From a discussion over here ( http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/105551-new-attempt-at-figuring-out-the-point-system/page-2 ).

Background:

I've been trying to figure out the mythical FFG "formula" for how many squad points various stats/ships are worth. While I've made some progress using math, I think another approach may be similarly illuminating: using a bid system for squadbuilding. For those of you who are unfamiliar with bids in games, they're often used to address issues of imbalance between sides. (I've seen it most often in strategy/war games like Axis & Allies and Twilight Struggle, where players offer an amount of currency or some other resource to take the side perceived to be weaker. The side that offers the lower amount takes that side for that amount.)

My thought is this: what if we experimented with this as a community? I think we'd learn how the meta values various ships, pilots, and upgrades and, potentially, put FFG's squad point values under an experimental test.

Here's what I said in the other thread:

"...we could ... [try] some squadbuilding using a bid system instead of the printed squad points. I put Red Sq Pilot on the table and say I'll pay 18 of my 100 points for him; you say you'll pay 19. The highest bid sets the value for the ship in both players' squadbuilding phase. Continue with all ships/pilots/upgrades and see if Expose or the TIE Advanced really is 'worthless.' I know there's no way I'd let my opponent field Darth Vader at 0 points- maybe 27 but definitely not lower than 25. Now that I describe it, I really want to try it...."

What do you think? Would you bid Autoblaster at the printed 5 points? Lowball it at 2? Value it higher at 6? What about Arvel Crynyd- 23 points or 21? What about Omicron Group Pilot- is the potential of the Bone-hued Galactic Auroch worth more or less than the printed 19? Maybe Howlrunner is underpriced at 18?

It sounds interesting. But it runs into some strange places in the setup. And personal preference. For instance, non-unique pieces hit a really weird place, as do titles and rare upgrade types.

How so? Tell me more. My thought isn't necessarily that players are drafting from a pool of pieces, but more like bidding on components of the system.

Okay. I'm running B-Wings. We've paid the cost for them. My opponent wrangled up an Imperial Fleet, but has no Shuttles or Firesprays.

Thus he has no reason to bid on Heavy Laser Cannons or Avanced Sensors other than to deny me access to them. Which means if he wins them I still have points to use, but he doesn't.

Come to think about it, the Imperial and Rebel bits make things wonky too....

Okay. I'm running B-Wings. We've paid the cost for them. My opponent wrangled up an Imperial Fleet, but has no Shuttles or Firesprays.

Thus he has no reason to bid on Heavy Laser Cannons or Avanced Sensors other than to deny me access to them. Which means if he wins them I still have points to use, but he doesn't.

it would have to be done from a place of understanding or acceptance, not out of spite that you can use the upgrade and make you pay an exorbitant amount. you would let him know it should be actual value of the thing as opposed to relative value, or something along those lines

Okay. I'm running B-Wings. We've paid the cost for them. My opponent wrangled up an Imperial Fleet, but has no Shuttles or Firesprays.

Thus he has no reason to bid on Heavy Laser Cannons or Avanced Sensors other than to deny me access to them. Which means if he wins them I still have points to use, but he doesn't.

it would have to be done from a place of understanding or acceptance, not out of spite that you can use the upgrade and make you pay an exorbitant amount. you would let him know it should be actual value of the thing as opposed to relative value, or something along those lines

The highest bid sets the value for the ship in both players' squadbuilding phase.

I don't understand how this is supposed to work. If both of us have access to the ship at that price then how much we bid is irrelevant. Sure, you can have Vader for zero points because I also take Vader for zero points, and the end result is exactly the same balance-wise as if we each paid the normal price for Vader.

it would have to be done from a place of understanding or acceptance, not out of spite that you can use the upgrade and make you pay an exorbitant amount. you would let him know it should be actual value of the thing as opposed to relative value, or something along those lines

But that doesn't make any sense. This isn't a cooperative exercise in analyzing point costs, it's a competitive game where the goal of bidding is to get the best possible deal on your pieces and be better at evaluating their worth than your opponent. I don't want to figure out what the "fair" price is for that b-wing I want, I want to figure out what my opponent under-values and how I can exploit those ships to bring a more powerful list. So in that context I'm going to bid 100 points each on everything I don't want to use in my list, simply so that my opponent can't gain any advantage over me.

The only way to fix this is to require each player to buy all of the things they have the highest bid on, but that doesn't work in a game like X-Wing where the pool of available pieces to bid on vastly exceeds the number of things you can use in a single list. I might get a good deal on a 19-point rookie pilot, but then my opponent gets 1-point academy pilots because anything I bid on them will be wasted points.

