Good morning,

I'm a relatively new player to the X wing game, and since I do love the game and the general balance that FFG has managed to keep I've gotten into the deep end (Mistakes were made) and gotten onto the forums and started listening to podcasts.

Heck I've even read the Thrawn trilogy; (which I hope that eventually we see something from those books)

But there have been a couple of things that do slightly aggravate me in regards to the players, community, and game in general, so I wanted to make a rant style post to just get it out in the air.

Please consider my thoughts as coming from an outsider, and in this vein maybe it will put a different perspective on what I'm hearing, and what is being said.

Before I do list my issues I do want to state that as a whole I really like the game and the community, and that there are no "deal breaker" type problems I see.

1. The inevitable stalling for time complaint: I've already addressed this before as my first post to the board https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/129510-intentionally-stalling-a-game-for-time/?p=1393262 but I wanted to clarify this post. You will never get a definite answer to whether a person is stalling, and you need to call over a judge. If you are like me and a slow player via paralysis through analysis (which is why I was chosen to do that job) then I suggest that you start practicing preparing your moves ahead of time, timing yourself, and repetitively playing your squad so that you are faster on your dials. On my games that I play I try to be finished with all of my dials within 3 minutes. But I am also actively changing my dials while my opponent is moving so that I can have the dial ready (I just check it before placing it on the board). This is after all supposed to be a fast paced, reactionary dogfight style game.
2. X ship is broken: While many ships are not the best, and that FFG has tried to implement changes (via titles and modifications, which I think have gone well) I tend to think that many of the ships are fairly well balanced. They create these ships and are often always trying to give new mechanics (to keep the game fresh, ie M:TG). Also ships definitely favor a playstyle, and as the meta changes certain ships will become more or less useful. Not every ship needs to be totally equal. And I see many posts on how the _______ is horrible, or broken.
3. The wild speculation on what Wave X is bringing. This complaint is much more mild, but I do believe that waves are happening too fast, and although I like the timing of new waves just before regionals, that we will run out of ships. I do like some speculation, but if you look at the first page of this board it is nothing but that..... Calm down guys we will get to it eventually.
4. That flying casual seems to be going away. It was refreshing to hear the tales of people helping other players during a regional event. It was nice to see empathy from one player to another. I do understand competition, and I do feel that the letter of the law does need to stand for Worlds, Nationals, but to hear of a qualifier and the relaxed atmosphere tends to have been lessened. This is a shame. This one trait perhaps is what most drew me into the game, and in practice I see less and less of this.

And that is about it for me.

What grinds your gears? how is my perspective skewed or just plain wrong? I want to hear your thoughts.

4. The friendly atmosphere hasn't really gone away. Sure, there are a few jerks, but that is expected in a game this size. The issue is that "fly casual" has been hijacked by the militant casual, and is being used to shame others to allow sloppy play.

What grinds my gears?

Gias Balthar, traitor to humanity.

4. The friendly atmosphere hasn't really gone away. Sure, there are a few jerks, but that is expected in a game this size. The issue is that "fly casual" has been hijacked by the militant casual, and is being used to shame others to allow sloppy play.

In 100% agreement !

What grinds my gears?

Gias Balthar, traitor to humanity.

OT:

but, but but, Tricia Helfer in BSG costuming... how can you say no to that? She is even in your head.....

To respond:

Re: Militant Casual: I think that at a lower level getting players a break is nice. Where do you draw the line? Before this year there weren't any Store Championships so the first official tournament would have been a regionals (AFAIK) so giving them a break then would have been nice.

I draw the line at nationals... but having store championships does help do some of the teaching at a lower level.

1. The inevitable stalling for time complaint: I've already addressed this before as my first post to the board https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/129510-intentionally-stalling-a-game-for-time/?p=1393262 but I wanted to clarify this post. You will never get a definite answer to whether a person is stalling, and you need to call over a judge. If you are like me and a slow player via paralysis through analysis (which is why I was chosen to do that job) then I suggest that you start practicing preparing your moves ahead of time, timing yourself, and repetitively playing your squad so that you are faster on your dials. On my games that I play I try to be finished with all of my dials within 3 minutes. But I am also actively changing my dials while my opponent is moving so that I can have the dial ready (I just check it before placing it on the board). This is after all supposed to be a fast paced, reactionary dogfight style game.
2. X ship is broken: While many ships are not the best, and that FFG has tried to implement changes (via titles and modifications, which I think have gone well) I tend to think that many of the ships are fairly well balanced. They create these ships and are often always trying to give new mechanics (to keep the game fresh, ie M:TG). Also ships definitely favor a playstyle, and as the meta changes certain ships will become more or less useful. Not every ship needs to be totally equal. And I see many posts on how the _______ is horrible, or broken.
3. The wild speculation on what Wave X is bringing. This complaint is much more mild, but I do believe that waves are happening too fast, and although I like the timing of new waves just before regionals, that we will run out of ships. I do like some speculation, but if you look at the first page of this board it is nothing but that..... Calm down guys we will get to it eventually.
4. That flying casual seems to be going away. It was refreshing to hear the tales of people helping other players during a regional event. It was nice to see empathy from one player to another. I do understand competition, and I do feel that the letter of the law does need to stand for Worlds, Nationals, but to hear of a qualifier and the relaxed atmosphere tends to have been lessened. This is a shame. This one trait perhaps is what most drew me into the game, and in practice I see less and less of this.

