad beat what squad.

I think this exemplifies the Fly Casual approach.

It's not about winning; it's about exploring the dynamics of the game on the road to winning.

It's a game. If you aren't having fun, you've already lost. Period.

If you're going to share a chapter from Mr Sirlin's book, it should have been, and should always be, the Prologue . I think the vast majority of people who play games do not do so for the reasons laid out in the Prologue (which btw are self-improvement and skill validation, not WAAC) and that is totally fine.

But if someone has not read that chapter and doesn't understand where Mr Sirlin is coming from, then the Scrub chapter becomes misunderstood and just comes off as inflammatory, and rightly so, since it uses inflammatory language and straw-man arguments to motivate the reader to avoid a certain behavior/mindset.

The main point is that we all have different reasons for playing the games we choose to play, and all of them are valid. The original intention of Fly Casual was to not tell other players what their reason for playing X-Wing should be, or telling people that their reason for playing the game is wrong. If you're a competitive player, you have no right to tell the fluff player to stop using squads that represent the lore. And if you're a casual player that just wants to zoom zoom and pew pew, you have no right to shame competitive players for wanting to attain mastery of the game and explore its strategic depths just because that's not something you enjoy about the game. All we can do is try to stay out of each other's way, or if we do end up playing each other, try to understand where your opponent is coming from, why they enjoy the game the way they do, and maybe meet them halfway, but don't hold it against them. We all have the right to enjoy the game in our own individual ways.

On 24/01/2018 at 2:03 AM, LordBlades said:

Nymranda is a list in the X-wing TMG so, by definition, you're playing X-wing TMG when fielding it.

Now, you might disagree on what that squad does to the game, how it makes some archetypes obsolete or whatever, that's your right., What is NOT your right (IMO at least), is passing value judgements on other people's enjoyment and choices in regard to X-wing. Your entire post seems aimed at denigrating those that would not fit into your 'x-wing code of honor'.

By that definition, throwing my damage deck at my opponent is playing X-Wing TMG. Just because a combination of attributes is allowed by the game, you can't automatically play the game by using it. Consider a person who, for whatever reason, only does 2-straights with his ships, doesn't perform actions and skips his attacks. Is he actually playing the game? No, he's just following a set algorithm, created before the game started that doesn't change based on stimuli in the game. NyManda is the same - albeit a far more complicated algorithm, but an algorithm just the same.

It is not fun to lose (repeatedly, at least). It is fun to win (and especially fun to win tournaments). It is fun for the vast majority of players to fly a list they themselves came up with. It is not fun for the vast majority of players to play with a list someone else came up with (for months at a time) just to have a chance at winning. By playing NyManda (and other such lists) you - as flyers of the meta lists - are forcing everyone around you to comform to your values in the game , or else get the heck out of the way and let you curb-stomp us.

Stop forcing us into your code of honour. Instead, play one of the hundreds of other lists you enjoy flying just as much. Fly Tier one lists, but leave out the broken jank.

On 24/01/2018 at 4:54 AM, Embir82 said:

Man, you wrote many bad posts but this one takes the cake.
You must understand that your idea of X-Wing is exactly only that: idea that is only in your head.
Only common ground for all players that statutes what is X-Wing game and what is not are rules - and they are the only element that tells what is X-Wing and what is not.
Someone playing Nymranda, by the rules, is playing X-Wing TMG. And your delusion does not change that.
You are not an all-knowing judge or moral compass of this game, you are just some dude with totally wrong opinion.

You'll notice that the rules now expressly forbid TorpScouts (in three separate ways no less - deadeye, R4 Agromech and lack of torp icons). It also forbids pre-nerf palpaces, Dengaroo, Paratanni, pre-nerf Defenders and other such things. NyManda is in the process of being nerfed to oblivion, as the recently released FAQ shows.

The lists are so flipping powerful that FFG bans them for the sake of enjoyable games. So tell me, why are you flying lists that are about to get banned because they're widely recognised as being unfair, boring and a NPE to the opponent?

18 minutes ago, Astech said:

So tell me, why are you flying lists that are about to get fun because they're widely recognised as being unfair, boring and a NPE to the opponent?

Because they're about to get fun of course! Why are you not flying lists that are about to get fun? Do you only fly already fun lists?!

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The lists are so flipping powerful that FFG bans them for the sake of enjoyable games. So tell me, why are you flying lists that are about to get fun because they're widely recognised as being unfair, boring and a NPE to the opponent?

Because they have no reason not to.

Until FFG kills off the dominant meta-list of the day it's a legal part of the ruleset . If your goal is simply to win the tournament, using the objectively most powerful option available is just common sense.

