From certain points of view BOTH of them failed to show some respect and could be "unfriendly".

If you come here asking for help with a rules question, especially one that has been "officially" answered in the past as opposed to some new or highly unusual concern, but don't like the answer advertising that you are only going to listen to official responses isn't all that helpful. Buhallin then calls him on that lack of respect for these forums.

If this happened to be the first thread you took to reading BruceA and want to judge the entire forum based on that one interaction I'm not sure what anyone could do for you. It's almost like walking to someplace that provides all kinds of aid but you see a minor dispute at the front door before you even walk in and then dismiss everything else that may happen on the other side.

Don't let this be the defining experience for you, dude. There are a lot of helpful threads in these forums. You can learn a lot from reading them and asking questions of the folks that frequent them. Enjoy the game and pick up what you can from here to further that enjoyment.

This is not the only post that I have looked at, and have indeed found an interesting opinion on something tonight and thanked the contributor. I have also printed it out so that I can study it and form my own opinion.

I don't know how to work this system properly so forgive me if I paraphrase (cant figure out how to include a bit of someone's post here at the moment)

in response to the post from StevenO above. It seems perfectly natural for me to form an opinion based on what I see. I have of course looked further, but nonetheless I stand by the statement that it may deter me from asking questions. I don't think that your analogy matches my sense of things. I would say that it is more like walking past something that looks interesting but then there is someone being rude, doesn't increase my interest, just puts me off.

From what I understand, using CAPITAL LETTERS is like shouting or maybe giving emphasis in these sort of arenas. In Buhallin's response to my earlier post his stress on the VERY strikes me as indicating stress which I would interpret as sarcasm, which I think is OK amongst friends that you know well, but I find it off putting in strangers. I feel like it indicates a lack of respect, which seems to be one of the things that are valued in this milieu.

Anyway I may ask questions or I may just read responses to others, but the attitude I saw is off-putting to me. Just an opinion of course and you are all welcome to have your own.

Anyway it is nearly twenty to midnight where I am, and I have a couple of hours of work to get through, so I bid you a good night!

Calling it sarcasm implies I don't actually mean it. Again, if you look at the specific behavior I'm calling out (especially with my VERY) I think it's exceedingly tacky. I have no tolerance for someone who wants a rule to work a certain way and keeps asking around at different people looking for someone to give the ruling he wants. If that's what you intend to do, then I'm perfectly happy to not have you posting here. And yes, it will indicate a lack of respect, because I have absolutely zero respect for such people. If you're not doing that sort of thing, there really shouldn't be a problem.

As I've said repeatedly, Dr Reddy could have produced any number of responses that I would have happily engaged. He could have asked for more support, or why it works the way it does, or examples to back it up, or even just outright disagreed because of <blah blah>. All would have been fine. I'm here to discuss rules. I actually enjoy it. If you want me to provide support for any ruling I give, I'll do so at length. But the response he gave had nothing to do with the response I gave - he just didn't like the answer he got.

<shrug> Ask your questions or not, entirely up to you.

This is not the only post that I have looked at, and have indeed found an interesting opinion on something tonight and thanked the contributor. I have also printed it out so that I can study it and form my own opinion.

I don't know how to work this system properly so forgive me if I paraphrase (cant figure out how to include a bit of someone's post here at the moment)

in response to the post from StevenO above. It seems perfectly natural for me to form an opinion based on what I see. I have of course looked further, but nonetheless I stand by the statement that it may deter me from asking questions. I don't think that your analogy matches my sense of things. I would say that it is more like walking past something that looks interesting but then there is someone being rude, doesn't increase my interest, just puts me off.

From what I understand, using CAPITAL LETTERS is like shouting or maybe giving emphasis in these sort of arenas. In Buhallin's response to my earlier post his stress on the VERY strikes me as indicating stress which I would interpret as sarcasm, which I think is OK amongst friends that you know well, but I find it off putting in strangers. I feel like it indicates a lack of respect, which seems to be one of the things that are valued in this milieu.

Anyway I may ask questions or I may just read responses to others, but the attitude I saw is off-putting to me. Just an opinion of course and you are all welcome to have your own.

Anyway it is nearly twenty to midnight where I am, and I have a couple of hours of work to get through, so I bid you a good night!

Well, capital letters is indeed off-putting.