I've seen slow play even in casual games. A guy agonizing over if he should barrel roll or not and where he might land if he does. Across the board though, X-Wing is better than other games I've played. I've played in 40k tournaments where there are constant calls for refs/organizers to come over and make a ruling. This is the classic 'slow-play' tactic, I've seen it many times when a player moves ahead in victory points/kill points, suddenly he wants rulings on everything.

This is fantastic advice. On some games I will have my dials down within moments, because I have them locked in already. Other times I will take a couple minutes to make sure I don't land on a rock, etc. Of course even if have your dials down in 10 seconds, there's nothing stopping your opponent from taking 5-10 minutes to place his.

X ship is broken: While many ships are not the best, and that FFG has tried to implement changes (via titles and modifications, which I think have gone well) I tend to think that many of the ships are fairly well balanced. They create these ships and are often always trying to give new mechanics (to keep the game fresh, ie M:TG). Also ships definitely favor a playstyle, and as the meta changes certain ships will become more or less useful. Not every ship needs to be totally equal. And I see many posts on how the _______ is horrible, or broken.

There are different levels of how balanced a ship is, with "broken" being on the extreme end. More commonly you have ships like the generic X-wing that are noticeably below the power curve, but you won't automatically lose if you take them (unlike say the generic TIE Advanced). FFG is batting around 50% on getting ships in that "sweet spot". That's close enough to make for a very enjoyable and fairly diverse game, but there is a lot of room for improvement.

Mathematical analysis is one way to accurately predict ship balance and point costs, but FFG has yet to use such an approach, at least through wave 6.

I've seen slow play even in casual games.

Slow play isn't playing slowly, slow play is deliberately stalling for time to run down the round clock.

but I do believe that waves are happening too fast,

I won't derail your thread by dragging up my analysis on the basis for this but it looks like the model is meant to be two waves per year and that's what it's currenty running on. It stands to reason that the we had such a rush in Summer 2014 because Wave 4 was delayed: what people forget is that there was no wave in January 2014.

What grinds my gears?

Gias Balthar, traitor to humanity.

OT:

but, but but, Tricia Helfer in BSG costuming... how can you say no to that? She is even in your head.....

To respond:

Re: Militant Casual: I think that at a lower level getting players a break is nice. Where do you draw the line? Before this year there weren't any Store Championships so the first official tournament would have been a regionals (AFAIK) so giving them a break then would have been nice.

I draw the line at nationals... but having store championships does help do some of the teaching at a lower level.

We had Store Championships in 2014 as well. In 2013, all Store Championships were Regionals.

5. Having to use official FFG game mats for tournaments, really? that's ridiculous!

6. Something else that burns my butt, a 3 foot flame!

5. Having to use official FFG game mats for tournaments, really? that's ridiculous!

Slight clarification, the TO can provide whatever mats he/she wants. If a player wants to bring their own mat to play on, they can only bring an FFG mat to play on.

5. Having to use official FFG game mats for tournaments, really? that's ridiculous!

I doubt this will be actually followed.

I mean, FFG mats are great and should always be used all the time, forever!

Yeah the elitist thing is just very funny to me.

I am here for badass STAR WARS content, not a snarky lecture on how stupid people like us are for not being in their meta yarbeling know it all faction.

Say... screw you buddie, i paid for these glorious toys! I also stopped measuring my masculinity about twenty years ago.

Games are supposed to be FUN... and here at Boss Central, they are.

There are still some cool people here, and I am way over the lame people, so it is good.

Sounds like the real issue around slow-play is the time constraint. I'd like to see it go away completely. But without that, maybe we should give both players a loss if they can't determine a winner in that time. Of course then we would get complaints of 'fast-play' rushing.

Mathematical analysis is one way to accurately predict ship balance and point costs, but FFG has yet to use such an approach, at least through wave 6.

Have they actually said that somewhere? They might be doing it, but their assumptions are bad or different than your own.

Either way, they should give you a job.

4. The friendly atmosphere hasn't really gone away. Sure, there are a few jerks, but that is expected in a game this size. The issue is that "fly casual" has been hijacked by the militant casual, and is being used to shame others to allow sloppy play.

Yeah but we love you anyway sith.

I'm having trouble multi quoting so I'll paraphrase:

Bob (MathJuggler)

I understand your analysis (it is great btw, and keep it up on NOVA) but part of the analysis compares the dial, and that is much harder to mathematically evaluate. I agree that getting the models into a sweet spot is good, but not over that. and that is the trick.

As far as the opponent stalling, call a judge. If I as a judge saw that one person had put all their dials down and the other person hadn't yet I'd be inclined to hurry the player up. Or even sit at the table.

