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"?

While we're at it, when WILL the new wave arrive?

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"?

yeah that bugs me too.

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"?

While we're at it, when WILL the new wave arrive?

OMG?.... must have new plastic crack!!!!!!

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.

oh I have my nerd card already. It got the official stamp from E. Gary.

To be fair OP the entire meta was based around dealing with the super phantom and it got quite irritating trying to play a list that wasn't designed specifically to counter it and straight up autolosing.

My strategy with a swarm against Phantom Deci was to ignore the phantom and to blow away the decimator ASAP and hope that I'd have enough points left worth of swarm ships and that my opponent wouldn't have enough time to kill enough to win on MOV. I had no hope against the phantom as it could just solo against the 5-6 z's that were left over after the Decimator was killed should the match be untimed.

The wave 5 meta had no nuance to any of the lists or tactics employed in the games. You were pretty much restricted to a handful of rock paper scissors meta lists to avoid auto losing. I showed up to a Store Championship late once and the top 4 players' lists were 2 2400 & 1300 lists, and 2 Corran Falcon lists. Turret vs. Turret fights are just dice offs, it's stupid.

I think the bulk of x wing groups are pretty healthy. Quite a bit of whining on the forums, but those people come along with popularity in any game.

OMG?.... must have new plastic crack!!!!!!

Seriously I've, like, got the shakes here dude.

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.

You really need to be more clear on what you are talking about. "Fly Casual" has been usurped and corrupted by the militant casual. It's banner has been used to shame players for enforcing the rules, which is so far from the original intent of "Fly Casual", it is absurd.

Yes, a friendly environment should be present. And, for the most part, it is. Just look at last year's Gencon championship. The level of assholes you find in this game is remarkably small, considering the size of the game.

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.

Note: obviously "almost any price" is a bit of hyperbole, since being paid to do it comes with timelines, and the less freedom to just not do it when you don't feel like it.

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.

Fair enough. I was about to point out that, from an economic standpoint, almost any price they'd name should be sufficient since you currently do it for free and just with a delay until after ships are released, but the NDA stuff nixes that.

Note: obviously "almost any price" is a bit of hyperbole, since being paid to do it comes with timelines, and the less freedom to just not do it when you don't feel like it.

You get what you pay for.

The level of expertise and effort required to MathWing ships and upgrade cards that are in flux during the development cycle is significantly more than looking at just jousting values for stat lines after the ships have been released. I told them that to do a more comprehensive approach during playtesting I would require a consulting agreement to make it worth my time, but I seriously doubt they ever would have taken me up on that. It was a moot point with the NDA issue anyway.

// off-topic

1- I think the time stall is a tricky issue. I think the line is between someone who is playing the game and someone who is doing something else with his time. If you are really spending some time on your dials or picking actions, that is fine. But I had an opponent who walked out of the game store to take a call. I have to say I was pretty mad at him. Not so much because I thought he was cheating (Yes, he was breaking the rules) but because I scheduled an evening to play, I even payed some money. I'm married with a full time job and two kids, I don't get to play nearly as much as I would like. Having the guy just walk out and take a call was way over the line. But I will say that player (he did a few time, actually every time I ever played him at different events) is the only player I have ever had a problem with.

2- My response to broken ship complaints is two fold. #1 We do these forums for fun. We need something to talk about. One ship or another being way too good or way to bad is just something that comes up when people talk about the game. Part of what is fun is reading about what ships people other than me think are good (or bad) it helps me look at things in new ways and I think it can improve your play. But I think all this conversation about broken ships is actually a sign that this is a great and balanced game. This may seem odd to say that discussion of how broken a ship is, is evidence that the game is actually pretty well balanced, but it is. It is the fact that the game is so balanced that people expect the ships to be balanced, they expect them not to be broken, so when a ship isn't balanced it seems to stick out. If you go onto ST:AW forums you won't find people complaining about ships that just aren't worth their points (at least not specific ships). The whole game is terribly balanced. People don't complain that Voyager was broken (too powerful), instead they complained that because of Voyager that the whole game was broken. I have played several table top mini games and I have never player ANY that felt as over-all balanced as X-wing does. But no game is perfect and those imperfections just show all the more.

