I disagree. Saying that a player can intentionally declare an invalid ARO to gain an advantage, and then later have to clarify that another part of the rules should be worded differently so that only the failure to declare a valid ARO in step 2 prevents you from declaring AROs in Step 4, seems like a pretty good example of breaking the rules.
It's already been answered multiple times in this thread, and another thread has been linked several times which is specifically devoted to answering that question. The short answer is: no, you only lose your ARO opportunity if you fail to declare at a point where you had a valid ARO. It's not an argument being made. It's a ruling from ijw.
@ijw would there be a possibility of a provisional ruling thread for these two issues? (Revealing hidden Deployment and Eligible/legal ARO declaration)
It sounds like a lot of rules need to be changed/FAQ'd to allow for this interpretation to work. Exactly this. The ruling only works if you go ahead and change other rules too. In any case, anyone attending any of my events can be assured that rule won't fly, same probably goes with most of the western-US if the other Warcors I'm talking to are any indication.
Seconded, because otherwise we get this nonsense: The N4 rules don't break the game, but TOs refusing to apply the rules as clarified by official Rules Staff would break the game.
Not too sure about that, we were all on board with allowing Berserk while in base contact while it was ruled against here, before it was ruled in favor of in the FAQ. The game didn't break, and eventually it was clarified how we interpreted it.
I think part of the confusion is that "eligible" can mean both "The ARO would be legal" and "You have the opportunity to Declare" IJW has clarified/ruled/stated that you may Declare an ARO in step 2 even if you are not Eligible to (using the first meaning) Some people are reading it as the other meaning, which is quite understandable.
The only best way to have the most homogenous gameplay experience between multiple community is to follow what the searchable answers are (FAQ, official forum answers). There is a lot of rules I didn't agree with in N3, but stuck to the answers provided in the official sources for that particular reason. It's going to be a terrible experience for everyone if every time you go to a tournament you need to ask how they handle every rule, or expect every tournament to give you a house-rule booklet.
Yeah, I have significant concerns with TOs intentionally disregarding FAQs, provisional rulings and rulings made by Official Rules Staff. @Diphoration has captured the issue well.
If using Stealth, you would need to only declare move-move with them, because if you did anything else, it would break stealth and the opponent would regain the ability to declare (invalid) AROs. Frankly, since this already hinges on invalid ARO declarations, I don’t actually see how stealth would stop anything.
Stealth prevents AROs from being declared (which among other things is why you should declare its use when activating a trooper, including a camouflaged one). I.e. it kicks in at the declaration step, not resolution. Edit: there's more info here, and linked in-thread, if you're after it: https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/rules-that-prevent-declaring-aros.39370/
Answered here: https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/interesting-dodge-mine-interaction.39274/#post-392274 Stealth prevents ARO declaration rather than just rendering them invalid.
Both of these rulings are pre N4. Stealth now just says that it prevents AROs, not that it prevents the declaration of AROs. Edit: my bad. Was looking at the wrong dates.
Thanks; I read the stealth rule before posting that, but the difference is not apparent. If the user declares a Short Movement Skill or Cautious Movement within the Zone of Control of one or more enemies and stays outside their LoF, he does not grant AROs to those enemies. It’s not immediately obvious that that is categorically different than checking ZoC measurements during the resolution step.
Trust me, I feel the exact same way. I'm giving the impossible task of expecting people to be up to date with all of the forum threads which in this case which rewrite a significant portion of the game in a very nuanced way, but has major tactical implications, and leads to some very negative gaming experiences if someone is surprised by them. Or people just play the way they have been, and we ignore the ruling of allowing people to declare invalid AROs, for the purpose of actually declaring a different skill entirely, which is not an ARO. The choice is between disappointing people looking for nuanced exceptions to the rules to be able to play in a way that is non-interactive, or disappointing the majority of players at events who are not. I will absolutely enforce whatever comes of an FAQ, but the guidance in this thread is something which I will ignore for the time being.
Calling a direct, unambiguous statement from official Infinity Rules Staff "guidance" is pretty disingenuous. That said, I think at this point we can all agree that a Provisional Rules Answer from @ijw would be valuable.
Specific circumstances prevent the declaration of an ARO. You need to check both whether an ARO is permitted to be declared and also, if declared, if it was valid. So at Step: 1.1. Active Trooper(s) are activated, all Reactive Troopers have an ARO. 2. The Reactive player checks whether they are permitted to declare an ARO (they can be prevented from declaring specific AROs or from declaring any ARO at all). If they are permitted to declare any AROs then the may declare it now. 4. The Reactive player performs the same check as Step 2. 5. Both players check: A. Did the Reactive player actually receive a valid ARO? B. If they didn't declare their ARO until Step 4, did they miss the opportunity to declare a valid ARO at Step 2? If so then the ARO declared at Step 4 becomes an Idle. 6. Resolve all AROs. Invalid AROs are resolved as an Idle.
I don't believe it's disrespectful to disagree with IJW, I do not envy his position, and I believe he is doing the best he can by RAW. That said, when I run events, I need to do what is best for the players at my event. If the intention is to rewrite the way AROs work then I'm going to need something more concrete to point people to than an answer on the forum, which some people may or may not read every single thread it contained in it. Forum threads get buried and forgotten. The implications of this change are really quite significant in ITS missions involving dominating zones. It would almost certainly lead to some very unpleasant game experiences if people are not aware through an official FAQ on how the ARO rules have changed. This is similar in scope to the changes to LOS at the end of N3. Even though I agreed with the changes, I could not expect everyone to relearn the way LOS was handled until it was published somewhere official.
That's the thing, the ARO rules haven't changed. They're exactly the same as they have been throughout N4: you've just been playing them wrong. But yes - at this point making it ABUNDANTLY clear is probably necessary, if only so that we don't have to keep beating this drum.
