Greetings all,

A couple months back I had asked Alex, Frank, and Max if FFG would be interested in hiring me as a consultant to do some technical balance analysis for X-wing 2.0. The upshot of the conversation was that FFG management would only be willing to let me work on pre-release material if I joined the general playtest group and signed the standard playtester NDA. The playtester NDA includes an Intellectual Property paragraph which is very broad, and essentially states that any mathematical process I reveal to them becomes their permanent and exclusive property. This would have multiple implications:

1. As a general playtester I would be unpaid.
2. I would be unable to later publish the general mathematical theory of how point values can be approximated for any wargame, including posting on forums here, or publishing in academic literature, or using these formulas to playtest for another company, or as a designer for another company. If I signed the NDA and later did any of these at any point in my life, FFG could sue and hold me personally liable.

Neither of these implications were acceptable to me, so I declined. The developers can now change costs post-release, so as a corollary of this decision I have also decided to not make any of my X-wing 2.0 analysis public. FFG has invested many man-years of designer/developer labor into X-wing design and playtesting, but their technical analysis capabilities are significantly less than the infrastructure I have developed. Succinctly stated, I don't feel like giving away that information for free.

There is of course considerable debate as to how useful such an analysis toolkit will be now that the developers can change point costs dynamically. I estimate that it would save them 2-6 months of calendar time on getting point costs settled to their "final form". Certain ships and pilots will be easier for them to price correctly on initial launch than others. This is however, largely a theoretical discussion at this point, since I won't be performing this service for them anyway.

I know that many of you look forward to my analysis of various pilots and ships as they are previewed, so wanted to make this PSA. I will still be performing the analysis privately for myself, but I will not be sharing the results. Lets hope that the FFG developers can get 2.0's point costs and balance worked out in a timely manner, so we don't end up with the poor balance and powercreep that defined 1.0.

Cheers,

-- Bob

#HIREBOB

32 minutes ago, MajorJuggler said:

Greetings  all...

... Bob

Man your ego... its just to big.

You better go off the grid before ffg hacks into your files to steal all your work.

You are doing something anyway, spending the same amount of time and energy as you would if you shared it. People could benefit from this, but you refuse to publish it because you don't get paid for it, claiming that doing so would allow FFG to use your work for free.

But you already did provide it for free, and they didn't use it. The reason is probably because they don't want to. The only people who will be adversely affected are the people who wanted to use your data for their own fun, like making homebrew stuff and forum discussion.

The reason they didn't offer you a job or a position, but allowed you to participate in playtesting, is because they probably turn away a lot of guys like you. This is not the way they hire, and maybe you are not the person they are looking for. They COULD use your input, but they don't want to. That might not be a smart decision from their part, but that's just how it is. Being math-y and enthusiastic is not enough.

The only people you hurt with this, is the community.

It's your work, it's your time, I'm not telling you what to do with it... but you are doing work for free anyway. For you nothing will change. I understand your problems, but think about this.

What if FFG steals your work (They won't), and with the first balance patch they get everything right, thanks to your efforts. You won't get any money from it, but the game will be balanced and amazing.

On the flip hand, you don't share it, they may fuddle around with balance for months, maybe years, before it gets to the level where they would be with your work. Meanwhile, you sit at home, and play with an unbalanced game, and listening to the forums complaining about it.

Which is better?

Exact value is going to take time, but it’ll be ironed out eventually . I’m worried about the pinch points where a certain ship can be too good to field 5, but never worth it with only 4.

any ships you’re worried about on that front? We should already be able to ID them by knowing a TIE/ln cost.

Or at least, no public Mathwing or evaluation from this fellow. There are other mathematicians who play this game.

2 minutes ago, Commander Kaine said:

You are doing something anyway, spending the same amount of time and energy as you would if you shared it. People could benefit from this, but you refuse to publish it because you don't get paid for it, claiming that doing so would allow FFG to use your work for free.

I don't think you understand the level of effort required to do this kind of analysis during pre-release development. Even with the toolkit it is not trivial. There is a significantly greater workload when evaluating balance during the design process, because there are many more permutations to consider. After release the design gets locked down, so there is less to analyze. It's also highly inconvenient to be a slave to having to work around the design schedule. It's a much better life/work/hobby balance to just do some coding later on whenever I want, or not at all if I feel like it. IP issues aside, it is not worth my time to Join the playtest group.

2 minutes ago, Commander Kaine said:

The reason they didn't offer you a job or a position, but allowed you to participate in playtesting, is because they probably turn away a lot of guys like you. This is not the way they hire, and maybe you are not the person they are looking for. They COULD use your input, but they don't want to. That might not be a smart decision from their part, but that's just how it is.