Clearly he should have underlined, or italicized, or even bold-faced his text to make his point. Capital letters are so 1997.

But seriously, Steve-O raises a good point. As you admit, you're new here, so you don't really know how things work or why Buhallin - good god, I just noticed for the first time there are two Ls in that, what do you know? What were we talking about? Oh yes-, why Buhallin got frustrated.

To him, what Reddy did was basically walk in, ask him for the time, then when he was told it was quarter to three, rip the watch off Buhallin's wrist, throw it on the ground, stomp on it, and declare "f**k it - I'm going to go find a clock. That can't possibly be right."

There may very well have been no offense meant, but we have had plenty of people come in here, start a giant debate over a point of the rules, then storm out in a huff when they didn't like the response, telling the community in no uncertain terms that they would only accept answers written in blood and notarized by FFG themselves.

A couple of people did this on more than one occasion, after like twenty pages of debate, only to declare that it was moot anyway because they didn't really care what any of us thought, they'd wait to hear from FFG and see what the next FAQ update or whatever said. At which point it very much was a matter of "you couldn't have just announced that up front, twenty pages of discussion ago??" So it's a little bit of a sore point with some of the more active members of the community who have been burned by that more than once, and isn't meant to be taken as hostile to newcomers in general or anyone sincerely asking for help or understanding.

There actually have been a few "good" rules debates about things the rules weren't all that clear on. An example was what happens when someone forgets to "assign" a movement dial. Now there are probably a number of ways to "assign" a dial but when a ship doesn't have one what happened? Many of us said, and may still stand behind, the idea that every ship has its dial and if you fail to alter that dial it is still assigned to a ship so you'd do that maneuver again. The "official" stance came out later and says it is a lot like performing a red maneuver when stressed; if you don't have a dial assigned to a ship then your opponent gets to assign the dial. With this official ruling the only real argument would be house rules and perhaps defining what it means to not have dial assigned.

Wow. People seem to have strong opinions here on what constitutes appropriate behaviour.

I didn't notice any hint of ripping a watch off or stomping on it or anything else like that. More like asking the time and then checking it on a clock (say Big Ben since I am British). There seemed to be no petulance on show to me. No huff at that point.

No <shrug>ing, no CAPITALS.

That seemed to arrive later to be honest.

I guess I will figure out the approach that works for me in time.

Not what I originally came here for, but nonetheless I have been interested in all of the different perspectives (honestly).

I also learned something interesting last night about shuttles, gunners and weapon control systems, which has made me rethink my escalation tournament entries - more the sort of thing I had in mind.

Happy playing

The watch example may be more comparable to asking the time and getting "about ten to four" for an answer and then just saying "that isn't good enough! I need the EXACT time down to the hundredth of a second based on official atomic clocks."

....or maybe to the minute...

not everyone's watch tells the same time - clocks too of course - I have seven in my house - usually a good ten minute spread across them. I would expect that this is caused by some relativistic effect except that I jus move so slow...

....or maybe to the minute...

not everyone's watch tells the same time - clocks too of course - I have seven in my house - usually a good ten minute spread across them. I would expect that this is caused by some relativistic effect except that I jus move so slow...

It serves to illustrate some of the problem Buhallin was having. He asked for the time but then says it isn't good enough and has to look someplace else. If you need an answer from a specific source to accept it then just go to that source and don't bother others who can answer your questions to the best of their ability but which still isn't good enough.

When it comes to setting clocks in a house you need a good, mobile, timepiece and then use that to set all the clocks. After a time you'll figure out that none of them are likely to keep the exact time but they may be close enough you never notice the difference. It took the Romans centuries to realize that their calendar was wrong as it didn't line up with the true celestial clock.

i'm so glad i now know that i can AdvS +PTL on Echo

FWIW, the answer is "no." If you take "after you perform an action" to mean "at some future point in time, after you have performed this action, but, you know, whenever. I've got nothing planned," the entire timing structure of the game falls to pieces in a hurry.

I will freely admit that the timing interactions between things that are 'after' versus things that are 'immediately after,' since immediately is generally understood but never clearly defined to mean "also after, but sooner after than just plan old vanilla after" are sometimes a bit fuzzy.

That said, the fact is that if you take 'after' to mean anything other than right after, nothing in the game works anymore and it becomes TEGWAR with miniatures.

