Private information: Cost and SWC

I also locally "house ruled" that you couldn't stick engaging models to walls, that pogo shooting things in the back from the front was cheating, or declaring CC then moving was not ok, and other things that were later FAQ'd the fuck out of the game because they were fucking stupid ways to abuse the game. I'm pretty confident with making calls on house rules because I would say the majority of the time I've made a call on something locally while we waited for an official resolution on something controversial (regardless of whether it came or not) I got it right.

I'm ok with calling abusing the rules for a WAAC advantage as cheating. I find this very much along the same lines. This isn't a personal attack against you but if you feel that is is, maybe that niggling feeling inside you is trying to tell you something.

 

@Triumph
If you have a Portable Autocannon Tankhunter, what's Private is the particular model's cost and SWC. That becomes Open when he's Null. What's NOT Private, because it's not part of the game state, is the Tankhunter unit profile in the Rulebook or Army. I can't ask you "how many points and SWC is this Tankhunter over there?", but I can look in the book, notes, Army or memory to check what are the costs of particular Tankhunter weapon profile.



For some it will be obvious. But if you had an AP Rifle + ADHL + AP Mines Tankhunter in front of me, I don't know whether he's a regular dude, the LT or the CoC guy. He might be EITHER of them.

The knowledge WHICH ONE OF THEM he is, is Private. The knowledge that he could be EITHER of those is not part of your list, the game and can't be Private or Open. And that's what we're looking up.

It's not bloody cheating and you're defending the most artificial, gatekeepish "skill" advantage in this game. Come on.

 

The weapons chart prints on a separate page, so it would be easy enough to hand over the courtesy list without the chart if the chart contains Private Information (which, as you point out, it does in respect of camo weapons).

Anyway, if one accepts the "the rules don't say you can look up rules" argument, the same logic applies to any rules, not just profile point costs and weapon rangebands. It's turn one and you're deciding whether to try to occupy three zones in Supremacy. Does Supremacy score every round, or only on round three? Don't look it up, that would be cheating! Comlog is an unfair game aid. What, you didn't memorize the mission scoring before the start of the game? Guess you need more experience. Git gud!

 

The point being if we're doing stupid RAW arguments, you're only handing over part of your courtesy list, not all of it.

This is a stupid strawman argument and it was already covered in the last thread. Nobody said don't use army (or comlog), they said "don't use army to circumvent the spirit of the game to uncover private information."

If you try to play Infinity like people play Warmachine you are going to have a headache with the rules. Infinity is not cleanly written enough for the intent or spirit of the rules to play out mechanically without player interpretation. Trying to read it black and white, RAW or nothing, leads to pogo front butt shooting and/or a slow descent into madness going by @Hecaton whos (whoms?) posts lead me to believe CB's editing is causing him to spiral into madness.

As someone who is extremely involved with growing and maintaining a community, this isn't how it's explained at all. If you expect that new players are treated the same as experienced players then you have been exposed to people who are very poor at helping new players join a community. In my experience, new players are given advice, warned about things like Impersonators, Noctifiers etc, and generally treated differently until they're ready to handle everything on their own.

You don't roll up on a new player and fucking smash them off the table with some pitcher/guided missile bullshit while refusing to assist them at all unless you have a particular reason to chase them out of the game. Ironically that's exactly how Infinity died in my area in N2, because the guy who was trying to grow it was literally shit blasting every new player off the table with that, and in his mind he was helping them "adjust to tournament play".

 

@Triumph
So, please argument my previous example, since I really need to understand where you stand.
We are playing, I am a new player (which I am, by the way). You are playing JSA and I suppose by looking at what you have on the table that you could have some undeployed models. I cannot ask if JSA does have combat jump, nor I can look it up. It's either I know it by experience or suffer the consequences, am I right? Where experienced player who know this do have this advantage, like many more following on these lines.
So, the "uncertainty" you speak about is different among levels of knowledge of the army lists. Is this also "intended" by the game design?

And about "playing what is the intention of the designer" I have the opposite opinion. It's exactly pretending to know what that is and molding and interpreting around that which leads to confusion and unpleasant game experiences, since it's clearly subjective, as this discussion is clearly pointing out.
It's not up to you, as a player, to try to figure out designer's intentions and mold the game around that.

 

You are a legitimately new player, as I posted before, I would not expect the same play from you and nor would anyone else in my meta. Basically any question you'd have we'd answer it.

"As someone who is extremely involved with growing and maintaining a community, this isn't how it's explained at all. If you expect that new players are treated the same as experienced players then you have been exposed to people who are very poor at helping new players join a community. In my experience, new players are given advice, warned about things like Impersonators, Noctifiers etc, and generally treated differently until they're ready to handle everything on their own."

I spent over $1k running a learn to play escalation league last year. I spend alot of time and resources organising my local community, trust me, I am going to be the absolute last person to try and WAAC new players like you out of my meta (or let other players do that) as you represent an expensive investment in both time and money for me.

 

And where does one exactly stop being a "new player"? I've been a "new player" for years, because I wasn't too experience and didn't have that many games under my belt. I knew the rules, more or less (worse with Hacking and other stuff that somehow rarely showed up in my games), but I definitely never played against some factions or types of lists.

To this day, even despite having participated in many events and a lot of free play, I've never played against many of the armies.

When will I or when did I stop being a new player who deserves the fair play consideration you exemplify above and when does one become the one who asks a legitimate, if newbie question and whom you tell "no, you can't check if Ariadna has any Hidden Deployment"?