To emphasize, I approached them about a consulting position, I am not interested in being hired as a full time developer. Their salaries would not be worth my time, by a very significant margin. The skillsets and function of a designer / developer is also very different than that of a technical balance director.

There are certainly many people who want to join playtesting, and as a general rule FFG is constantly telling people no. But I only know of one person who has come close to recreating my MathWing 2.0 work, and I don't know if he is on the playtest team. A useful pricing model really needs to have a full action economy model, which is included in MathWing 3.0, which is not public. If someone else else has done similar work then I am unaware of it. FFG does have playtesters that do some level of math for them, but IMO it's only enough to be dangerous, and historically has resulted in things like TLT, Rebel Fenn, and a very long list of other things that were clearly obvious to me. So you can draw your own conclusions, but it seems highly unlikely that FFG has turned away anyone like me.

2 minutes ago, Commander Kaine said:

Being math-y and enthusiastic is not enough.

Certainly! But the flip side is that having enthusiastic designers that are not math-y is also not enough. Citation: X-wing 1.0.

2 minutes ago, Commander Kaine said:

The only people you hurt with this, is the community.

What if FFG steals your work (They won't), and with the first balance patch they get everything right, thanks to your efforts. You won't get any money from it, but the game will be balanced and amazing.

On the flip hand, you don't share it, they may fuddle around with balance for months, maybe years, before it gets to the level where they would be with your work. Meanwhile, you sit at home, and play with an unbalanced game, and listening to the forums complaining about it.

Which is better?

1. I don't owe the community anything, and game balance is 100% on FFG. If they need to rely on one person in the community to voluntarily help them get balance right in a reasonable time, then their design process is broken.
2. Not sharing my analysis can also be a competitive advantage. I should be able to list build better than most people initially, before the general populace figures out the inefficiencies. In my case it's of limited utility since I really don't travel for the game though.
3. In regards to casually playing at home, nothing is stopping me from making my own offline squad builder for home rules.
4. I don't care if the forums complain or not. Hopefully you don't either. :-)

Tis understandable.

Can I still ask you for mathematical opinions? @MajorJuggler

Good on you. You are under no obligation to provide your work for free, and the idea that FFG could penalize you for sharing your work, or for you doing similar stuff on ANY OTHER WARGAME, are terms that are many steps beyond reasonable.

1 minute ago, PhantomFO said:

Good on you. You are under no obligation to provide your work for free, and the idea that FFG could penalize you for sharing your work, or for you doing similar stuff on ANY OTHER WARGAME, are terms that are many steps beyond reasonable.

I offered FFG IP terms where they would have unlimited access to use results or mathematical processes I gave them, but to protect myself they would not be able to "own" any mathematical formulas exclusively. They would not agree to these terms.

1 hour ago, Icelom said:

Man your ego... its just to big.

1 hour ago, Commander Kaine said:

The only people you hurt with this, is the community.

39 minutes ago, player3010587 said:

Or at least, no public Mathwing or evaluation from this fellow. There are other mathematicians who play this game.

Yeah, so MajorJuggler has provided 5 years of free labor. And my understanding is that he can use his research for things bigger and better than helping out where he's been told "thanks, kid, but no." No need to be rude for him letting folks know he's going to keep things to himself for (I suspect) proprietary reasons. (Edit: Even more likely from his intrapost post.) At least folks know the current state of affairs,

Besides, what good does ActualMathWing do in a game with no fixed values?

@MajorJuggler , have you considered BrownianMotionWing?

7 minutes ago, MajorJuggler said:

I don't think you understand the level of effort required to do this kind of analysis during pre-release development. Even with the toolkit it is not trivial. There is a significantly greater workload when evaluating balance during the design process, because there are many more permutations to consider. After release the design gets locked down, so there is less to analyze. It's also highly inconvenient to be a slave to having to work around the design schedule. It's a much better life/work/hobby balance to just do some coding later on whenever I want, or not at all if I feel like it. IP issues aside, it is not worth my time to Join the playtest group.

You are right, I don't. My point was that you just do it anyway.

13 minutes ago, MajorJuggler said:

To emphasize, I approached them about a consulting position, I am not interested in being hired as a full time developer. Their salaries would not be worth my time, by a very significant margin. The skillsets and function of a designer / developer is also very different than that of a technical balance director.

There are certainly many people who want to join playtesting, and as a general rule FFG is constantly telling people no. But I only know of one person who has come close to recreating my MathWing 2.0 work, and I don't know if he is on the playtest team. A useful pricing model really needs to have a full action economy model, which is included in MathWing 3.0, which is not public. If someone else else has done similar work then I am unaware of it. FFG does have playtesters that do some level of math for them, but IMO it's only enough to be dangerous, and historically has resulted in things like TLT, Rebel Fenn, and a very long list of other things that were clearly obvious to me. So you can draw your own conclusions, but it seems highly unlikely that FFG has turned away anyone like me.