In a wild attempt to get this thread back into a "rules" discussion. I would like to comment on the timing issues you raised between "after" and "immediately after"

I see these as clear in that if you have a number of issues that resolve together, the person who currently has control decides which order to do them in.

Immediately after changes this, in that immediately after must be done first.

If you have 3 effects to resolve

1. After moving, do A

2. Immediately after moving, do B

3. After moving, do C.

The person whose ship it is, must do B first, and then is free to choose AC or CA.

This is a bit confusing for me. I'm very new to the game, but reading through the thread for new Phantom, people are talking about using Push the Limit after firing, is that legal? It doesn't sound right to me...

This is a bit confusing for me. I'm very new to the game, but reading through the thread for new Phantom, people are talking about using Push the Limit after firing, is that legal? It doesn't sound right to me...

There are some (not many) situations that let you take an (usually free) action after you fire (Turr Phenir's ability is the most common example). In these situations, you may use that free actiion to activate push the limit and take a second action in exchange for a stress)

This is a bit confusing for me. I'm very new to the game, but reading through the thread for new Phantom, people are talking about using Push the Limit after firing, is that legal? It doesn't sound right to me...

There are some (not many) situations that let you take an (usually free) action after you fire (Turr Phenir's ability is the most common example). In these situations, you may use that free actiion to activate push the limit and take a second action in exchange for a stress)

To clarify this a bit - any action taken after you fire will be a free action. The only distinction between a "free" action and a "regular" action is that the regular action is what you do during the Perform Action step in the Activation Phase. Any other action you take is a free action. It's kind of a meaningless term, honestly So far as I know, no ability that grants an action gives you anything but a free action.

But other than that quibble, the yummy god has it correct. Push the Limit triggers from an action - it doesn't matter whether that action is a regular or free, or when or how you get it. So you could use PtL to get a second action after your regular action, or after Squad Leader, or Advanced Cloaking Device, or Lando, or Cracken, or any other way that lets you get an extra action.

This is a bit confusing for me. I'm very new to the game, but reading through the thread for new Phantom, people are talking about using Push the Limit after firing, is that legal? It doesn't sound right to me...

There are some (not many) situations that let you take an (usually free) action after you fire (Turr Phenir's ability is the most common example). In these situations, you may use that free actiion to activate push the limit and take a second action in exchange for a stress)

To clarify this a bit - any action taken after you fire will be a free action. The only distinction between a "free" action and a "regular" action is that the regular action is what you do during the Perform Action step in the Activation Phase. Any other action you take is a free action. It's kind of a meaningless term, honestly So far as I know, no ability that grants an action gives you anything but a free action.

But other than that quibble, the yummy god has it correct. Push the Limit triggers from an action - it doesn't matter whether that action is a regular or free, or when or how you get it. So you could use PtL to get a second action after your regular action, or after Squad Leader, or Advanced Cloaking Device, or Lando, or Cracken, or any other way that lets you get an extra action.

Thanks both for clearing that up. So the re cloaking counts as an action and triggers the PtL. I hadn't fully read/interpreted the wording of the Advanced Cloaking Device

And to tie it back into the phantom thread where it was confusing to you. Advanced cloaking device lets you take a free click action after attacking. Since cloak is an action, it can be used to trigger push the limit, like Buhallin said.

Yup, ninja'd by you understanding.

Immediately after changes this, in that immediately after must be done first.

The Vader/Gunner ruling sets a precedence against that meaning of the word "immediately". The non-immediate Vader resolves first, the immediate gunner second.

The argument "immediately resolves first" is pretty weak.

Immediately after changes this, in that immediately after must be done first.

The Vader/Gunner ruling sets a precedence against that meaning of the word "immediately". The non-immediate Vader resolves first, the immediate gunner second.

The argument "immediately resolves first" is pretty weak.

Not to drag it back up again, but Gunner remains the only example we have of "immediately" not doing anything. It's possible that it's a completely extraneous word, but I'm still not comfortable with that.

Not to drag it back up again, but Gunner remains the only example we have of "immediately" not doing anything. It's possible that it's a completely extraneous word, but I'm still not comfortable with that.

I agree. That's exactly why it would be wise for FFG to use consistent templating for X-Wing cards.

