Hit The ROAD, Jack!

 So, how's about that Random Player Order, huh?

In case the atomic explosion of X-Wing social media hasn't reached the rock you are living under, AMG shared their vision of what Random Player Order rules would be this week and, well... it did not go well.

THE ROAD TO HELL

What we had come to know as Random Player Order (RPO) has been replaced by Random Order After Dials (ROAD) and the general consensus among the Online X-Wing Community (OXWC) is that it's a bit of a SNAFU (Situation Negative: Al-Fresco Unicorn).  AFAIK.

I thought the general response to this announcement was nicely summed up by this gif someone posted...

...while my own immediate response was along very similar lines.

I can't remember the last time 103 people liked something I said, so it's a pretty good indicator that I was in line with how a lot of people were feeling.  In that immedate moment I simply couldn't fathom how ROAD was the version that AMG wanted us to play.  It honestly felt like a deliberate attack on X-Wing that was calculated to drive people out of the game and into Star Wars Legion, where the spend to play was much higher.

In my last blog I said a lot of very nice things about the idea of RPO.  I didn't have anything good to say about ROAD when I first saw it.

I know a lot of very prominent members of the community were very vocal with their dismay/disappointment/disgust at these proposed changes to the rules and it was immediately suggested that the OWXC should ignore it completely and splinter away from the official ruleset.  That may well yet come to pass because I think AMG have truly underestimated the damage that these changes will do to the committed X-Wing playerbase.  I'm not sure this is one they can just ride out and wait for it all to blow over.

THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD

Personally, though, a day or two's distance from the initial announcement has given me some time to reflect and my stance on ROAD has softened.  A least a little.  A little little.

Like I said, at first take these new rules felt like an actual attack on the game, whether through ignorance on the part of the designers or a wilfull attempt to damage X-Wing, I just couldn't see how anything positive had been intended by moving to ROAD.  I think I can see now what the designers are attempting to do, even if I still think it's ultimately misguided and extremely harmful to the game.

Picture two identical pilots in identical ships.  Let's make them Alpha Squadron Pilots in their TIE Interceptors. 

    VS    

If you imagine the dogfight in space that X-Wing is supposed to be simulating then these ships are identical and the pilots are identical, but because X-Wing is a board game where each player takes turns doing things that simulation of space combat is imperfect and one of the two ships has to move first while the other moves second.  Whichever ship moves first is an Alpha Squadron Pilot - they move with no information of what the opposing ship is doing and have to guess well in order to be at all effective, while whichever of the two ships moves second may as well be the ACE OF LEGEND that is Soontir Fel as they have perfect information on where the opponent is and what actions they took.

    VS    

As the player moving first you know that the deck is stacked against you and the opponent has a big advantage.  But it's also entirely in your control how you respond to that situation and how you position your ships and take actions that will best allow you to fight uphill against the opponent and win the duel.  It's not easy but it's skills you learn, and it's rewarding when you use those skills to overturn the odds and come out victorious despite being the underdog on paper.  

For many of the people who are committed X-Wing players enough to play lots of events, collect lots of factions, buy lots of ships, and sink many hours into playing the game and talking about the game... this exact interaction of how you manage the dance between moving first and second, advantage and disadvantage, is probably one of the key elements that got you really hooked on the game.  It was difficult, but you got good at it, and you like being good at it because it's skill-intensive and skill-rewarding.

For many of the people who are committed X-Wing players... how you manage the dance between moving first and second, advantage and disadvantage, is probably one of the key elements that got you really hooked on the game.  

But if you're coming into the game as an outsider.... I think that dance looks a lot like abusing game mechanics.

But if you're coming into the game as an outsider, as the AMG designers are, then I think the very same dance that is why committed X-Wing players love the game... I think that dance looks a lot like abusing game mechanics. 

If they're both identical ships with identical pilots why is the experience of planning dials for these identical ships so completely different?  It's a better simulation of space combat to try and create a situation where the two identical pilots in identical ships are faced with identical situations when you're deciding what maneuvers to plot in for them... and that means not knowing which of the two ships is going to move first when you're setting the dials.  

It's not a desirable skill-intensive trait to be celebrated but a flaw in the game design to be removed to prevent players abusing it.

And (I think) that's how you get to ROAD.

ROAD means an even playing field when pilots of the same initiative are meeting each other.  Neither player has a big advantage or disadvantages that they can plan for and take advantage of.  It's a better simulation of space combat and it's also the fairest system for both players.

The trouble is: it's still shit.


THE ROAD TO RACK AND RUIN

I can reason myself to a place where I can understand why somebody thinks ROAD might be a good idea.  I can tell myself that in a lot of games it won't matter at all as I won't match initiatives with my opponent.  I can believe that rolling 3 dice and looking for Crits isn't much more cumbersome than rolling 1 dice and doing 'hits or misses' and may be future-proofing for formats with more than 2 players.  I can appreciate that it's levelled the playing field by meaning both players are in the same position when it comes to setting dials.

But I can't make myself like it.  And believe me: I've tried.