I understand. My angle was kinda that they don't WANT your service, because their approach to design is different, probably because they are less mathy. Citation, 1.0

15 minutes ago, MajorJuggler said:

1. I don't owe the community anything, and game balance is 100% on FFG. If they need to rely on one person in the community to voluntarily help them get balance right in a reasonable time, then their design process is broken.
2. Not sharing my analysis can also be a competitive advantage. I should be able to list build better than most people initially, before the general populace figures out the inefficiencies. In my case it's of limited utility since I really don't travel for the game though.
3. In regards to casually playing at home, nothing is stopping me from making my own offline squad builder for home rules.
4. I don't care if the forums complain or not. Hopefully you don't either. :-)

1. You don't, it's fair.

2. Yeah... You should be able to exploit the power of math to dominate games... The question is: are you a good enough player to capitalize on that advantage in a major way (sorry not sorry), and are you playing enough for that to make a real difference... and is it worth your time to do that? I think probably not.

3. Yeah... But why would you not publish your cool casual balance patch? You don't lose anything by allowing others to play.

4. It would be weird if I did, wouldn't it?

I guess my whole thing is:

You are doing work for free, with a very low possibility of you gaining anything from it. Whatever benefits it has, are eaten up by the daunting effort of creating it, and I suspect you aren't a world champion for a reason (maybe its a question of available time, or skill, or whatever). The people who could pay for this service, don't want to (again, for whatever reason).

So, while it is true that you don't owe us anything... there is very little reason not to share it. And since you've been doing it for nothing all this time, I find your reasoning a bit lacking. I also suspect you do enjoy doing it, because, as you say: it is hard work, without much of a benefit.

I'd understand if you stopped all together. But you don't. You instead post a swan's death on the forums, only to tell us , not FFG, that you will not be doing something they didn't really care for anyway, because they don't pay you.

So what changed? Why don't you continue to do things as before?

Full disclosure: I never used your product, I don't have a horse in this race. I just find your reasoning insufficient or I am missing information.

3 minutes ago, Commander Kaine said:

Full disclosure: I never used your product, I don't have a horse in this race. I just find your reasoning insufficient or I am missing information.

If this is original research, any and every creator is going to want to keep things proprietary for future benefit: sell his services to a different game company, earn a PhD in game design, or create his own original game.

The more he shares, the more his risks losing his own intellectual property.

On the bright side, with no mathematical model publicly available, hopefully less players should gravitate towards the proven, statistically-efficient combos and maybe we'll see a bit less of a self-reinforcing meta in 2nd edition. More creativity and variety for all!

Good job @MajorJuggler - you keep that info right at home!

11 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

Yeah, so MajorJuggler has provided 5 years of free labor. And my understanding is that he can use his research for things bigger and better than helping out where he's been told "thanks, kid, but no." No need to be rude for him letting folks know he's going to keep things to himself for (I suspect) proprietary reasons. (Edit: Even more likely from his intrapost post.) At least folks know the current state of affairs,

Show me where I was rude. I asked him a few questions in a respectful manner.

6 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

If this is original research, any and every creator is going to want to keep things proprietary for future benefit: sell his services to a different game company, earn a PhD in game design, or create his own original game.

The more he shares, the more his risks losing his own intellectual property.

Sure. It could be. We don't know. This is why I asked.

8 minutes ago, Commander Kaine said:

The  question is: are you a good enough player to capitalize on that advantage in a major way (sorry not sorry), and are you playing enough for that to make a real difference... and is it worth your time to do that? I thin  k probably not. 

You really don‘t understand who you are talking to.

9 minutes ago, Commander Kaine said:

I  find your reasoning a bit lacking

At least you made me laugh out loud!

@MajorJuggler perfectly understandable, albeit sad! I was always fascinated by your work and highly enjoyed reading about it. Please let us know if you end up publishing anything related!

2 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

You really don‘t understand who you are talking to.

Not a world champion.

Just now, FlyingAnchors said:

Not  a world champion.  

Clearly the only relevant metric, ever!

3 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

At least you made me laugh out loud!

Dude just stop.

I don't care for another 2 day long argument with you, so you can write me a PM later that it turns out I was being perfectly reasonable. We should be able to go on our ways without antagonizing each other.

@MajorJuggler - I do hope that you can use your work to win something. It will be interesting to see the power of mathwing when it’s secret is solely in your hands. And, the discussions around your work will be missed, although I do think that without it there will be a little more chaos in the meta. It’s really going to be hard to tell how an absence of mathwing will affect the game, since the entire game is being rebased at the same time you are going underground.

20 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

Besides, what good does ActualMathWing do in a game with no fixed values?

