Is LoF open info?

I mean, you shouldn’t. You should commit, measure best as possible and live with the results. This remains one of the most confusing parts of the general debate to me as someone who is new to it: I don’t understand what the intended goal is. The stated goal is ease and speed, but I don’t really think its faster, except if the alternative is overly meticulously trying to get the perfect spot. Which, if LoF is not general and can only be confirmed after the order is spent and skill completed, becomes irrelevant.

I don’t want to presume malice or ill intent, it just seems very much like it is an unwillingness to accept that moves may not be as precise as desired, for one reason of another.

Ok, but... the models location is supposed to be where any checks are made. If you’re adjusting discrepancies, you’ve already err’d as the location should be where resolution takes place. This seems just a mixture of sloppy and ironically less precise.

And this is sort of why I feel off. Cus I know my intent is not malicious, and I don’t want to presume malice either, yet the accusation that somehow, playing the rules as written is going to lead to cheating and indeed that is the desired end is odd.

Even the whole ‘gotcha!’ thing seems odd. Like, the framing of examples in which you ‘gotcha’ by getting an ARO from a well placed model is... well thats why you have ARO pieces? A well placed ARO piece should be catching folks, and the opponent having to think around its placement to try and counter it seems not merely intended, but desirable. Its counterplay, the best kind of interaction.

Gotcha! is used as a pejorative, and it seems so weird to me.

 

But, I mean, you seem to want to act as if it is always or at least generally ambiguous, hence why intent matters over action. Because one must trump the other here.

Yes, active player has control of movement but the entire point of AROs is to counter and channel that movement, to restrict it. Thats the strategy, like in chess how you can set up a piece to restrict what an opponent can do safely.

I don’t see a claim of anyone wanting to force an argument, except, well, maybe you, as you presume an argument will occur and thus are seeking to remedy it via intent. But we have other tools to resolve this! We can do this with sportsmanship and still comply with the rules as written.

Honestly, I do hope CB answers this question clearly as it can basically resolve the whole debate, pain and complaints and so on that it might cause being good in the long run as we can then move onto how to play with sportsmanship in a solid environment.

 

But... thats your argument. Your argument is the intentions of the active player take primacy. The opposite side is not arguing they always have primacy, they’re arguing the models as they exist on the table have primacy and if there is either a disagreement over the LoF or an agreement that its ambiguous, then you use methods to resolve it.

You are elevating active player intent to a strange primacy.

 

No, I'm saying that if you want to claim that you can magically position your model perfectly so that he never takes more than one ARO, then you're not playing honestly. You want all of the benefits without actually having to put in any effort to get them and are relying on an obviously unintended rules loophole to from last version try and exploit out that advantage to your own benefit. The fact that they removed the text that caused the loophole and left EVERYTHING ELSE IDENTICAL should show that.

Place your model as best that you can, and after you've placed him, your opponent checks LoF for his AROs.

If you placed him well, congratulations, you only take 1 ARO. If you didn't you take multiples. The laser will show the LoF. There's no such thing as a measurement too finicky to determine LoS. If the laser can reach out and touch your silhouette, then the LoF exists. If the laser can't do that, then the LoF doesn't exist. Declarative statements of intent are not required. You just want to eat your cake and still have it too.

 

Bout to drive home, I’ll reply when I do. Gonna be a bit.

 

I'm not going to wade back into the overall debate, as the thread has devolved way past the point where it had any value. I'm just going to answer this question, since it's asked from the legitimate perspective of a newer player who would like to understand why all this matters.

The first reason we play by intent is so that Infinity is a game of strategy and tactics. Both players should have all the information available to them to make the best tactical decisions they can. Infinity has specific mechanics for surprise information (hidden deployment, marker states, holoecho). Aside from those, I want my opponent to know everything he's supposed to know so that he can play well. I want to win because I played better than him, not because I misled him.