 

So, I get your intentions and I see what problem you are trying to avoid, but, in my opinion, the lines are too blurry to build on top of this.
Is a player who has been playing two years but neven played against, say, Tohaa a new player in that regard?
When are you supposed to help you in understanding what your army "can potentially do" and when is it's their responsibility to know it by memory?
I could go on and on, but I think the point is clear: you cannot draw a line. Or else, you can but your line will be, almost by definition, in a different place in respect to every one else's line. And no one has the right to claim they have a better interpretation of the "intention" of the rules.
This is not feasible, even if I can see the intentions are good.

What players need is a clear set of rules, where there are as few spaces as possible for personal interpretation. It will never be perfect, but that is the direction we, as players' community, should also aim. And let me state this as a game-designer as well, since one of the worst fears we have is that players must be forced to interpretations as a consequence of an inadequate set of rules :)

 

A minor thing has been bugging me about this conversation.

What unit is 14 points 0,5 SWC and LT?

 

Cho?

Edit: nope, she’s 15pts and no SWC.

 

See, you had to check in the Army! CHEATERS!

 

Honestly? Varies from player to player, personally I measure it by when they stop asking questions they're more or less comfortable with things. Some people don't ever stop being treated as a new player, I have players like that in my meta too. In casual games they're given the kiddie gloves, and when they show up for events they are smart enough to know the experience is going to be different from the get go, naturally people are going to have harder lists amongst other things.

A player who has been playing for two years is likely at the point, that even without knowing every army if perhaps one is perpetually unrepresented in their meta, that they are accustomed to dealing with surprises in Infinity.

For me specifically that is how Infinity was pitched to myself when I was introduced to it. Part of what makes it unique to other games was the concept that it was a game full of surprises, hidden soldiers, where no plan survives contact with the enemy. Subterfuge and mind games are common, and part of the game is adapting to surprises and dealing with them while springing your own ambushes on the opponent. That's how I and other people locally continue to introduce the concept of the game to new players.

For someone who is at the point that you describe, hell I still am to an extent, my first games against spiral corp were me making non stop suprised pikachu faces at all the changes I didn't know about for N4, the concept that I am wielding imperfect information and dealing with the surprises that come from that is normal. It's something I personally like about the game, I like the fact that I don't know everything, the game isn't solved.

I like the fact that on the weekend I got jumped by a Spektr on my last order for the turn. I had with great certainty the knowledge that there was a Spektr lurking on the table, I did not know the bastards also had a Foward Observer profile, and assumed it was some kind of hacker to steal a supplies box. This resulted in an uncontested FO roll on my Shang Ji which then immediately died to a guided missile on the start of my opponent's turn.

I like that in the game. The unexpected twists and turns are fun. Looking up the Spektr profiles to double check all the threats they could possess would rob the game of that fun for both players.

 

I can totally get the kind of sensation you are describing and its appeal. I learned myself about most weapons types by my models being hit and dying badly from each of those (so, what is this "missile launcher" supposed to do? :P).
But not all people like this game experience and those who don't should not be forced into it and be allowed to check the same public game resources they could check just one minute before the game started.
At the same time, I am sure the vast majority of people will just use this option when they really need to and not trying to build to the last point their opponent list every single time. But if they really want, they should be allowed, as long as the time the use is compatible with the general conduct of sportmanship events (this is where tournament judges can step into).

Also, I think what you are describing is not a player "who can check game information during the game itself", but just a noxious player who is quite unpleasant to play against and will try to use this rule in the worst possible way. Those do exist and there is no rule to change them :). 99% of the times, being able to check info will not translate into opponent list making in real time.

Then, if a whole community likes the imperfect information flavor of the game, they can definitely play it that way, and I am on board with that as well. Actually, in my first games I even didnt want to look at the opponent list either, but just asked a general description of it and the correspondent army style completely at my opponent discretion (like, "I have a big and tough fireteam and some spare rem. This army is known for having good infiltrators and to be good in close combat", something like that).

To make it short: it can be a very good house rule. It cannot be a game rule.

Btw, the 14pts 0.5 swc Liutenant is PanO Auxilia :) I would ask what did I win, but I cheated so I guess nothing :P

 

I have some bad news for you, Infinity is not consistently played the same way every where. I think the biggest divide would be those communities that play with intent versus those who play without intent. Chess clocks would be another one, apparently that is common in the German competitive scene, personally I've only seen it happen locally once where some people tested it out of pure curiosity.

My advice if you are traveling out of your meta is what the TO says goes. What may be considered cheating for them may not for you, and vice versa. If you don't like it? Just don't go next time.

I think on a general level if you travel the game will be different. Terrain for example has a huge impact on the game and styles may vary wildly between locations. I was at an event on the weekend, just two hours away from my area, and the tables were significantly different from the ones I am used to. I played on one table where there was a bunch of jungle terrain on the table which I am used to, but it was all in one player's DZ and it took up 80% of their deployment space. I have never played on a table set up like that before.

 

I know, and considering the kind of game and community, it does not surprise me that much. I just understood the intent thing by reading a six pages thread about smoke on roof edges just not too long ago (which, frankly, did not make any wiser but I am quite afraid of opening a new post about it :P).

Anyway, I am not against communities playing with local rules, many very interesting ideas can emerge, I am just saying it should be very clear which are the official game rules and which are those agreed on by that specific community, event or tournament. Then is up to the players that want to play there to accept them and join or not.
But there should be a set of official rules independent from any community forwarded by the game itself which is clear (as much as possible) to anyone.

 

For better or worse, CB are generally very reluctant to rule on these sorts of things (or often anything at all, see the unanswered questions thread). In N3 there was a particularly heated round on the intent debate, at the end of which CB promised to post a clarification around the situation. It's N4 and we're still waiting on that.

Maybe they'll make a decision on this but like intent I wouldn't hold my breath on it.

 

Well I mean that's exactly why they'll probably avoid answering it...