We have a player in our area who exclusively plays imperials, almost always either Palp aces or Triple aces. It has become apparent that his primary win condition is playing for time after sniping a ship or maybe half points on a large base. Invariably this then leads to his opponent over committing to try and get a win in the allotted time which often ends with them out of position and often losing more ships while pressing to get shots on target. Very much a "playing the player, not the game" situation.

He also takes longer than his opponents to set dial by quite a margin of time, and takes even longer when considering boosts and barrel rolls (particularly now he has started playing PTL Kylo with Adv Sen).

So my first question is, do you think playing for time was ever intended to be a legitimate strategy intended by FFG? or simply a by-product of needing to arbitrarily end a game at a certain point for the sake of wanting to fit 5-6 rounds tournament play in a single day? Noting also that FFG extended the round times from 60-65 mins to 75 mins.

Secondly there seems to be quite a bit of stigma around calling a judge if you think your opponent is taking too long on their dials and boost/barrel rolls. Do you think that if you are about to play an opponent that takes a lot longer than you consider sufficient time to set dials and perform boost/barrel rolls to talk with the Judge prior about what their definition of acceptable time is for these decisions to be made and executed and have them monitor the match more closely?

I dislike personal confrontation so am unlikely to ever call someone out on it directly, but I feel sometimes this can be what players like this often count on when 'Fly Casual' is cited so very often.

Technically yes, I don't particularly find it sportsmanlike, though, to only play half the game.

But the format really, really rewards it in many, many cases, which is getting quite disheartening at times.

That’s why we need chess clocks. Run out of time. You lose.

Yes, but god it's boring.

Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with aiming to play for time. It's a legal strategy, and a good one, and noone should be vilified for employing it.

I'm not sure if it's intend to be an effective win condition or not, h owever I really dislike that the tournament game encourages it as a strategy. I'd hope that any future cards, rule changes, and errata discourage it.

The easiest way to do this is raise the time limit, but that can get super boring. You could also raise the damage curve further above defence, but that's risky from a balance perspective. The best solution I've seen is introducing objectives or other alt formats to steer the game from being a straight deathmatch.

We also need floor rules of some kind to accurately define what constitutes slow play, and what the consequences of it are. This should encourage less confrontational people to call it out when they see it (although it would have the side effect of allowing players to legitamtely slow play to a limit).

4 minutes ago, Fuzzywookie said:

That’s why we need chess clocks. Run out of time. You lose.

Chess clocks don't remotely work in X Wing, a game where the turn passes incredibly regularly and some turns are longer than others.

And they do nothing for playing for time, which involves just running for range/obstructions, tokenning up as much as possible, and weathering the incoming fire, without needing to save any tokens and actions for offence.

Playing for time isn't slow-rolling, it's point fortressing.

34 minutes ago, Mace Windu said:

He also takes longer than his opponents to set dial by quite a margin of time, and takes even longer when considering boosts and barrel rolls (particularly now he has started playing PTL Kylo with Adv Sen).

This is just bad sportsmen ship, and you can call the TO over to have words with him about slow playing. People who do this are extremely frustrating and are generally the "win at any cost and who cares if me or my opponent has any fun" kind of people. (i have even had a player look at the clock with 3min left and say "well that is game then no point in putting dials down" when he was most likely going to loose with another turn of game play)

The other stuff he does is fine, that is just playing the game. Running with your ships is a valid strategy is up to your opponent to close in on you. Its all within the game itself.

4 minutes ago, Icelom said:

This is just bad sportsmen ship, and you can call the TO over to have words with him about slow playing. People who do this are extremely frustrating and are generally the "win at any cost and who cares if me or my opponent has any fun" kind of people. (i have even had a player look at the clock with 3min left and say "well that is game then no point in putting dials down" when he was most likely going to loose with another turn of game play)

The other stuff he does is fine, that is just playing the game. Running with your ships is a valid strategy is up to your opponent to close in on you. Its all within the game itself.

It's valid, but it's immensely frustrating tot he point where it probably shouldn't be valid, and it's only really valid because the tournament structure allows it.

In games where there's no time limit, you can't just run away forever, you have to actually try to kill stuff. The time limit is what makes getting ahead on points then running away until time a viable thing to do.

10 minutes ago, Icelom said:

(i have even had a player look at the clock with 3min left and say "well that is game then no point in putting dials down" when he was most likely going to loose with another turn of game play)

If that ever comes up again, that's actually not legal to do. When there's time left in a time limit game, you automatically start another round after the end phase, and when you hit time, you finish the round you're on. In that case, you were already in the planning phase of the next round.

Someone please correct me if that's incorrect.

Any TOs have a good strategy to talk to slow players when you notice it? I havent ever run into in our local meta.