FFG could learn a lot more from how Magic cards are templated. The world's number one card game must be doing something right with its rules and card templating to be so popular.

I strongly suspect that FFG were caught with their pants down by X-Wing's popularity and didn't forsee that it would need tighter rules than those that were originally written. There may come a point in time when expanding the FAQ won't cut it, and they will be forced to write better, cleaner, consistently sequenced rules for X-Wing - similar to what Magic has done many times in its 20 year evolution.

None of my opinions are abrasive to FFG, I am thrilled with what they have delivered and achieved with X-Wing. However, there's no point denying that the rules and cards could still be written better.

Not to drag it back up again, but Gunner remains the only example we have of "immediately" not doing anything. It's possible that it's a completely extraneous word, but I'm still not comfortable with that.

I agree. That's exactly why it would be wise for FFG to use consistent templating for X-Wing cards.

FFG could learn a lot more from how Magic cards are templated. The world's number one card game must be doing something right with its rules and card templating to be so popular.

I strongly suspect that FFG were caught with their pants down by X-Wing's popularity and didn't forsee that it would need tighter rules than those that were originally written. There may come a point in time when expanding the FAQ won't cut it, and they will be forced to write better, cleaner, consistently sequenced rules for X-Wing - similar to what Magic has done many times in its 20 year evolution.

None of my opinions are abrasive to FFG, I am thrilled with what they have delivered and achieved with X-Wing. However, there's no point denying that the rules and cards could still be written better.

What is it with all the Magic suckup this week??

Yes, X-wing needs stronger templating. There isn't any need to point to Magic - they could walk down the hall to the SW LCG development offices and have a chat with them. While it's far from a perfect game, it has respectably strong templating that works just fine.

Apologies for the tangent, all, but: X-wing simply doesn't need Magic-level templating. In almost two years of existence, X-wing has around 120 or so unique abilities - less than what Magic does every few months. Wikipedia tells me that Magic's Theros Cycle, which runs from last August to this April, has included almost 570 cards. In that same amount of time, X-wing has added 37 new abilities (about a dozen more if we include the Transport itself). That's around a 15:1 difference.

This is why Magic needs the hyper templating it does, and the 200-page rulebook that goes along with it. It's also because you have tens of thousands of dollars in prize money and people making their living on the game. None of this has anything to do with what X-wing is, will be, or needs.

So yes, X-wing certainly needs better templating. No, Magic is not the proper template (if you'll pardon the pun) for that.

Actually Pokemon is the world's number 1 card game if you mean CCG.

Or maybe poker if you mean prize money.

Not Magic.

Unless you mean most potentially expensive from what I gather.

Not to drag it back up again, but Gunner remains the only example we have of "immediately" not doing anything. It's possible that it's a completely extraneous word, but I'm still not comfortable with that.

I realize this thread was revived on a tangent, but I just wanted to chime in upon reading this.

"Immediately" is a completely useless word. I've argued this for other games as well. Without "immediately", Gunner's wording would be "After you perform an attack that does not hit, you may perform a primary weapon attack." How is that different? It's not. No one is going to read that version of Gunner and think, "Oh, cool, if I miss, I can perform a primary weapon attack three weeks from now in a different X-Wing match against a completely different opponent." We understand it must happen as soon as possible.

What makes "immediately" really weak, though, is what happens when you want to design an ability that takes place with the same timing as Gunner? If you throw "immediately" in that power, you now have two "immediately" powers triggering at the same time, which is exactly the same as having both those powers without "immediately".

What "immediately" attempts to do is is create a pseudo-phase in which to squeeze a power between two other things. However, the Vader/Gunner ruling clearly throws that right out the window.

No one is going to read that version of Gunner and think, "Oh, cool, if I miss, I can perform a primary weapon attack three weeks from now in a different X-Wing match against a completely different opponent." We understand it must happen as soon as possible.

While I generally agree with you, we actually get this exact question on a regular basis. Plenty of people don't actually understand that it must happen as soon as possible.

Honestly, I think "immediately" should be something to distinguish timing, but it's probably going to become a victim to the generally horrible templating and lack of consistency which plagues X-wing's game text.

EDIT: Upon further review of Buhallin's blog, I think he understands most of what I'm talking about very well. So my point is mostly moot but not exactly irrelevant hopefully.

