I for one hope FFG never goes to a random model with any of their games.

But there is nothing wrong with x-wing that can't be fixed with a good value product. I have been wanting them to release a "second purchase" kit for a while. Pretty much something players buy after the starter set to catch up on the most important ships, upgrades and fixes.

I do think they are missing a large part of the market with LCG packaging. They curently service people who want to own everything and only want to own everything. They are missing the entire segment of people who only have time, interest, or money to play a few decks in a TCG. The low cost players really help fill the ranks at events.

I think the game has grown to the point where faction starters make sense. A small collection of ships to get started, templates, dice, and a set of popular "fix" upgrade cards like autothrusters, PTL, etc. Done well, it could catch up new players well, and be a good deal for existing players mostly in it for the cards. The aces do this to an extent, but they don't seem obviously marketed to new players.

I'd much rather have Most Wanted packs for Rebels and Imperials than 3 more starters.

I don't think the two are that different from one another overall.

No reason to have more starters, most wanted style packs are great however. Or maybe even a pack that takes the starter forces to 100 points each would be good.

I dunno, Aces and Veteran packs seem to be pretty good second or third purchases that also gain more utility with the orignal expansions of the ships in those packs. An imperial player could do worse than buying an interceptor, bomber and defender fans then getting the ace and get packs. That's a good sized fleet right there! No AT though....

Rebels are a bit better off with As and Bs, throw in the Core X and 100 points is easy to fill.

Although it would be nice if the Advanced had been packed in a box with title and ATC as well as all the pilots and TIE Mk II, but that ain't happening.

LCG is a way worse model! I have paid money for my miniatures and the accompanying cards! While with MtG I just received the tons of cards my friends already had and couldn't trade away! For shame FFG! You let me pay for a product!

Besides this actually happened, is happening, and will continue to happen, the above post is meant with a severe amount of tongue-in-cheek. Just in case someone didn't notice

Buying in to an LCG to only play an maintain one deck is needlessly applying a CCG necessity to a different circumstance. In an LCG buying one deck is buying all decks, so build and utilize those other decks. In most cases you can have them built without any comprise to you preferred archetype. Why would you ever just play one deck without the monetary necessity of doing so that a CCG creates.

Well, yeah - at which point you're going to drop several hundred dollars to support that LCG model, so where was the big savings again? Forcing people into the "buy all decks" approach creates a huge barrier to entry, and it's just as nasty to the consumer as random packaging is.

I remember getting into AGOT before Netrunner and Star Wars came out. I wasn't too intimidated. As long as you go with a buy in slowly approach, the LCG model isn't too bad. Especially if you are going after specific packs/cycles at first.

I remember getting into AGOT before Netrunner and Star Wars came out. I wasn't too intimidated. As long as you go with a buy in slowly approach, the LCG model isn't too bad. Especially if you are going after specific packs/cycles at first.

the weird thing is that some people like GWapproach

and some ev en like randomness abomination of expansions in magic

Really, the primary issue in all of this, regardless of game system, is that cards aren't worth the paper they're printed on let alone the packaging and shipping required to sell them. There's really no way to do so profitably without selling some amount of unwanted product alongside it. There's a shops doing more on demand printing these days though (Malifaux just started providing cards via one of them) so it will be curious to see if that becomes a real solution. Ultimately though, I suspect it will only work for more model based system like Malifaux or Warmachine that put less development time into card based additions than X-Wing does.

Personally, the argument that another business model is worse does little to convince me that FFG is actually behaving wonderfully towards me. It's the old 'GW is worse' story.

And I don't think the way the cards are sold is the biggest problem. Rather, the fact that obvious improvements of existing ships are sold as 'upgrade options' when, as a customer, I suspect that better design choices should have been made much earlier. Chardaan Refit, the X1 title and Integrated Astromech all belong to that category. Autothrusters also pretty much belongs in that category. And now there's Guidance Chips.

I can accept that the occasional 'hot' upgrade is limited to certain expansions. Push the Limit and Twin Laser Turrets are very powerful and it's part of the game that you don't get these with your TIE Int or Y-Wing. But that my TIE Advanced receives an erratum for which I am supposed to pay, that does look like a really bad deal.

Hindsight is 20/20, especially when you look back on design. The designers do their best, but they cannot know for certain what will happen when they introduce something new into the game. Especially when you have different designers.

I remember getting into AGOT before Netrunner and Star Wars came out. I wasn't too intimidated. As long as you go with a buy in slowly approach, the LCG model isn't too bad. Especially if you are going after specific packs/cycles at first.

the weird thing is that some people like GWapproach

and some ev en like randomness abomination of expansions in magic

Not just some, a lot. There are far and away more Magic players than there are LCG players of any variety. Now, are you going to explain to me how Magic is actually worse, or should we just take your opinion as irrefutable fact?

Hindsight is 20/20, especially when you look back on design. The designers do their best, but they cannot know for certain what will happen when they introduce something new into the game. Especially when you have different designers.

Hindsight is 20/20, especially when you look back on design. The designers do their best, but they cannot know for certain what will happen when they introduce something new into the game. Especially when you have different designers.

This is answering a completely different concern. Nobody is expecting them to be perfect - but some of us do expect that when they screw up, we don't have to buy a $90 ship we don't want in order to get the fix.