Okay. I'm running B-Wings. We've paid the cost for them. My opponent wrangled up an Imperial Fleet, but has no Shuttles or Firesprays.

Thus he has no reason to bid on Heavy Laser Cannons or Avanced Sensors other than to deny me access to them. Which means if he wins them I still have points to use, but he doesn't.

it would have to be done from a place of understanding or acceptance, not out of spite that you can use the upgrade and make you pay an exorbitant amount. you would let him know it should be actual value of the thing as opposed to relative value, or something along those lines

Actually, I would think any bidding system should work in exactly the opposite manner to understanding and acceptance. You won't get the real "value" of something at open auction unless all parties are being as cutthroat as possible. A bid done "fairly" or with understanding will have flawed results. You won't find out if something is worth more or less, unless people are trying to game the system. Bids work because everyone is correctly assumed to be selfish and in it to get the best deals for themselves and force bad deals upon the other participants.

I think as pointed out above, bidding for this game may not work out as well as you'd think. Only because not all ships can use every upgrade. You could have a participant who wants to run AdvSen Bwings and will be willing to pay for those. But me may have no interest in Awings, and therefore Awings will be very few bids. In theory, a crafty player will switch strategies to the undervalued Awings and forego the Bwings, but at 100 points, I'm not sure there are really enough points in play to make a player switch strategies. In order to do it, I think you'd need to have a series of bids with predefined small groups of ships to be bid on (only tie and tie ints). You'd need to do it with a lot of different groupings to get a grasp on values. Even then those values are really only in comparison to what was offered in the pool of ships/upgrades.

Why are we so interested in how FFG points out ships/upgrades? It's interesting, but maybe there is no formula. Maybe there is a close guideline and they just adjust values after play testing. It's entirely possible that very little math is involved (though I doubt it). No matter how they do it, they do a **** good job of keeping things balanced.

Because studying game design is fun.

I wish a bidding system could be created, (And it can, depending how you work things. I think giving each player a pool of 300 bidding points per faction, and auctioning off the costs based on those bidding points followed by every player then building a 100 point team would be the best way. But that still has flaws...

I think an auction style draft could work, players nominate an upgrade/ship card for bidding and then give players a purse of like 150 for bidding and then they can use that 150 assemble a 100pt squad from there.

The fun happens when something like Adv Sensors comes up, you pay say 5pts for it because you want it, now you have to worry about bidding on getting a B-wing/shuttle to use it on or you wasted some of your allotment and opposing players can bid up those ships, or you choose to just deny the opponent's that particular card. I kinda want to discuss this idea with the local organizer and see what he thinks about this.

P.S. This would be in a "Pirate" style environemnt since otherwise things become real weird such as rebels bidding on howlrunner to deny an imperial player

The highest bid sets the value for the ship in both players' squadbuilding phase.

I don't understand how this is supposed to work. If both of us have access to the ship at that price then how much we bid is irrelevant. Sure, you can have Vader for zero points because I also take Vader for zero points, and the end result is exactly the same balance-wise as if we each paid the normal price for Vader.

it would have to be done from a place of understanding or acceptance, not out of spite that you can use the upgrade and make you pay an exorbitant amount. you would let him know it should be actual value of the thing as opposed to relative value, or something along those lines

But that doesn't make any sense. This isn't a cooperative exercise in analyzing point costs, it's a competitive game where the goal of bidding is to get the best possible deal on your pieces and be better at evaluating their worth than your opponent. I don't want to figure out what the "fair" price is for that b-wing I want, I want to figure out what my opponent under-values and how I can exploit those ships to bring a more powerful list. So in that context I'm going to bid 100 points each on everything I don't want to use in my list, simply so that my opponent can't gain any advantage over me.

The only way to fix this is to require each player to buy all of the things they have the highest bid on, but that doesn't work in a game like X-Wing where the pool of available pieces to bid on vastly exceeds the number of things you can use in a single list. I might get a good deal on a 19-point rookie pilot, but then my opponent gets 1-point academy pilots because anything I bid on them will be wasted points.

I misunderstood and combined this thread and the thread about 'fair value of points'

This system's broken quite simply because you bid 5,000 points for what you aren't using.

I like to think of bidding from the clans perspective in battletech -

"I can beat your imperial list with 95 points of rebels"
"Oh yeah? I can beat your imperial list with 90"
"I can do it with 88"
"um, alright then - bring it!" and bid down to see who plays their imperial list

The system I'm talking about seems to be confusing to many. "I'll just bid up what I don't want to use." Of course that doesn't work. And it doesn't work at a macro-metagame level in a two-person dining room environment. This has to be something that we work on together (or at least comment towards, wiki-style).