What almost nobody wants is for Infinity to be a test of distance judgment or hand-eye coordination. I don't want to beat my opponent because I was better than him at wielding a laser pointer or placing an object with extreme precision. Technically, those are skills, and one could invent a game that tests those skills and awards the victory to the player with better object placement abilities. But they're boring skills, and most of us have no interest in testing them against each other. I cannot fathom why anyone would want to play a game decided by who can place a tiny object with sub-mm precision.

The second reason we play by intent is that Infinity is built around pie-slicing. Pie-slicing isn't a loophole, it's how the game is designed to work. The active player has the advantage of choosing their engagement by controlling their movement. The reactive player has other advantages. The way burst and rangebands work, the relative values of attack and ARO pieces, the points system, they all work in the context of pie-slicing. If active units were forced to fight three snipers at once, the game would break.

The third reason we play by intent is that it's unquestionably faster, easier, and more civil. Watch good players play, and you'll routinely see compromise and agreement to move the game along. This isn't 40k. The players work together to create an enjoyable and deep strategic experience.

See my earlier post in this thread for an example of how intent avoids what would otherwise be a bitter argument forced by the reactive player. These scenarios happen all the time in games. We just don't notice them because we play by intent, so the argument doesn't occur.

 

Looks pretty gone to me.

Again with the bad faith bullshit trying to create a false equivalence. Is it really too much to ask you to just play honestly, and if you make a mistake, own up to it? If you have to eat more than 1 ARO, IT IS NOT THE END OF THE WORLD. You still have more burst than your opponent does cuz it's the active turn, and unless you're picking a stupid fight where he's in his good range bands and you aren't, then the shooting should be roughly equal.

Then you better place your model carefully. Or just accept that sometimes you need to take more than one ARO to make a shot.

Like to illustrate how absurd this "I CAN ALWAYS PLACE EVERYTHING PERFECTLY" mentality is, I'd like to propose an experiment.

You'll need 2 friends, a phone, a doorway, something to serve as a gun analogue (nerf gun, broomstick, hammer, whatever), and a bit of tape.

Tape your phone to your gun-analogue so that the camera can see down the "barrel", and hold the "gun" to your shoulder or to in a Weaver stance.

Stand behind the doorway and have your friends stand 100' away, shoulder-to-shoulder, with their phones out and recording.

Your job is to peek the corner and "slice the pie" so that you and your "gun" can see only one of your friends, but the other one can't see you. The phones will show the truth of it.

You can't do it. I 100% guarantee it. Not least because the human body is sufficiently wide with the eyes at roughly centerline to make it an impossibility because your line of sight and positioning needs to be absolutely perfect, and it needs to be perfect on the first time. If you have to reposition yourself at all so only one can see you rather than both, then it's too late, you've already eaten an ARO.

Even if you assume that you have a smartlink for your gun and a tactical data net being broadcast into your vision like it's Mayanet, it's still going to be all-but impossible.

And what you're claiming is that your guys on the table can do that maneuver perfectly, do it perfectly every time, and never once let the second guy see him. It's patently absurd.

 

Which is why eyeballing angles is a skill. Get good at it without having to resort to the "i autowin without having to apply any skill or effort" method that Play by Intent entails.

Or, as I already mentioned, if the weight of fire from rounding the corner is THAT disadvantageous, then maybe you shouldn't be trying to brute force it. Apply tactics to change the engagement.


Line of fire is never ambiguous. The laser either touches the silhouette marker or it does not. If the laser can touch, the LoF is there. If the laser can't, then no ARO happens.

Then if you want to get the advantage of slicing the pie, you can't be hugging the wall.

 

i also think it's worth pointing out it's also an accessibility thing - I've played with someone who was disabled - poor eyesight and very shaky hands. To sit there and force this guy to play in a way that is 1. VERY unfun for him and 2. Gives me an overt advantage is fun for neither of us. it's far easier and ultimately more satisfying to just level the playing field and play in a way that is fair to us both.

