SLOTerp wrote:Should the default lane preference (ending position) be the slipstream instead of the inside lane? The issue came up in Turn 22 when Brad plotted lane 3 with a purported strategy of not giving the slip opportunity to Chris if Chris failed to specify such a preference (which is exactly what happened).* I will let Chris make his case for a rules change as he does it more elegantly than I.
For those of you that don't know, Brad specified in his plot that he would like to go to the outside lane. As for me, I did NOT specify that I want to line up behind Brad, so I got the inside lane and now I won't be getting a possible slip next turn.
Okay, so just from the start let me be clear that I'm not upset that Brad's move negatively impacted me. It was a very small impact, and my line is largely unaffected. And Brad didn't do anything wrong. He made a perfectly legal move within the bounds of the forum's rules. What I don't like is the meta nature of this particular move, which I would like to discuss.
It essentially boils down to the fact that it would never happen in real-life play. The person behind you is going to see where you are going and follow you, so it makes no sense to take an outer lane because it doesn't give you any benefit. Because of that, the *only* reason to do that in this forum race would be in the hopes that your fellow racer wasn't specific enough in their plot, and you hope to gain advantage from that.
A player isn't playing the game at that point, but rather they are playing the meta-game of the administrative system Mike uses to resolve our plots. The idea that you can make any sort of move of that nature, or use the administrative system against another player feels wrong to me. The system is put in place to help Mike facilitate moves, not to add another potential layer of strategy.
Anyway, that's my feeling on the issue. Again I just want to stress that no one did anything wrong, and I'm not trying to attack Brad or his move. I just dislike the meta layer that's been added to the game, and would like to see a change. If we decide to leave things as is, that's fine too, but I wanted to at least voice my concerns. Maybe it's just my background in the live game, but I just don't like it.