3- My response to ship speculation is much the same as my first response to balance issues. We like to talk on the forums and we have to have something to talk about. But I will go further to say that mini games are in some part about wish fulfillment and playing out things with think are cool. For X-wing fans that thing that is cool is Star Wars fighter combat. But different people have their favorites, and for some people those favorites come from the EU. For example I had never heard of the Hounds Tooth before I read about it on these forums, and now that I see that they are making the ship I think it looks really really ugly. But that doesn't mean that someone one else just loves. Maybe they really like Bosk(is that the bounty hunter who flies it, I don't know) or maybe they read a book where it was cool and they really like the idea of playing with it. Or you may not even know much about a ship ahead of time and still think it is cool. Hadn't really head much about the TIE Aggressor, but I love TIE Bombers and it looks like a super bomber, so to me... cool. Everyone thinks different things are cool, and we are going to want the ships we think are cool.

4- I am sorry to hear you think fly causal is going away. I have to say that the X-wing group in my area are some of the funnest gamers to hang out with of any game I have been involved in. I think that expecting someone to know and play by the rules in a competitive environment does not mean that you are not flying casual.

5- Mathwing (this wasn't in the OP but it has come up since). I just have to say that MajorJuggler's Kung Fu is strong indeed. He has done some really really great mathematical modeling for x-wing. The primary purpose of these models (as I understand it) is to have some objective standard of comparison between the different ships. Some mathematical models are good some aren't as good. I am pretty sure that FFG has some model though it isn't the same one Juggler uses. If I had to guess I would imagine that Juggler's is more in depth than theirs. But FFG is secret. But something are really hard to compare objectively, even harder numerically. Many of these things aren't included in MajorJuggler's models. (Please correct me if I am wrong) I don't think he includes dial or action bar in his calculated point values for his ships. I would guess that FFG does. But these are hard things to calculate, how many points is a white k-turn worth, what about a barrel-roll action? The fact that the model includes them or doesn't include these things doesn't make them good or bad, it is really just a choice.

I personally am glad that MajorJuggler (and others) have already done this work for me, all it does is give me information that I wouldn't already have. It can't really answer qualitative value questions, like what ships should I take in a list, but it can answer some very useful quantitative questions like, point for point how can expect two ships to face off against each other in a joust.

The inclusion of randomness in the game does add another layer of complexity, but forces you to talk about expected outcomes rather than being able to make deterministic predictions. But that isn't a problem as long as you understand expected values.

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.

Perfectly summed up what grinds my gear.

Many of these things aren't included in MajorJuggler's models. (Please correct me if I am wrong) I don't think he includes dial or action bar in his calculated point values for his ships.

I actually do have coefficients for everything including the dial and actions since my first MathWing 1.0 post in early 2014. There is still a lot of room for improvement, but it is good enough to get a pretty reasonable starting point on a total cost prediction.

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.

You really need to be more clear on what you are talking about. "Fly Casual" has been usurped and corrupted by the militant casual. It's banner has been used to shame players for enforcing the rules, which is so far from the original intent of "Fly Casual", it is absurd.

Well, if anyone is deliberately taking advantage of fly casual to cheat in order to win, then it's clear that they aren't casual players at all. Militant yes, casual no.

I can't speak to what OP meant, but from my perspective t "white knuckle gaming" is becoming more common as the game gets bigger (larger tournaments, more on the line, etc.) Players get stressed when playing and their interaction with their opponent becomes more terse. Which leads to a heck of a lot more fights than if they weren't stressed. It also makes for a less enjoyable game for both opponents.

This "white knuckle gaming" is precisely what fly casual is designed to counteract.

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.

Fair enough. I was about to point out that, from an economic standpoint, almost any price they'd name should be sufficient since you currently do it for free and just with a delay until after ships are released, but the NDA stuff nixes that.

Note: obviously "almost any price" is a bit of hyperbole, since being paid to do it comes with timelines, and the less freedom to just not do it when you don't feel like it.

