I don't know why FFG didn't think of this prior to Regionals???

Hard to say, but keep in mind that it's not like it's an easy change to make. The number of potential places things could slow down is large: design team, organized play people, marketing people, potentially even localization people, etc.

I think I like the "new" tie-breaker.

Also, there is, nor was, not such a thing as a "Modified Loss". There is/was only wins, modified win, loss, and draw.

That is somewhat pedantic. A loss where your opponent had a "modified win" was 0 points, and 3 points for SoS. A loss where your opponent received a "win" was 0 points and 5 points for SoS. So the two were not the same thing, regardless of terminology, and a "modified loss" not only existed but it penalized a player for having a close fought defeat.

The new system avoids this, and avoids other even more arbitrary penalties.

It doesn't make up for the loss, but it does mean that a losing a very close game doesn't create a disadvantage for you relative to someone who got tabled--meaning it fixes one of my many issues with SOS.

This does seem to be a much better way to do it. The better you do will be reflected in your standings a bit more accurately, even if you lose, it's possible you only lost by 12 points.

I was pretty shocked that this wasn't the way things worked(roughly) from the beginning. It has always felt like the natural way to do things to me.

Any scoring system is going to create pressure on the game. The question is what those pressures are.

Differential captures quality of win, and makes each round far more independent than SoS. It also handles drops just fine. And it doesn't punish you for winning - there's always a certain paradox with SoS that your victories hurt your tiebreak score. What KO was pointing out earlier was part of this.

There is no perfect tiebreaker, and differential does open the door a bit to being gamed, but it's still way better than SoS. At the very least, it puts your score entirely in your hands, which is much better than SoS.

It also curtails someone from destroying 12 points then flying around until time is called.

It also curtails someone from destroying 12 points then flying around until time is called.

My question is does this completely eliminate any other way of looking at the game aside from 'bring the most guns?'

As an aside, I'm not knocking the system, but it seems to shift things even more toward one pov.

My question is does this completely eliminate any other way of looking at the game aside from 'bring the most guns?'

It means your goal is to destroy as many enemy fighters as possible, while losing as few as possible of your own. There are still a lot of valid balance points on that continuum.

What you can't do any more is kill an Academy Pilot and then turtle up for the next hour, but removing that strategy seems like a benefit rather than a drawback.

My question is does this completely eliminate any other way of looking at the game aside from 'bring the most guns?'

As an aside, I'm not knocking the system, but it seems to shift things even more toward one pov.

I disagree. If anything, it's exactly the opposite.

While you can't just kill one ship and turtle, differential makes keeping your ships alive matter in a way they didn't before. Under SoS, a win by 12 points counted full even if you sacrificed 80% of your squadron to do it. Trading kills was perfectly valid so long as you could take the last piece off first.

Your survival counts now, too. Someone who trades 80 points for a full win won't count as much as someone who gets the same kills while only losing 25 points. It also matters for games that go to time even when you lose. Keeping ships on the board helps you even if you're facing a full loss, something that wasn't the case before. An A-wing or two is 15-30 points of hard-to-kill skirmisher that can translate into +30 points worth of differential by the end of the game.

So no, it's not just "bring the most guns". Again, it's really the exact opposite. It makes defense and survival count towards the tiebreaker in a way it didn't before, and it's going to shake things up a lot.

Don’t forget that fired munitions don’t count against the final score, either. So, technically, a 97 point squad would be more legitimate.

My question is does this completely eliminate any other way of looking at the game aside from 'bring the most guns?'

As an aside, I'm not knocking the system, but it seems to shift things even more toward one pov.

I disagree. If anything, it's exactly the opposite.

While you can't just kill one ship and turtle, differential makes keeping your ships alive matter in a way they didn't before. Under SoS, a win by 12 points counted full even if you sacrificed 80% of your squadron to do it. Trading kills was perfectly valid so long as you could take the last piece off first.

Your survival counts now, too. Someone who trades 80 points for a full win won't count as much as someone who gets the same kills while only losing 25 points. It also matters for games that go to time even when you lose. Keeping ships on the board helps you even if you're facing a full loss, something that wasn't the case before. An A-wing or two is 15-30 points of hard-to-kill skirmisher that can translate into +30 points worth of differential by the end of the game.

So no, it's not just "bring the most guns". Again, it's really the exact opposite. It makes defense and survival count towards the tiebreaker in a way it didn't before, and it's going to shake things up a lot.

Good analysis. I definitely didn't see it that way initially so thank you for the insight!

Love this change.

Also, the new tie-breaker system doesn't punish you for having an opponent drop. So that's a plus too.

My question is does this completely eliminate any other way of looking at the game aside from 'bring the most guns?'

As an aside, I'm not knocking the system, but it seems to shift things even more toward one pov.

I disagree. If anything, it's exactly the opposite.

While you can't just kill one ship and turtle, differential makes keeping your ships alive matter in a way they didn't before. Under SoS, a win by 12 points counted full even if you sacrificed 80% of your squadron to do it. Trading kills was perfectly valid so long as you could take the last piece off first.

Your survival counts now, too. Someone who trades 80 points for a full win won't count as much as someone who gets the same kills while only losing 25 points. It also matters for games that go to time even when you lose. Keeping ships on the board helps you even if you're facing a full loss, something that wasn't the case before. An A-wing or two is 15-30 points of hard-to-kill skirmisher that can translate into +30 points worth of differential by the end of the game.

So no, it's not just "bring the most guns". Again, it's really the exact opposite. It makes defense and survival count towards the tiebreaker in a way it didn't before, and it's going to shake things up a lot.