Wouldn’t playing to time sorta be like an objective? It is literally the only win con vs total annihilation. So what xwing needs is more win cons and then it goes from jank to game plan. Might not be a good one though if your opponent can win faster. Balance in all things.

50 minutes ago, Mace Windu said:

We have a player in our area who exclusively plays imperials, almost always either Palp aces or Triple aces. It has become apparent that his primary win condition is playing for time after sniping a ship or maybe half points on a large base. Invariably this then leads to his opponent over committing to try and get a win in the allotted time which often ends with them out of position and often losing more ships while pressing to get shots on target. Very much a "playing the player, not the game" situation.

He also takes longer than his opponents to set dial by quite a margin of time, and takes even longer when considering boosts and barrel rolls (particularly now he has started playing PTL Kylo with Adv Sen).

So my first question is, do you think playing for time was ever intended to be a legitimate strategy intended by FFG? or simply a by-product of needing to arbitrarily end a game at a certain point for the sake of wanting to fit 5-6 rounds tournament play in a single day? Noting also that FFG extended the round times from 60-65 mins to 75 mins.

Secondly there seems to be quite a bit of stigma around calling a judge if you think your opponent is taking too long on their dials and boost/barrel rolls. Do you think that if you are about to play an opponent that takes a lot longer than you consider sufficient time to set dials and perform boost/barrel rolls to talk with the Judge prior about what their definition of acceptable time is for these decisions to be made and executed and have them monitor the match more closely?

I dislike personal confrontation so am unlikely to ever call someone out on it directly, but I feel sometimes this can be what players like this often count on when 'Fly Casual' is cited so very often.

It is a totally legitimate tactic. Unless he’s taking a SIGNIFICANTLY longer time making decisions you need to get over it.

Sounds like you got suckered by his ropeadope and are now salty.

keep in mind that the game normally has no time limit. win condition is last remaining player, and it is effectively a house rule for tournaments to play for time

the time limit was added to keep poor sports who were losing from just running away forever or (regening forever, etc), possibly for litteral hours. this player sounds like he is exactly the type of player they were trying to stop, but is now ironically still using it to his advantage. if someone is being a poor sport, call a judge. its not you who is behaving badly

it's...legal

55 minutes ago, Mace Windu said:

He also takes longer than his opponents to set dial by quite a margin of time, and takes even longer when considering boosts and barrel rolls (particularly now he has started playing PTL Kylo with Adv Sen).

this, though, this can be bull
nothing runs a game into the ground like slowplay. there are definitely considerations to go into (advanced sensor kylo has A LOT of options) and for that reason it's very hard to enforce against or even define, but still.

Bell of shame worthy if it's slow-play for the sake of running the clock

Just now, Vontoothskie said:

keep in mind that the game normally has no time limit. win condition is last remaining player, and it is effectively a house rule for tournaments to play for time

the time limit was added to keep poor sports who were losing from just running away forever or (regening forever, etc), possibly for litteral hours. this player sounds like he is exactly the type of player they were trying to stop, but is now ironically still using it to his advantage. if someone is being a poor sport, call a judge. its not you who is behaving badly

Time limits were added so tournaments can happen. They aren’t “house rules”

35 minutes ago, Fuzzywookie said:

That’s why we need chess clocks. Run out of time. You lose.

Let's make it thematic. You have X amount of time before an ISD shows up and obliterates whatever's not docked/hyperspaced out, even friendlies. Final Salvo Becomes a test of who makes it out. (Final Salvo still works the same as before.)

If your strategy is to try and run out an arbitrary clock during a standard 100 point death match then I'll never play with you. It also means you're a horrible person and nobody loves you.

The rules on play speed and limit need to be more clear.

afaik its this:

you always continue to the next round while time is still present. (saying there's 3 mins left, sorry: gotta go to next round)
If time is called during a round, that's the last round.
You make one casual reminder for slow play. Then call a judge.
You cannot pause time if there are no decisions.
And decisions should be made in a timely manner. Offering a minute or so in tournament time to do all actions is reasonable. Two if needed. However, if the opponent has already been warned for slow play, judge.

either way, its possible to counter play: don't let them have the better alpha. they can't play to time if they're not ahead.

call that judge early.

Declare all actions and decisions and being done.

--

I think playing to time works better if its just w or lose.
if judged by MOV, I think it becomes much harder to make this effective.

Am I misreading this, or is there some conflation?

"Playing for time to run out" is a perfectly acceptable strategy. It can even be justified via fluff. ("Our job is to keep them busy here!")

"Stalling" is not a perfectly acceptable strategy. It is cheating.

