Well then don't make statements about the opinion of competitive players that fly in the face of facts. You want to stay neutral, stay neutral.
What makes you think your facts are the only facts, essentially a poster said X is competitive and does not like PBI and the next response was more or less "no you are wrong PBI is the way competitive players play" worded better. And it is evident by the confused reply. I am sorry I understand many pro PBI cannot fathom the game been played in any other way, but it is getting way out of hand. I think I remain neutral in explaining that competitive players can enjoy both play styles.
that is not waht I was trying to say, I was clarrifying that for the most part the competitive players seem to be strongly behind intent, not that you cant be competitive and PAIL. In essence I challenged the general assumption that PAIL players were more competitive than PBI, that isnt going to obviously change the specifics
I think both play styles are fine for all game play levels. In what they differ is the preferred input and control level of information, not how casual or competitive they can be or how skillful they can be played. They give emphasis on different skill sets and control preferences, both are fine and I know them both well.
I think this is an example where the topics of cooperation and intent get mixed. If dumb mistakes are part of the game, it rewards non-cooperation. I don't want to win an Infinity game because "you didn't ask" and I don't want to be competing against other players in a tournament who are practicing their poker face during their reactive turn at their tables in the hopes that no one asks them certain questions. One could also argue that you are obliged in the rulebook to provide the information, not wait for it to be asked, but not everyone reads it like that.
I can say that if i dont ask i will personally wear the ramifications. But thats thw stabdard i hold myself too for not being as clear as i could have been in my declaration.
Here is a question for the group. Is there a player that had placed top 3 in a 50+ tournament anywhere in the world that plays it as it lies? I'd like to know, I mean I've never seen it at tournament play myself. And from my understanding at Inter they also play Intent so can any one come forward and say they have won or places a big tourney playing gotcha?
So, seeing as this seems to be the current place to discuss the rules LoF: Game Aids Miniature poses and irregular scenery can make LoF hard to determine. In those cases, it is up to the players to reach an agreement. Trying to look at the target from the miniature's point of view can be useful, as can holding a tape measure straight between the troops to see whether anything obstructs the LoF. I believe that at least solves the "Are lasers pre-measuring" debate
And there in lies the rub. Honestly before all this I had never considered that intent wasn't allowed, but I had also never considered that anyone would declare an intent that lasted past the order it was declared in either. Everyone is a bit different, everyone will have a different idea of how far intent can be played,and will almost certainly be able to point out that on page x line y the rulebook says "what he said" to prove their position is valid. Or if you're a muppet you do a bunch of math because you didn't see a prone marker.. I'm trying to separate out the different ways that intent *could*be used and the ways that I think it should be used. I have no problem with "I want to do that again" which I think is pretty close to universally accepted, since the previous order has been accepted as possible then there is no need to repeat the verification process, whatever that may be. I use "this idiot is facing the wall but his gun/sword/tail won't let him" all the time but I've always I have no objection to "I move out until I have a target on this model and I go back" which is very widely played, but I can see how it might be seen as giving too much agency/control/advantage to the active player. I have some reservations about "I move so I have line of fire to this point during the next turn" because it means that the model isn't in it's actual position which means that it could potentially be physically in a place where it can be seen from a point that would not be possible were it in the correct place or possibly not be see from another point along the same line as the point where it intended line of fire... It still doesn't actually specify the intention is to allow it at any time, to any point. Allowing the laser / tape /stick to be used at any time means that a lot of the points of contention over intent are essentially solved because even with play as it lays the results are the same in nearly every case, so if it is allowed then at least we don't need to continue this for another 50 pages...
We've always known some people will choose to wholesale ignore rules, we cant do anything about those people. Thankfully most people here are not like that not in its entirety no, but its further indication especially when combined with the etiquette blurb, and is at least part of the argument put to bed. LoF: Game Aids Miniature poses and irregular scenery can make LoF hard to determine. In those cases, it is up to the players to reach an agreement. Trying to look at the target from the miniature's point of view can be useful, as can holding a tape measure straight between the troops to see whether anything obstructs the LoF. Gaming Etiquette Checking all possible Lines of Fire for all figures and Markers on the table can be cumbersome. It is perfectly acceptable for a player to ask their opponent whether existing Lines of Fire could disrupt the declaration of a given Order before declaring it. Players are expected to share this Open Information in a truthful and sportsmanlike manner. Honesty and fair play are conducive to a better gaming atmosphere, and all players benefit from that.