You get what you pay for.

The level of expertise and effort required to MathWing ships and upgrade cards that are in flux during the development cycle is significantly more than looking at just jousting values for stat lines after the ships have been released. I told them that to do a more comprehensive approach during playtesting I would require a consulting agreement to make it worth my time, but I seriously doubt they ever would have taken me up on that. It was a moot point with the NDA issue anyway.

// off-topic

In my fantasy universe, you are just the final QA on point cost before things went to print. "Hey MJ, here are the Wave 9 ships we designed, what should they cost?" Fixes many of the issues and saves you the design churn. Ah well, it's not to be. If nothing else, it is interesting to hear you took a look down that path to see what was on it.

1. People who treat every game like a role-playing game. You know, the genre where the rules are made up and the points don't matter? Yeah, that's not the kind of game that I like, and that's not what X-Wing is.

2. People that don't understand that there is a problem when the ships that are beloved by the most people are doing poorly in the competitive scene that goes beyond game balance. X-Wing is an amazing game by its own right, and I would keep playing it without the IP, but the IP is why a lot of people get into the game, and having the most important ships in the IP not matter in the game (X-Wing, TIE Advanced) is a problem for the people that play for the IP.

3. Weak players who complain about the competitive nature of tournaments and demand that tournament players play sub-optimally like they do. It's not like tournament players go barging into these people's kitchen tables and pick-up games and make them play a certain way, yet they feel like they have the right to tell others how to play the game.

You know what really grinds my gears? When you can't find the droids you're looking for...

The best 1st post ever. JediRush24 !

I partially disagree with Tvboy.

1. Care to offer an example?..Rules matter but so does sportsmanship.

2. The Advanced is getting a fix in the future. However what you suggest is really only applicable to tournament level play since in a friendly game between players they can agree to just use X-Wing and Ties for example. Iconic ship from the movies should not be given special treatment because they are from the movies, everything should fit thematically into it's area.

3. There's being a better and more skilled player....and then there is being a ****. One my opponent did a red Manuver while he was stressed. I did not be a **** and run him off the board edge. I took what I believed to be the fly casual approach and simply chose a move that put him in a position where he could not Attack me but I could Attack him. Unlike another match where I saw a fat Han player give himself an even bigger advantage by Intentionally getting a Y-Wing player who made the same mistake to fly off the edge. In my opinion, that was a sick move and not I the spirit of the game. People moan this is a game about maneuvering and being the best pilot...and then win by ring out on an opponents when they could have in my opinion been much more sporting.

3. There's being a better and more skilled player....and then there is being a ****. One my opponent did a red Manuver while he was stressed. I did not be a **** and run him off the board edge. I took what I believed to be the fly casual approach and simply chose a move that put him in a position where he could not Attack me but I could Attack him. Unlike another match where I saw a fat Han player give himself an even bigger advantage by Intentionally getting a Y-Wing player who made the same mistake to fly off the edge. In my opinion, that was a sick move and not I the spirit of the game. People moan this is a game about maneuvering and being the best pilot...and then win by ring out on an opponents when they could have in my opinion been much more sporting.

Not making mistakes is part of the skill of this game, any many others besides. It isn't punitive to fly your opponent's ship off the board, it's the best play, and that doesn't make it right for you to pass judgment on a person's character for doing so. If anything, you've only hampered your opponent by letting him skate; you trivialized the mistake that he made, so he's more likely to make it again than he would be otherwise.

Above all, we should try to remember that not being a good sportsman does not mean that we are being a bad sportsman. Those are two very different things, and I'd be insulted if someone called me names because they felt playing by the rules wasn't "sporting."

...

You know, I'm really starting to hate the word sportsmanship. For such a positive sounding word, I've never seen it used here in a way that wasn't designed to stigmatize a person.

Posts quoting posts quoting posts. Just delete everything but the most recent quote unless you're specifically making a point about things in all of those posts.