If someone is consistently taking longer than you do to set dials and perform actions, the best thing to do is bring it up, in a non-confrontational way, to see if it can be remedied between the players. But there is nothing wrong with asking a judge to watch. (After all, maybe you set dials and take actions much faster than most people. That doesn't make someone slower than you necessarily unreasonably slow.)

There's always someone who'll say, "Well, some people just play slowly, and it's not right to punish that." It's not punishment to expect participants to be able to assign dials and perform actions in a reasonable time. If someone isn't capable of assigning dials and performing actions in a reasonable time, X-Wing is just not the game for them. There are many games each one of us is not suited for ... and we don't inflict ourselves on people who want to play that game as it's meant to be played.

2 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

" Playing for time to run out" is a perfectly acceptable strategy. It can even be justified via fluff. ("Our job is to keep them busy here!")

"Stalling" is not a perfectly acceptable strategy. It is cheating.

100%

I'm with the "Running away to try to go to time and win on points is a valid tactic (super-frustrating though) but deliberately taking a long time to choose moves and assign dials should be called out" crowd.

I won't deny that I've had matches where it's close to time, I've realized I'm ahead on points, and I make every effort I can to stay alive and flee. I make sure I'm choosing my maneuvers and executing them quickly though, so no one has any doubt as to whether I'm slow-playing them. If my ships winds up getting caught and I still lose anyway before it hits time, I don't regret not slow-playing my opponent since it could have gotten me the win. I was making mistakes and the other player was still flying better. Not the end of my world.

There are now lists and ships in this game that are (nearly) statistically impossible to kill with 1 ship left. That isn't the fault of the player trying to beat it.

Killing the single killable ship and never engaging again may be the only way to win. And if you are at a tournament, you are trying to win.

However, you obviously can't slow-play / stall the game, especially when you purposely move slowly and prevent "one more round" from happening.

If you are up on points, it is YOUR responsibility to ensure the opponent has enough rounds to try and beat you.

Otherwise, YOU are being "unsportsmanlike" and should be called out on it.

Someday, I hope they add that to the tournament rules in a more clear fashion.

1 hour ago, Tlfj200 said:

Yes, but god it's boring.

This.

But if the one that has more points left to wins buys the next round, it’s palatable ?

5 minutes ago, clanofwolves said:

This. [Running for time is boring.]

Funny thing is, I don't find it boring at all.

The very few times I've had to run out time, I found it incredibly nerve-wracking, at least partially because I'm terrible at turning off the part of my brain that wants to kill all their ships.

The (more, but still only a) few times that I've had someone run for time against me legitimately , I've found it enjoyable to try to visualize the paths and the board constraints to get a "firing solution" to get guns on the ship I need guns on. Win or lose, it's a fun and fair game.

It's really only sucked for me when someone was actually stalling , not running for time. I'm a confrontational person by nature, so I will flat out ask, "Are you stalling?" And if I don't believe the answer (or if the answer is "yes"), I'll grab a judge. And I won't be shy about letting the player's next opponent know to be looking out for it.

2 hours ago, Mace Windu said:

We have a player in our area who exclusively plays imperials, almost always either Palp aces or Triple aces. It has become apparent that his primary win condition is playing for time after sniping a ship or maybe half points on a large base. Invariably this then leads to his opponent over committing to try and get a win in the allotted time which often ends with them out of position and often losing more ships while pressing to get shots on target. Very much a "playing the player, not the game" situation.

He also takes longer than his opponents to set dial by quite a margin of time, and takes even longer when considering boosts and barrel rolls (particularly now he has started playing PTL Kylo with Adv Sen).

So my first question is, do you think playing for time was ever intended to be a legitimate strategy intended by FFG? or simply a by-product of needing to arbitrarily end a game at a certain point for the sake of wanting to fit 5-6 rounds tournament play in a single day? Noting also that FFG extended the round times from 60-65 mins to 75 mins.

Secondly there seems to be quite a bit of stigma around calling a judge if you think your opponent is taking too long on their dials and boost/barrel rolls. Do you think that if you are about to play an opponent that takes a lot longer than you consider sufficient time to set dials and perform boost/barrel rolls to talk with the Judge prior about what their definition of acceptable time is for these decisions to be made and executed and have them monitor the match more closely?

I dislike personal confrontation so am unlikely to ever call someone out on it directly, but I feel sometimes this can be what players like this often count on when 'Fly Casual' is cited so very often.

I would say if the player is known for doing this then the TO should be watching him more closely to ensure he is not abusing the situation. Yes by the written rule it is legal but I believe most people would agree that it is not in the spirit of the game. Unfortunately I think this is a bi product of our culture as a whole which celebrates the "Win at any cost" mentality and the "If your not cheating your not trying". Completely removes sportsmanship from the equation.