@daboarder Then the question is on how a line of fire is defined, how an existing line of fire is defined, what disrupt constitutes... The answers that would support restricting line of fire to be between two models/markers are more complex, but Occam's razor isn't the be all and end all in this case, and until it's clarified by an FAQ, possibly even after we'll still have questions...
A good friend of mine, several times in Poland. (Vertor) I placed 7th(? ) at the first Interplanetario. But we weren't playing what you call gotcha. Find a different name for it and we can continue the discussion, if you wish.
I am honestly very interested what PAIL even looks like when you are playing full competitive mode and trying to peak with a tight angle.
This isn't as straightforward a post as it might seem, because an obvious way of leveling the playing field for people with visual disabilities would be to allow pre-measuring* and that could be done by arguing for 'play by intent' and bringing pre-measuring along for the ride... There was a long-running thread on the old forums about whether Infinity should allow pre-measuring, pointing out that most other tabletop games do allow pre-measuring distances, and that - quite correctly, Infinity is discriminatory in regard to visual disabilities. So if that mattered to you personally or in principal, it you could easily take the core aims of 'play by intent' and either explicitly or implicitly extend them to include pre-measurement. 'Play by intent' reduces to an agreement to obtain notional positions for tactical outcomes (that arae legal and theoretically possible) without having to also judge the actual positions by eye - it's positioning by agreement. So if you already have this more abstract game that prefers tactical intentions over visual judgement, it's really not hard to extend your 'positioning by agreement' to assist people with visual disabilities and allow measurement of any objects on the battlefield too. If the arguments for 'play by intent' are that it's a better, fairer, faster, and more sportsmanlike game there really isn't much difference between asking "If I move here, can your unit shoot me?" and "If I move here, can your model Engage me?" They're pretty similar questions if you want to position models by agreement, and so people who want pre-measuring for whatever reasons could reasonably include pre-measurement on the 'play by intent' ticket. I can certainly see the logic of that, but I note that advocates of 'play by intent' including @Plebian, @Todd and @deep-green-x have already distanced themselves from pre-measurement somewhat, so perhaps they can explain if 'play by intent' as they're trying to define it also includes any form of pre-measurement; and if not, why not - it doesn't seem such a big step to me. * @Todd has previously pointed out that 'pre-measuring' isn't explicitly mentioned in the rulebook, so let me clarify that I'm using the phrase to mean measuring the distance between any objects on the tabletop before Step 7 in the Order Expenditure Sequence, except as described in Step 3
False equivalence, although not with malicious intent. The question we actually ask is "Does anyone have LOF here?", which is quite different from asking "would anyone within range of your ability if I placed a model here?" There's quite a difference as one question asks for something that can only be verified qualitatively (by looking) and the other is asking for something that can only be verified quantitatively (by measuring in exact numbers).
With respect, this is not the way we understand 'play by intent' at this point in the debate. We rather understand it to ask "would anyone have LoF to a particular (legal and theoretically possible) location if I were to move there?" - the conditional tense being an important distinction.
The thing is that nothing expressly states that a potential line of fire is open information and whatever way you cut it, line of fire needs a few FAQ/erratas. The word used is "existing" which most people would interpret as whatever the model can draw a line of fire to from the its current position. Everyone is basically in agreement up till here. Then someone points out that line of fire is defined as between "a troop and it's target". The table could be considered the target, except for the fact that the line of fire makes an attempt to clarify 'target' as "another model, a marker, etc" and doesn't mention the table. It's reasonable that 'etc' covers the table but it's also as likely to mean whatever else is allowed as a target in other rules such as interactive terrain or the blast template for a targetless weapon. Answering the question one way is simple and neat, but that doesn't mean that it's correct. The other way is a bit more complicated, and raises a couple of other questions, but that doesn't mean it's wrong... Basically we need to ask more than one question to make sure we get to the full answer, rather than assuming that because one answer can resolve the issue it's the correct one.