 

I am definitely of the camp that communicating intent speeds up play and makes for a better experience, put clearly mileage varies on this. Intent for me as an active player is clearly communicating what I'm trying to do, placing the model as best I can to achieve this goal, getting buy-in from the other side of the table (including that whatever I'm trying to accomplish is possible), and moving to AROs, second skills, and resolution. If I forgot about the other guy behind a building, as in I didn't communicate my intent with that guy, that's on me and I take another ARO, no big deal. Intent benefits the active player, and of course goes both ways. I don't believe lasers are that cut and dry, at least not in games I have played, with multiple units on different terrain pieces on different levels. If it is really close, working intent to finalize placing makes the game so much cleaner. Even a laser line has a thickness. I don't have any interest in playing in a tournament arguing about whether there is LoF on every placement when this is easily worked through with intent. If I communicate intent, and get a "place it and we'll see" response from the other side, that probably the last game I'm going to play with that opponent. It just isn't the experience I'm looking for.

My real question is this RAW or not. As in, is this the intent in N4, which seems pretty far from N3. If it is, I'm not going to be that interested in playing N4. Can you lay down a laser line and move to a laser line, or not. That's my question. My argument is I can physically measure in movement now, so why not use various aids to get the position I want? Every single movement phase in Infinity the active player is trying to discern and create LoF, this is so obvious to be ridiculous. The question is whether or not they are successful in creating the LoF when the LoF is "checked" to meet in-game requirements. What tools can be used by the active player to discern and create LoF? Just eyes? Lasers?

 

I'm going to have to disagree, and ask for any point where I, or anyone else (at least in this thread) has implied the reactive player has any sort of special authority. On the contrary, the only special authority I seem to see is the idea the active player has some sort of special dispensation due to their intent of an action. And in any supposed edge case in which things were so imprecise as to be impossible, there are methods of resolution. One aspect may be the 'intent' you were going for, but I am hard pressed to think of a position in which LoF just cannot be ascertained in any way, to be honest.

Then you attempt to restore it back to the position it was in prior to being bumped, confering with the other player in an attempt to do so as best as possible. If there is a dispute, I'd say the player who did not bump the mini gets primacy, but that's just my thoughts on what would be most sportsmanlike.

The thing is, your statement about LoF implicitly being checked really exists only in the case of Berserk. It requires going to the absurd about the looking closely and all, because the point there is that until a move is made, LoF does not actually exist. You're not actually even checking LoF if you get down and look, arguably. I disagree with some other folks who have said maybe it does. The real point, though, is that until you actually commit to a move, you can't really check the actual LoF. You can guess, but until a mini is in place and a silhouette could be used, you don't actually know the real LoF. You have an approximation, a guess at what it may be. You don't know what it is, and, incidentally, neither does your opponent.

Really, in the question "Is LoF open information" I'd say "well, yes, in the sense that the moment it is checked it is, but LoF does not, in fact, actually exist as information until it is checked."

The only situation in the rules that could potentially cause issues is Berserk. RAW, yes, I'd argue it needs clarified, but I'd err on the side of "Berserk has a problem and doesn't work as intended, based on the ways rules are written" rather than "Berserk implies checking LoF at any time."

Yes, but they likely have overlapping fields of fire, which is a standard tactic in real life as well as games, not sure the entire relevance here.

It was more of a broader analogy to the tactics. Yes, Infinity has more depth, but the principles remain the same.

I have several issues with this framing though. It's not about giving 'benefit of the doubt,' per say, because the point is what the person does. There is another reply down below that gave an overview of the intent-player mindset I'm going to reply to but I shows up here too, I think, that the idea of actually moving miniatures is not seen as a valid aspect of the game. But it is, positioning matters, and I while I think I grasp why folks are focusing less on it and wanting, essentially, more abstraction, I don't see it as being valid in the rules and also don't like it either.