I'd rather move first every turn and know I was moving first then roll the dice and not know.  And worse yet: have to plan for what an opponent is going to do when they also don't know if they're moving first or second.  Yes, both players are now in the same position when it comes to planning your turn but that position is worse for both players then it used to be when you knew what was going on, whether you moving first or second.  This is Star Wars, overcoming greater odds is part of the deal, part of the appeal!

And yes, this might make it a better 'simulation' of space combat, but it also makes it a much worse boardgame experience, and I think that's more important.  X-Wing is a tactical miniatures game and ROAD directly impacts on player's abilities to actually apply tactics to the game instead of just saying two Hail Mary's and letting Jesus take the wheel.

And yes, maybe the designers see this as ironing out a flaw in X-Wing's original design, but that flaw is pretty much the entire reason why X-Wing has kept me interested for six years.  That flaw is why I've played it for hundreds of hours and bought multiples of pretty much every expansion that has ever been released along the way, instead of going 'hum, it's fun enough, I guess' and putting X-Wing right back down again and just carrying on playing whatever boardgame people brought to that Monday night session.

If you like X-Wing.  If you *really really* like X-Wing, then ROAD is only going to bring pain. 

It's replacing one of the most unique, intellectually challenging, and endorphin-supplyingly rewarding mechanics of the game with just fucking tossing a coin.  I can't get past this.  I personally stop right here: this is WHY I play I X-Wing.  AMG aren't fiddling with some random little corner of the rules that I'm going to make a stink about because I don't like change... this actually cuts right to the heart of why X-Wing is such a compelling game that I keep wanting to come back to.

It's also going to lead to ENDLESS people fucking whining and moaning about how their games were decided by dice not skill.  People already bitch about this and they're usually wrong, but once ROAD comes in there's going to be more salt than the Dead Sea, and worse of all (unlike today) a lot of it will be properly justified.  When combat dice fuck you over then you rolled them often enough over the course of a game, or a tournament, that variance probably about evened itself out.  But you're going to roll ROAD dice far less often and there's probably more riding on each individual roll than with combat dice.  ROAD is a recipe for feelsbadman moments to happen far too often... and that's before you factor in that people are already primed to hate it.

I hate it.  I think I understand what they're trying to do.  I'm trying to be enlightened and see both sides.  But I hate it.  It's a visceral reaction I can't shake.

 

A FORK IN THE ROAD

So, we're probably at a critical junction for the game.  AMG don't have years of goodwill accrued and they don't have the playerbase invested in their ongoing Organised Play schemes.  Right now X-Wing players don't really need anything from AMG aside from new ships so I think it's possible that the competitive X-Wing just decides to say "thanks but no thanks" to ROAD and heads off in their own direction.  

The scene is set for a revolution in a way that I think wouldn't have been true at all pre-Covid.

Indeed, because of the botched way that AMG have introduced this concept staggered over several different announcements that process has already begun: several major US tournament organisers had already moved to trialling a version of RPO after it was hinted at.  Ostensibly they were testing out the system, or players wanted to get used to the idea of not having to keep bids and see just how the game changed.  As I currently understand it those tournaments are going to continue to use RPO, at least for the time being.

And they're not alone, the fact those major tournaments decided to unhitch their wagon from the official rules opened a pandora's box of tournament organisers deciding which rulesset they wanted to implement.  My next event in real life will not use RPO, nor ROAD, nor even the current rules in the RRG around bidding for initiative - we're going to be keeping bids but taking the concept of deficit scoring from the intial hints around how RPO would work.  Competitive X-Wing is already splintering into different formats and while I think nobody wants it to remain splintered for long and we'll all eventually coalesce around one or two rules sets, the momentum is currently entirely away from using the official RRG and in the direction of the X-Wing community deciding their own rules.

• Do you want to keep bids, or move to random initiative?
• If you're keeping bids do you move to deficit scoring?
• If you're doing random initiative how and when do you decide it?  
• Do you decide it at the start of the game?  Do you decide it every turn before dials?   Do you decide it every turn after dials?
• Do you alternate initiative? 
• Does initiative change depending on game state - who is losing/winning?

It's currently open season on rules, and this is a mess entirely of AMG's making.

It's into these waters that ROAD was dropped, like a turd dropped into a hot tub.  It's currently hard to imagine that the most committed, high-profile and influential playes are going to accept ROAD, and it's equally hard to see what AMG are going to be able to offer that would encourage them to.  We're 18 monts into a pandemic that has seen official Organised Play disappear and the community has stepped whole-heartedly into the breach.  

AMG have some hard yards ahead of them.  For a lot of players even a backtrack away from ROAD won't be enough - I think bridges have been burned that may never get rebuilt.  If they decide to perservere with ROAD then the yards get harder still and I honestly think the momentum is entirely against them.  If they don't recognise that then we may never again have the players and developers of this game reconciled onto the same ruleset.

That's not something I could ever have imagined myself saying even 7 days ago, but with hindsight the seeds for this have been gradually planted all along the path from Hyperspace format, through Covid, to RPO and ROAD.  The makers of X-Wing want to change something that many of the players of X-Wing don't want to have changed, and I think the balance of power may just have decisively shifted.

I don't know what happens next.  But I think a lot of players are on the edge with X-Wing and looking for something hopeful and positive to cling onto, and whoever offers that first will take the helm.