Sithborg:

I was unaware of the store championship in 2013. However I still feel that at the competitive level that flying casual should at least be present. The more (Quantity) of relaxed tournaments we have the less that flying casual should be in the competitive environment.

Vyrago, et al:

A player or group of players may temporarily donate their mats so that the TO has access to playmats, even if they aren't FFG mats. the only thing is that the player donating his mat is not allowed to play on his own mat since he may have figured out reference points.

Mathematical analysis is one way to accurately predict ship balance and point costs, but FFG has yet to use such an approach, at least through wave 6.

Have they actually said that somewhere? They might be doing it, but their assumptions are bad or different than your own.

No, they are obviously going to be very tight-lipped on what their process is. The only hints that they gave were I believe at a GenCon interview last year when Alex said that they stopped using the old formula they had in waves 1-3, for wave 4 and after.

I doubt they could afford me. Game designer salaries are not known for being a lucrative career path, unless you also happen to be the CEO/company owner. Game designer job qualifications do not historically include the skillsets needed to properly perform such an analysis let alone derive what the analysis should be in the first place. A candidate with those skills would almost certainly command a salary of at least 3x the typical game designer salary and would be priced out of the job, barring a radical philosophical shift from upper level management.

I did look into playtesting at the request of several current playtesters. However FFG's NDA is overly broad and could potentially give them permanent and exclusive ownership of any MathWing IP that I have developed or posted, so I had to decline.

My advice is get off the forums and play the game.

The forums get people worked up about things that are rarely as frequent as a vocal minority presents them.

Playing the game against the fantastic community this game has will convince you of my previous statement.

Mathematical analysis is one way to accurately predict ship balance and point costs, but FFG has yet to use such an approach, at least through wave 6.

Have they actually said that somewhere? They might be doing it, but their assumptions are bad or different than your own.

No, they are obviously going to be very tight-lipped on what their process is. The only hints that they gave were I believe at a GenCon interview last year when Alex said that they stopped using the old formula they had in waves 1-3, for wave 4 and after.

They have yet to release a wave with all of the generics being reasonably costed, so by logical deduction they haven't been using an accurate mathematical analysis. I only released MathWing 1.0 to the public in early 2014, so wave 7 is probably the first wave that they could have theoretically used the approach.

Either way, they should give you a job.

I doubt they could afford me. Game designer salaries are not known for being a lucrative career path, unless you also happen to be the CEO/company owner. Game designer job qualifications do not historically include the skillsets needed to properly perform such an analysis let alone derive what the analysis should be in the first place. A candidate with those skills would almost certainly command a salary of at least 3x the typical game designer salary and would be priced out of the job, barring a radical philosophical shift from upper level management.

I did look into playtesting at the request of several current playtesters. However FFG's NDA is overly broad and could potentially give them permanent and exclusive ownership of any MathWing IP that I have developed or posted, so I had to decline.

Also they could be skewing the system so that you don't play generics. that a named pilot has a inherent discount in it.

My advice is get off the forums and play the game.

The forums get people worked up about things that are rarely as frequent as a vocal minority presents them.

Playing the game against the fantastic community this game has will convince you of my previous statement.

unfortunately at the game store that offers x wing there is a strong counter culture and is a bit more of a closed off group than the warm, embracing new players group is. I don't put this as a slight of the subsection that this forum or group those players into "all players" but if I only followed your advice I'd be given a worse outlook rather than a positive one.

as an aside it is hard for me to get out.. due to family, etc...

Have you see the redundant threads on new damage decks, version 2 core set, prequel ships, and ordnance fixes, every new ship/upgrade is overpowered/breaks the game, and "OMG, did the boat sink--when will the new wave arrive"?

Bob (MathJuggler)

I understand your analysis (it is great btw, and keep it up on NOVA) but part of the analysis compares the dial, and that is much harder to mathematically evaluate. I agree that getting the models into a sweet spot is good, but not over that. and that is the trick.

Yeah, quantifying the dial is the real trick. The many discussions about the TIE Defender before it was released (and after) are a good example. But it can be done. That goes well beyond merely being able to calculate some probability functions though. Everything relates back to the relative firing duty cycle between opposing ships. I have some more secret sauce in MathWing 3.0 that does a better job here, that I probably won't make public.

Also they could be skewing the system so that you don't play generics. that a named pilot has a inherent discount in it.

I obviously can't put words in the developers mouths, but I don't think they ever intended generics to be under powered.

My advice is get off the forums and play the game.

The forums get people worked up about things that are rarely as frequent as a vocal minority presents them.

Playing the game against the fantastic community this game has will convince you of my previous statement.

unfortunately at the game store that offers x wing there is a strong counter culture and is a bit more of a closed off group than the warm, embracing new players group is. I don't put this as a slight of the subsection that this forum or group those players into "all players" but if I only followed your advice I'd be given a worse outlook rather than a positive one.

as an aside it is hard for me to get out.. due to family, etc...

Then give Vassal a shot. The community there is amazing, fun, and helpful.

Unfortunately nerds are shy creatures fearful of outsiders it takes patience to infiltrate the pod and be accepted.

You may have more luck with geeks.