What you're calling a 'gotcha' and implying its bad sportsmanship is essentially... well, taking advantage of enemy mistakes. But why? This is not malicious in any innate way, it can happen to either sides. Moreover, involving lying about LoF, that's an entirely different matter. Lying is bad sportsmanship, but not sharing information that, per the game, you do not even have is not. If you ask me if a given model, moved to a location can be seen by other models, I am not cheating nor being 'unsportsmanlike' to say 'I don't know.' I can guess, I can even have a pretty good idea, but I don't know. If I was to say "no, I don't think so" or even "maybe" you move, and then we check, and I say "wait, yes I am" I think that's... well, it's not a good situation. I don't know how I'd rate it on sportsmanship, or lying, or the like. I'd just prefer to avoid it entirely by saying "I don't know," and would avoid asking the question for similar reasons.

If it wasn't placed to begin with, then it was not placed, though? This is sort of my point, and a big deal. Like, as it was pointed out, there are a lot of nested things involved in 'intent' play. Something like this is, in fact, entirely outside the scope of the other discussions on the nature of LoF, in a way. But I find the idea that "oh, I intended to do this, but did not place it properly, so I should get to place it properly now" simply... well, unthinkable in a way? It encourages people to be sloppy and imprecise. I think it does open a door for a kind of cheating but I think discussion of cheating is sort of pointless, cus I think if someone is going to cheat they'll cheat regardless, so that really is neither here nor there for me.

 

This is an extremely good post and I just wanted to quote it to say that.

 

Well, I was part way through replying and accidentally hit something and it ate this post, so if I come off a bit brusque its probably cus I'm rewriting this, heh.

I legitimately appreciate it, as it really does help understand the position, in a sort of concise way, and the fact its been liked by other folks helps sort of confirm that its a solid argument and explanation. However, I'll say that from what I've read, I'm not convinced.

There are two major things I see here. The first is one that, as far I can tell, exists specifically due to how things are worded in N4, and indeed tie into the question that started this thread? Is LoF open information? I'd argue, yes, it is. However, LoF only exists as information after being checked. I'll differ from some others in stating that getting down to look at models is checking LoF. I actually don't think it is, per se. I think its very key in that it is Line of Fire, and not Line of Sight. Line of Fire is checked when there is, well, fire. Or potential for fire. The information on if there is or is not does not exist until it is checked.

This is important, because if I am asked "If I move my Fusilier to X location, will your Zhanshi be able to see it?" the proper answer, strictly speaking is "I don't know." Now, there could be a situation where I think, or even at least rationally DO 'know' he will. IE: If the Fusilier walks out into the open, and there is literally nothing in between the two, then obviously yes I am going to have LoF. Per game rules, though, I'd say that LoF does not actually exist until after that model has activated and moved.

I agree, misleading is bad, and that's precisely why the answer should be 'I don't know' and, more broadly, why the question itself is bad. Even if couched as "Do you think if I move here..." causes issues. For one, its asking your opponent for advice. For two, if I give an opinion, and then am wrong, I'm in the tough spot of now, well, doing a 'Gotcha,' as some folks have described it. It also creates the incentive TO mislead, which I don't like at all. This is the second thing, and it also has another aspect: if I was to say yes or no, I am giving information that I don't really have and may or may not actually be true, and if we then operate as if it IS true, we now have an abstract game-state that very likely differs from the board, which skews the game in an increasingly compounded way the more and more we do it.

It is also, I think, simply not in compliance with the rules as they are written.

So, I'm going to have to disagree pretty strongly in parts of this. Namely, the ability to judge distances absolutely is a skill that is part of the game and should be part of the game. It's innate in the fact we have range bands for weapons, and when combined with moving, actually sits well with me as someone who has worked in fields where having to gauge distances for shots and movement are important. The use of landmarks to gauge distance are part of than, and so ironically it sits well with me from a sort of tactical abstraction sort of thing. More to the point, it flatly is part of the game because of what I pointed out, ranges of weapons.

Moreover, I think there is a bit of overstatement on the required dexterity to place miniatures and so on. And, even more so, I think this stems from a sort of other broken view of things, which I'll discuss below.