Don't get me wrong, I'm so glad that SOS has gone but I'm not sold on these changes.

This (very good) summery will probably be an indication of future changes people will be making to there lists, double yt's and 3 firespray list will be even more rampant. In fact everybody and there uncle will probably just have chewie/title/3po for end game survival.

Don't get me wrong, I'm so glad that SOS has gone but I'm not sold on these changes.

This (very good) summery will probably be an indication of future changes people will be making to there lists, double yt's and 3 firespray list will be even more rampant. In fact everybody and there uncle will probably just have chewie/title/3po for end game survival.

In other words, you're saying we'll see absolutely no change with the new scoring system?

And it may not play out that way. It may be good for endgame, but it's not so good for the rest of the game. Sure, being able to hold 50 points to time is great - but if the fewer ships you have, the more points you're going to lose with each ship. In a competitive game you're likely to lose SOMETHING even in a win, and your differential takes a massive hit when you do. It's also worth considering your options for pulling ships out to try and survive... That's very hard to do with only two ships.

There's a lot to be said for the ability to absorb fine-grained loss.

But even if it does turn out to push people towards an UberChewie, that doesn't really bother me. It was always a strong build. If it gets somewhat stronger because survival counts... well, I think survival SHOULD count, so it's somewhat natural that people should start considering survival more.

I say good riddance.

We had 13 drops at Chicago this past weekend (out of 70), and there was a good deal of grumbling regarding SoS as a result.

I personally feel that dropping should be an option that's available to a player without them feeling bad about hosing their opponent's tiebreaker. Mostly because everyone I've met playing X-wing has proven to be a **** fine person, and I'd hate to think their day gets ruined when someone drops.

I mean, there's any number of good reasons to drop. Exhaustion being a prime example. Long road trips to 12-14 hour tourneys are taxing. If you're out of the prize running, I think you should have the option to gracefully withdraw. That wasn't possible with SoS.

Not to mention that there's this little convention coming up (I suspect some of you may have heard of it), and it's a blast to attend. I'd hate to be stuck playing a losing battle all day on Thursday/Saturday when I could be enjoying the rest of the con with my friends guilt-free. And now, that option is open to everyone. Hooray!

My question is does this completely eliminate any other way of looking at the game aside from 'bring the most guns?'

It means your goal is to destroy as many enemy fighters as possible, while losing as few as possible of your own. There are still a lot of valid balance points on that continuum.What you can't do any more is kill an Academy Pilot and then turtle up for the next hour, but removing that strategy seems like a benefit rather than a drawback.

Sounds about right, and it's about time. Despite the fact that this might have worked against me at some points during the competitive season this year, margin is a much better litmus!

So my initial impression is that it is now okay to fly tanky, low-damage builds where it wasn't before (because your games would likely go to time). Now, keeping ships alive has the same value as killing an enemy.

That's great news!

If a player destroys all of his opponents’ ships, he receives

It looks like the rest of this sentence was omitted... I'm going with "he receives a kick in the pants"

and that's why I plan to no longer wear pants to Xwing events

I just viewed the tournament rules and seeing this bothers me:

...has no equivalent sentence for Escalation Tournaments.

I've seen people in Round 1 use 40-something point squadrons. Therefore, if you wipe them out you will not get the full MoV of 60 points for Round 1. Similarly for the other three rounds...

Margin of victory should be a tie breaker AFTER SOS! And here is why:

Bob, Jim, and Ron all have 10 points and are heading into the final round.

Bob gets paired with Jim.

Ron gets paired with a scrub player that has 5 points He got paired down because there are no more 10 point players.

Bob and Jim have a great game and Bob wins. Bob destroys all 100 points of Jim and Jim destroys 88 points, so Bob's MOV is a whopping 112.

Now Ron whips on the scrub player and totally destroys him, and the scrub player destroyed nothing. So Ron has 200 MOV.

According to the new rules Ron will beat Bob, which is total CRAP!

Just pray that you always get paired down to lesser players!

Now Ron whips on the scrub player and totally destroys him, and the scrub player destroyed nothing. So Ron has 200 MOV.

If someone can beat someone else that badly, that they wipe out the other guy without losing a single ship, they deserve the points.

Margin of victory should be a tie breaker AFTER SOS!

It was. And no one liked SoS.

Bob, Jim, and Ron all have 10 points and are heading into the final round.

Bob gets paired with Jim.

Ron gets paired with a scrub player that has 5 points He got paired down because there are no more 10 point players.

Is the assumption here that players with fewer points are scrubs? Because even good players lose games. It happens all the time. I got paired up twice in the Louisville Regional in 2013, and I went on to the championship round after the cut to Top 4. In this example, I am your "scrub". And I can say with confidence that I am no scrub.

Bob and Jim have a great game and Bob wins. Bob destroys all 100 points of Jim and Jim destroys 88 points, so Bob's MOV is a whopping 112.

Now Ron whips on the scrub player and totally destroys him, and the scrub player destroyed nothing. So Ron has 200 MOV.

Why is Bob and Jim's game so "great"? A close game isn't always great. And a game where someone gets whooped on isn't always a bad game. Calling the first game arbitrarily "great" is just a thinly veiled attempt to lend validity to it's outcome.

According to the new rules Ron will beat Bob, which is total CRAP!

Just pray that you always get paired down to lesser players!

Why? The most you will ever get paired down is 5 points. A 5 point difference does not mean a great player is getting paired against a scrub. It means they're getting paired against the closest player in points as is possible. If that player gets destroyed 100-0, then Ron deserves his 200 MoV, as much as if Bob had won his game 100-0.