What's the purpose? To prove and verify the values of game elements (especially those that are thought to be overpriced, overrated, undervalued, etc.), and to help those who like to design their own stuff for this game we enjoy.

I like to think of bidding from the clans perspective in battletech -

"I can beat your imperial list with 95 points of rebels"
"Oh yeah? I can beat your imperial list with 90"
"I can do it with 88"
"um, alright then - bring it!" and bid down to see who plays their imperial list

This is similar to what I'm thinking. Could it work on a squad-by-squad basis, as described by Ravncat, assuming similar player skill and average dice rolls?

You and I (assuming we have similar game skill) sit down with our collections of X-Wing paper and plastic. We know what we like to build and fly, and we know what FFG has priced everything to, but we have suspicions that some values are inaccurate. So, because we're friends (we are friends, right?), we're going to fly casual and work together.

"How bad would it be if the Academy Pilot were really 11 points instead of twelve?" you ask.

"Let's find out," I reply.

9 Academy Pilots are assembled, the asteroids are placed, and I build a squad to test against. Let's say I win despite the numerical disadvantage. "Let's knock them down to 10, then," you say. I get slaughtered. Alright! We know that the Academy Pilot may be overcosted by not by much (this whole thing sets error bars rather than concrete numbers).

That's a simple example- of course, any list that uses multiples of the same ship will be much easier to test this way than a gaggle of unique pilots with upgrades and special ability text. But if the TIE Advanced is overpriced, then let me build a squad with Vader at 28 instead of 29 and see if I still lose. If I lose really badly, then drop him to 25 and see what happens. You've just given me 4 more points to play with- another Elite talent and 1 for initiative, or maybe add a missile to Vader, or just lop it off the squad points for the opponent. "If I play Vader at 25, then your squad can't exceed 96." It's not much, but it knocks off an ion cannon or FCS or something from the opponent.

It's not really for hardcore competitive tournament play (although it could be). Seat ten players in a game store and auction off the players' lists. Han Shoots First? Each of those elements is "auctioned" and a competitive value is set by the players in the room. Hate facing Han? Bid him up and prove that he's underpriced- see who uses him at 56 and who changes their list. "I'll bid up the stuff I don't want you to have!" Fine- I'll use something else, and the other players who want to use that will either do so at the higher price or bid up what you want to fly. With enough people, the values should stabilize. The valuable stuff should see their prices rise; the overlooked stuff can be discounted until someone says, "Yeah, I'd field 6 A-Wings at 16 each and throw in a concussion missile." I'd suggest a hard limit of 100 points for any single element ("I'll beat you with nothing but Wedge Antilles 'cause his ability is SOOO good!") and a minimum of 1 point for any ship (zero points for a ship means I can fly as many as I can both acquire and fit in my starting area on the board; some upgrades could have a negative cost, especially ones that take away abilities like the Chardaan Refit).

The entire auction has to be conducted non-exclusively (any player can use a given element- there's not just one Biggs for the whole room) and possibly in a Dutch-style auction (price starts high- say printed cost plus 10 for a ship- and decreases until someone is willing to pay it). Players are setting prices for the whole game, not just the squad elements they want but the squads their opponents want too. There are so many options in this game that I have trouble imagining a price consensus couldn't be reached for most things.

So... what all this cam be summed up as is :

Let's all sit around and talk about what each ship / upgrade should cost. Then try it out for a few games. Then sit around and chat some more, and repeat. Let's hope this stabilizes point costs.

Basically, you want to set up a feedback loop for the point costs .

In that case, I'd go one step further : Set up a self-regulating global market place , where the points costs for ships and upgrades fluctuates in real time, or once every X days/weeks/months.

Here's how it could work :

1. Setup a web site with a list of all cards and their current point costs. This is your "global market place".
2. Setup a web site where everyone can log the matches they play, including their detailed squad information. This is the data you use for adjusting point values.
3. Setup a feedback loop that adjusts cards' point costs in attempt to have all cards see "equal use".

You'd need to define what you want as "equal use", since cheaper cards will come up more often.

I don't think you even need to consider the result of the matches in your feedback loop; you can assume that the meta is also self-regulating, i.e.: a ship that loses won't be played, hence it is probably over costed.

You need to be careful not to oscillate too much, but that is a problem with any feedback loop. In other words: if a Rookie Pilot drops to 20 points, it might see a large increase in use, driving it's price back up to 21, where it'll see less use, dropping it's price to 20, where etc. etc.

That'd work. Have a spare website?

Workin' on it

I'll get back to you in a few months lol.