Not to drag it back up again, but Gunner remains the only example we have of "immediately" not doing anything. It's possible that it's a completely extraneous word, but I'm still not comfortable with that.

I agree. That's exactly why it would be wise for FFG to use consistent templating for X-Wing cards.

FFG could learn a lot more from how Magic cards are templated. The world's number one card game must be doing something right with its rules and card templating to be so popular.

I strongly suspect that FFG were caught with their pants down by X-Wing's popularity and didn't forsee that it would need tighter rules than those that were originally written. There may come a point in time when expanding the FAQ won't cut it, and they will be forced to write better, cleaner, consistently sequenced rules for X-Wing - similar to what Magic has done many times in its 20 year evolution.

None of my opinions are abrasive to FFG, I am thrilled with what they have delivered and achieved with X-Wing. However, there's no point denying that the rules and cards could still be written better.

What is it with all the Magic suckup this week??

Yes, X-wing needs stronger templating. There isn't any need to point to Magic - they could walk down the hall to the SW LCG development offices and have a chat with them. While it's far from a perfect game, it has respectably strong templating that works just fine.

Apologies for the tangent, all, but: X-wing simply doesn't need Magic-level templating. In almost two years of existence, X-wing has around 120 or so unique abilities - less than what Magic does every few months. Wikipedia tells me that Magic's Theros Cycle, which runs from last August to this April, has included almost 570 cards. In that same amount of time, X-wing has added 37 new abilities (about a dozen more if we include the Transport itself). That's around a 15:1 difference.

This is why Magic needs the hyper templating it does, and the 200-page rulebook that goes along with it. It's also because you have tens of thousands of dollars in prize money and people making their living on the game. None of this has anything to do with what X-wing is, will be, or needs.

So yes, X-wing certainly needs better templating. No, Magic is not the proper template (if you'll pardon the pun) for that.

I guess this might be a necro'ed thread. Was just lurking to waste some time...

Anyway, I've been given the "look at the rulebook/FAQ" thing once. My non-existent response (because I deleted it and didn't want to get into an argument) was that: 1. I should have. 2. I didn't because its hard to read these rules exactly because the templating isn't as concrete.

I do come form playing Magic and I must say, hands down, its the best game jargon I have ever seen. Its Judge system is exceptional and thorough. Its rewards for the Judges is much better, encouraging and creates a system that works beautifully.

I've also seen other card games and various games and by and large, they simply fail to get to that level. X-Wing could easily use that templating by the way. It works very well for most things that can happen in this game.

By and large, X-Wing's rules are pretty hard to memorize for a new player and also full of corner cases. Asteroids giving an extra defense die, not an extra agility point. Ok to maneuver into asteroids, but not via boost or barrel roll. Forgettting to assign a dial, wrong ship dial, etc. (I did this once in a casual game, switched my T/F and T/Int dial for a turn, both were legal anyway though).

Not being able to do two of the same action but being able to be assigned the same token. (Sometimes I wonder if my newer friends think I make up the rules lol).

Secondary weapons: no range bonuses but yes asteroid blocking.

What is performing an attack? (don't answer).

Even simple rules like "how to start a tourney match" required me to read two or three different documents. The tourney rules. Then the initiative explanation, THEN the main rule book because I had forgotten that it tells you specifically to pick a table side.

--

About the community respect thing, I've seen it go two ways: I would point to Teamliquid forums, the starcraft / dota / etc forum as the evidence of the strongest type of "community respect" type of forum. It easily stifles newer players. They have moderation arguments moderately often. Etc.

On the plus side, their forums are incredibly clean. Feels like Singapore though.

I see a lot of Starcraft players who go on the Blizzard forum and refuse to go on the Teamliquid forum because of its "circle-jerky" nature. In that the same people who tend to become big forum names have more control and mindset similarities. Someone even said that you see a lot of bias because coincidentally many of the mods tend to be of one race. I did note that more strategy articles were written for that race than any other though.

--

I do think that X-Wing would benefit from Magic style templating. Although its much smaller, we are already seeing the effects of needing more precise language/rules.

What I think is more egregious is the lack of effort to make this more effective. With the now known fact that this game is so far a big success casually and competitively, they should make more efforts to create an updatable PDF that contains all the rules in its most current form. And within that, also do errata as needed. Such as on the Proximity mine + Barrel Roll.