I'm going to open by saying that one thing I absolutely hate when it is discussed is pie-slicing. When I read the Infinity rules, pie-slicing was not an aspect I saw as somehow what it was 'built around,' at least not in the manner that it is being described and used. Slowly edging around a corner to get the just right peak shot on a single model when someone has set up overlapping fields is, well, technically viable and you even can do it, I just don't like it from an abstraction point of view.

Someone on /tg/ compared it to the infamous 'peasant railgun' from old DnD editions, and that struck a cord. For the unaware, handing an object to another person was a free action in 3.5e DnD, and so the idea was you get a long line of peasants and have them hand an arrow between each other down a line, after which it will have traveled a long distance in a few seconds, and so its velocity would be such that it would shoot off with massive force. This is, of course, nonsense, because it relied on exploiting a real world concept with an exploited game mechanic. Pie-slicing reminds me of this, cus its clearly mean to evoke the real world tactical idea of slicing the pie, and yet achieves an end utterly alien from its real world application, and is more about a very game-y advantage. That is, at least, the way I see it.

Now, it is theoretically possible to do, as I read it in N4, though very difficult as you cannot be sure you moved right until LoF is checked, and you are committed to a move when LoF is checked, as I see it. This, as I see it, is absolutely a good thing, precisely because I disagree entirely with your view that the game breaks if an active unit was forced to fight three snipers.

If a player is bringing three snipers, and using them all to cover a specific angle, they will have invested a not insignificant amount of their limited resources into doing this. Going off some very cheap snipers, lets go with Grunt Snipers in Ariadna. Even in a best case scenario that they set up this fire lane during deployment, they have spent a not insignificant 60 points and 1.5 SWC to do it, and if it wasn't just deployment they will have invested orders to get into position too. And even if they do, there are ways to deal with it: combat drop or parachutist models coming from behind, speculative fire with cover in between, using smoke to block off their LoF, etc. The game does not break if you are forced to deal with three reactive snipers, the game exists to see how you deal with that situation, and there are ample tools to do so.

And, incidentally, one of them could be attempting to precisely move as to expose only just enough to take a shot at one of them, you simply have to have the skill to pull it off.

Even if I accept this as true, and I simply don't have the experience to say if it is or not, what strikes me is that, well, this has absolutely nothing to do with if the rules technically allow it or not. I also don't think these theoretically benefits sway me to thinking intent should be the rules, even if as is the rules are not supportive of it. And, in my view, in N4, the rules do not support play by intent as a valid way to play, rules as written. Now, far be it from me to force anyone to play in one way or not, though I think there is validity to the argument that there should be an official standard in place for playing between metas, and in tournaments, but in terms of just casual play? It's a game, play the way you and your opponents think is fun, obviously.

I think, though, that players still can work together to create the same enjoyable and deep experience without play by intent, and the arguments for play by intent do not sway me to think its needed. More to the point, the arguments that it is valid per the rules also don't sway me. I may be completely wrong, and I really hope CB does give a conclusive answer. I think my view of LoF is correct, but, well, that's just my opinion.

I suppose really part of this is consequential arguments in almost anything don't sway me, particularly not when I'd say that there are other methods to avoid the fight that don't involve playing in a way contrary to the rules. And, in general, I don't think the 'benefits' of intent, some of which I disagree with, are worth it for avoiding some disputes, particularly when I feel there are other ways to do it.

That all being said, I appreciate the time to reply to me and give your view, and hope I don't come off too abrasive or the like here. That's not, I should say, my intent. :P

 

I mean, ok? But if they're doing this, I'm not understanding the idea of why one should be surprised that setting up to get overlapping fields of fire is not going to want to get use out of those fields of fire. They're setting up a wall to block your advance, and I don't really see any implicit reasonableness to the position that the active player should have some natural advantage to knocking down that wall, and I don't see the argument that they may be a bad sportsman about it as justification for it being wrong either. I don't think there needs to be a long argument, I think the dispute can be handled cleanly. You check, you discuss. If you agree, bully, on you go to resolve things. If you don't, resolve it by getting the TO or rolling off or flipping a coin.

I flatly don't agree this will make the game worse.