WonderWAAAGH, I never said I would let him redo the move, he had made the mistake, and I would point out how I could easily send him off the board. I think claiming that doing what I suggest would not help them learn is a big assumption to make. Does not matter where they end up, the mistake is a mistake and they will usually end up in a bad position for themselves. What I have a problem with is players using it to get an automatic kill from this mistake rather than attempting to shoot down a now vulnerable ship skilfully. You are playing by the rules...but then there is HOW you play by the rules and how you interpret those rules (speaking of, the rulebook does not state "if near the edge of a board and your opponent performed a red move while stressed, fly him off the board!"), and in my book flying someone off the board is a really childish and extremely unfair move to pull, especially when your opponent is already losing to you and you have a ship that can fire in any direction. Its not like your going to miss the opportunity to fire at it this round.

I believe it is my right to believe what I want to believe, and while yes I think Fly Casual is abused, I also think there are cynical people who say it is being misappropriated to justify poor sportsmanship on their part (not bad rule following, but bad execution of said rules as outlined above). There are guilty parties on both side of the argument. Likewise it is your right to believe that it is a perfectly justified way to play, I am merely getting my personal feelings about it out there. If I was commentating on an X-Wing game on stream and I saw this, I would call the player out on it for poor sportsmanship, and not regret it one bit.

It is not childish to play by the rules. It is childish to call others names for playing by the rules, however. It would seem that some of us have a lot of growing up to do, but it might not be who you suspect.

Many of these things aren't included in MajorJuggler's models. (Please correct me if I am wrong) I don't think he includes dial or action bar in his calculated point values for his ships.

I actually do have coefficients for everything including the dial and actions since my first MathWing 1.0 post in early 2014. There is still a lot of room for improvement, but it is good enough to get a pretty reasonable starting point on a total cost prediction.

Yeah but Juggies you also have the math down for when you can expect a burp to rise after drinking a nice soda pops!

Don't try to deny it, I know cause of my Force Powers and such and so forth!

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.

I disagree with every single point you've made here. I will explain point by point.

1) X-wing is not a faced paced game in the sense games like Uno. It "feels" like a high speed dog fight. It is faster than most table top war games thanks to the flight system and the dials. At its heart though, this is a game a chess.

2) The only ship that is horribly broken is the poor Advanced. That fix is coming. Every other ship has its place in the game. We all know this, some of us just wish our favorite ship could have a bigger role.

3) It's something to talk about.

4) Fly Casual is alive and well. YOU are a part of this just as much as the guy sitting across from you. Have fun, winning or losing. If the dice are treating your poorly be sure this does not translate to your mood. If the player across from you is enjoying his win a little too much, start enjoying it with him. You'll be amazed at what a "nice bit of piloting" compliment will do to change to mood of the game.

We are all stewards of the game. Fly Casual.

1. People who treat every game like a role-playing game. You know, the genre where the rules are made up and the points don't matter? Yeah, that's not the kind of game that I like, and that's not what X-Wing is...

You don't get to tell us all what kind of game X-Wing is. It can be as narrative or mechanical as we want.

3. Weak players who complain about the competitive nature of tournaments and demand that tournament players play sub-optimally like they do. It's not like tournament players go barging into these people's kitchen tables and pick-up games and make them play a certain way, yet they feel like they have the right to tell others how to play the game.

Newsflash: Different people want to play games differently. Some want a narrative driven game, some want a purely cerebral, mechanical competition. But we're all playing the same game here. Sometimes the ultra competitive player who doesn't care what a ship looks like or about it's background and history, who may not even LIKE Star Wars but enjoys a well built game, sometimes that player runs into a geek who just loves to run his red squadron X wings and doesn't care that they're outdated and overshadowed and (gasp!) not competitive. We all have to play the same game and we all have to get along, so deliberately creating rifts between the different camps by belittling players who don't play the way you do (like calling them 'weak' for example) doesn't help anyone.

You know, I'm really starting to hate the word sportsmanship. For such a positive sounding word, I've never seen it used here in a way that wasn't designed to stigmatize a person.

Well, that's the point of it! Being a good sport is doing something nice for the opposition, when you don't have to. We've all seen examples of athletes losing races because they've stopped to help injured competitors. Sure, they lost the race but I think they're still winning the competition that matters.