Players are generally going to use the best lists and tactics they can within the confines of the game's rules. The only way to stop players using them is to ban them (otherwise players are by definition allowed to use them) and only FFG can do that. You can't ban a list without a means of enforcing that ban.

21 minutes ago, Firespray-32 said:

Because they have no reason not to.

Until FFG kills off the dominant meta-list of the day it's a legal part of the ruleset . If your goal is simply to win the tournament , using the objectively most powerful option available is just common sense.

Players are generally going to use the best lists and tactics they can within the confines of the game's rules. The only way to stop players using them is to ban them (otherwise players are by definition allowed to use them) and only FFG can do that. You can't ban a list without a means of enforcing that ban.

They problem with the mindset is highlighted in your statement - the goal of the people who fly these lists to tournemtnes is "simply to win the tournament", not "win a series of X-wing games". The focus is entirely different, which leads to them running meta lists rather than fair ones.

"Generally" is a vast overstatement. It's a very small minority of even tournament players that fly meta lists (and their variations), and that's the problem. Not everyone is willing to stop playing the actual game for the sake of winning, so they bring tier 1 lists instead of tier 0 and resign themselves to not making the cut.

I can't ban a list, but myself and everyone else who attends tournaments can recognise the truly broken cards in the game and simply not play them. The list is short. It's not hard.

2 hours ago, Astech said:

you - as flyers of the meta lists - are forcing everyone around you to comform to your values in the game ,

But you are just as guilty of this by your declaration that someone flying a list you think is too power isn't actually playing X-Wing. You continue to miss the idea that someone might like the list for reasons other than winning or that the joy of successfully flying good combos has merit. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean everyone else does.

You also seem convinced that they only way to win is to fly a "broken list", but that is also false. Scum Boba Fett won a regional recently. A ship not considered meta by anyone claimed the win. And that's just the latest of several non-meta heavy lists that have taken major tournaments. If things were as dire as you claim, then this shouldn't have happened. You can still beat the "broken lists" with enough skill and luck. If you didn't blind yourself to this possibility by claiming yours was the only way to play "actual X-Wing", you might actually have fun.

3 hours ago, Astech said:

"Generally" is a vast overstatement. It's a very small minority of even tournament players that fly meta lists (and their variations), and that's the problem.

Actually, I think that that 'small minority' is larger than you think. Take a look at this: http://meta-wing.com/pilots? . You will see that the good ships are fielded far more often than the less good ones.

Btw, a meta list wouldn't even be a meta list if many people weren't flying it.

On 1/23/2018 at 6:28 AM, Astech said:

The final, and only reasonable solution is for those not willing to take a meta list to instead take hard counters. DeNym meet RAClo,

The solution for people not willing to run meta lists is to run meta lists. Intriguing.

11 hours ago, Astech said:

They problem with the mindset is highlighted in your statement - the goal of the people who fly these lists to tournemtnes is "simply to win the tournament", not "win a series of X-wing games". The focus is entirely different, which leads to them running meta lists rather than fair ones.

"Generally" is a vast overstatement. It's a very small minority of even tournament players that fly meta lists (and their variations), and that's the problem. Not everyone is willing to stop playing the actual game for the sake of winning, so they bring tier 1 lists instead of tier 0 and resign themselves to not making the cut.

I can't ban a list, but myself and everyone else who attends tournaments can recognise the truly broken cards in the game and simply not play them. The list is short. It's not hard.

"They problem with the mindset is highlighted in your statement - the goal of the people who fly these lists to tournemtnes is "simply to win the tournament", not "win a series of X-wing games"."

An X-Wing tournament is a structured series of X-Wing games. Winning a tournament is therefore winning a series of X-Wing games.

"The focus is entirely different, which leads to them running meta lists rather than fair ones."

Dominant lists don't make the game diverse or fun but they aren't unfair: everyone can bring the broken list of the day if they want to. If the game breaks down into an unenjoyable slog at high levels of competition then it's a bad game at high levels of competition. Ensuring the game is strategically diverse and enjoyable to play at high levels of competition is the responsibility of the ruleset. Only house rules and FFG can change that ruleset.

""Generally" is a vast overstatement. It's a very small minority of even tournament players that fly meta lists (and their variations), and that's the problem. "

This is not true. Nymiranda is currently the most common list and Captain Nym (Rebel) the most common pilot according to List Juggler and meta-wing.com's records. This has been the case throughout X-Wing's history - successful lists are copied.

"I can't ban a list, but myself and everyone else who attends tournaments can recognise the truly broken cards in the game and simply not play them. The list is short. It's not hard."

Any community ban falls apart if merely one person disagrees with your assessment of which cards need removing from the game. Any card restriction or ban must be objective (no room for intepretation whatsoever), clear in advance and enforceable. The only power presently able to do that for tournaments is the tournament organizer and they follow the rules set by FFG.