@MajorJuggler , have you considered BrownianMotionWing?

If the devs properly understood the mathematical system they created, then it would probably save them between 1-2 iterations of cost changes for many ships. With their projected rate of cost tweaks, that's about 3-8 months of extra latency by doing things "blind" the way they have been.

I have thought about BrownianWing, but the solution keeps running away from me...

16 minutes ago, Commander Kaine said:

You are right, I don't. My point was that you just do it anyway.

I understand. My angle was kinda that they don't WANT your service, because their approach to design is different, probably because they are less mathy. Citation, 1.0

1. You don't, it's fair.

2. Yeah... You should be able to exploit the power of math to dominate games... The question is: are you a good enough player to capitalize on that advantage in a major way (sorry not sorry), and are you playing enough for that to make a real difference... and is it worth your time to do that? I think probably not.

3. Yeah... But why would you not publish your cool casual balance patch? You don't lose anything by allowing others to play.

4. It would be weird if I did, wouldn't it?

I guess my whole thing is:

You are doing work for free, with a very low possibility of you gaining anything from it. Whatever benefits it has, are eaten up by the daunting effort of creating it, and I suspect you aren't a world champion for a reason (maybe its a question of available time, or skill, or whatever). The people who could pay for this service, don't want to (again, for whatever reason).

So, while it is true that you don't owe us anything... there is very little reason not to share it. And since you've been doing it for nothing all this time, I find your reasoning a bit lacking. I also suspect you do enjoy doing it, because, as you say: it is hard work, without much of a benefit.

I'd understand if you stopped all together. But you don't. You instead post a swan's death on the forums, only to tell us , not FFG, that you will not be doing something they didn't really care for anyway, because they don't pay you.

So what changed? Why don't you continue to do things as before?

Full disclosure: I never used your product, I don't have a horse in this race. I just find your reasoning insufficient or I am missing information.

Thanks for the kind reply. There's not enough of that on these forums sometimes. :-)

Re #2: it's tangential to this discussion, but if I don't make the cut at a regionals-level event then it's either a bad day for me, and/or I'm flying a subpar list. I don't travel alot, so I can actually tally up my lifetime win/loss record at Regionals+ events, which is 36-10 (including elimination rounds). 2 of those tournaments were with sub-par lists. I have won a store championship every season I have played, playing in 1 - 3 per season. Store champ wins are like candy though, everyone has them. :-)

The large part of what changed is that they can actually use my inputs now, immediately, because point costs aren't printed on the card. Naturally a lot of people would prefer me to give away this info as a free service to FFG (and by extension the community) because there is a lot of value in that. Not giving FFG that info is a business decision on my part. FFG already knew that if they didn't hire me, that I wouldn't be doing any public analysis. Those were the terms of my offer. This PSA is for the community, not FFG.

13 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

If this is original research, any and every creator is going to want to keep things proprietary for future benefit: sell his services to a different game company, earn a PhD in game design, or create his own original game.

The more he shares, the more his risks losing his own intellectual property.

I might publish the process someday in the academic literature. It takes a lot of work to make it presentable, and there's still some nagging aspects I would like to iron out first. You can turn almost anything into a PhD, but this is a good topic for the right candidate. It likely wouldn't be a PhD in game design, but in something like applied mathematics. I already have one in electrical engineering, which is enough for me. :-)

7 minutes ago, FTS Gecko said:

On the bright side, with no mathematical model publicly available, hopefully less players should gravitate towards the proven, statistically-efficient combos and maybe we'll see a bit less of a self-reinforcing meta in 2nd edition. More creativity and variety for all!

Good job @MajorJuggler - you keep that info right at home!

Sadly I doubt this will be the case. For late-stage X-wing 1.0 I didn't post much analysis, but everyone still kept gravitating towards what I thought was best on paper anyway. The bright side is that with sufficient tournament data collection (another issue entirely), maybe they can split the difference and only need 1-2 cost revisions instead of 3-4.

1 minute ago, FlyingAnchors said:

Not a world champion.

Yeah, I am definitely not a world champion. That level of practice requires a lot of dedication. I only even went to worlds once, in 2015, and was #20/267.

Well I will also not share my super secret math powers either. I bid you all good day!

47 minutes ago, FTS Gecko said:

On the bright side, with no mathematical model publicly available, hopefully less players should gravitate towards the proven, statistically-efficient combos and maybe we'll see a bit less of a self-reinforcing meta in 2nd edition. More creativity and variety for all!

Good job @MajorJuggler - you keep that info right at home!

This!

Plus, isn’t math really just a 20th century thing anyway? This is the age of ignoring data or things as banal as say, acurately counting the size of an inauguration crowd.

Mathematics will not save you! Don’t prepare; go with your instincts and all will be fine.