I remember getting into AGOT before Netrunner and Star Wars came out. I wasn't too intimidated. As long as you go with a buy in slowly approach, the LCG model isn't too bad. Especially if you are going after specific packs/cycles at first.

the weird thing is that some people like GWapproach

and some ev en like randomness abomination of expansions in magic

Not just some, a lot. There are far and away more Magic players than there are LCG players of any variety. Now, are you going to explain to me how Magic is actually worse, or should we just take your opinion as irrefutable fact?

How widespread a game is has little do with quality. Magic is very well marketed and very old: it has a huge market share to the point where others can barely survive on its model: it's the World of Warcraft of CCGs. FFG's LCGs are much younger.

Magic was fairly revolutionary with its mana system when it came out and Richard Garfield is a very good designer (he also made Netrunner which under LCG is I believe 2nd place to Magic) and it's certainly a fun game to play, but that's a conclusion you draw from playing it rather than from its sales numbers.

Battlefront sold well, and it's more shallow than a desert.

cant read anymore.... gah......

I am a newer player, I started about 2 months ago and cannot understand much of the issue here, the newer releases of older expansions; say the t-65, for example, already have the fixed wording on the cards to simplify errata. IF ordnance is such an issue, a simple yet effective print is to send ALL expansions with ordnance back to the printers and simply remove the spend target lock/ focus from those munitions, some items would not fall under this, like the blaster turret from the HWK.

Simply removing the requirement from all further cards printed will entirely SOLVE any munitions issues I can see. Now you can use the focus or target lock to modify the attack roll.

As to discarding the munitions themselves, why shouldn't you, didn't you just fire them? Does a modern jet fighter fire his missiles and get free replenishment in flight somehow? No, he uses the munitions in order to send them to his enemy.

Think of the cheap cost extra munitions as simply a larger ammo rack, vs the higher cost of actually having to add the launch tubes as well.... ion torps, I'm lookin at you pal.

Think of the failsafe as a locking device, no lock, no fire, similar to the streak system in Battletech.

I chose to go S&V as my primary faction and enjoy munitions of all forms, up to and including the "hot shot" blaster. I enjoy secondary weapons because they are a way to deny your extra agility die during combat, so I tend to use them a lot.

I even ran Maarek Stele without the x1 title, and with cluster missiles to 3rd place in last month's local store tourney. I do not see the advanced as poorly as some do, and yes I do have a single x1 title that my buddy traded me for some elite upgrade I don't use, can't remember which, it was that important to me... lol

Sorry if anyone disagrees with me, but I do not scare off, and I value intelligent discussion, and was merely trying to add to this one

What scares me is that 11,000 people have viewed this in the last few days, almost half as many as MathWing in the last 2 years. MathWing IMO is the second most vauable post on these blogs next to the link post.

Hindsight is 20/20, especially when you look back on design. The designers do their best, but they cannot know for certain what will happen when they introduce something new into the game. Especially when you have different designers.

This is answering a completely different concern. Nobody is expecting them to be perfect - but some of us do expect that when they screw up, we don't have to buy a $90 ship we don't want in order to get the fix.

I'll just add that I'm a person that loves this game and thinks that overall the designers/playtesters are doing the best they can with X-wing but I'm a bit frustrated by the conservative approach to the point cost of ships, and it has changed my purchasing habits recently and going forward.

I don't just automatically pick up two of each ship and the Gozanti was the first one that I haven't bought within a week of release (and don't plan to unless I actually decide to play it). I've only picked up one of the T70 despite it having a T-65 fix (or a part of it) because I don't need another of the T-70. I didn't pick up a second TIE punisher because I don't ever see putting it on the table much and I certainly don't see putting two on the table unless there's cards in the future that make it better. I did buy two of the FOs because I think that's the most complete pack released in some time where there are multiple pilots (Omega and Zeta Leader) and multiple upgrade cards (Comm Relay, Juke) are very useful and I'm likely to play them.

In a lot of cases, I feel like I'm paying for the first half of a ship that will be "finished later" when they release an aces pack or upgrade card that makes it playable because, as they tend to say, "it's easier to fix a ship that's underpowered than one that is overpowered."

I feel like the upgrades are certainly becoming more important than the ships in some ways (I think that's especially true in this last wave and with the T70 pack) and that's not a direction I'm super excited about but I also don't think it's as deliberate as some people may think. It's just a method that they're sticking to that is becoming a bit burdensome.

It definitely feels so, AlexW.

Like videogames, most X-Wing ships come in a really underwhelming state, then they promise (or actually, we just wish for) future patches for them. With the difference that those patches take months or years to come, and aren't free.

Ships that have had to be "patched" or are in need of it: x-wing, y-wing, tie advanced, a-wing, tie interceptor, hwk, shuttle, tie bomber, tie defender, e-wing, scyk, starviper, firespray, tie punisher, tantive 4, raider.

Now, many of these ships are now in a much better state, after successive expansions have brought fixes for them. But it was not so for many months or years.

Anyway, many of these fixes have come with really expensive expansion, or really unrelated.

And is not that these problems couldn't have been foreseen and averted. As MajorJuggler says, many problems could have been avoided if they had some better metrics about the expected effectiveness of a ship. After all, we all saw right away that the Agressor was going to perform well just from the preview article, when they showed its dial, abilities and stat line. How come some ships come out so evidently compentent, while others are so clearly underwhelming?

In a lot of cases, I feel like I'm paying for the first half of a ship that will be "finished later" when they release an aces pack or upgrade card that makes it playable because, as they tend to say, "it's easier to fix a ship that's underpowered than one that is overpowered."

I feel like the upgrades are certainly becoming more important than the ships in some ways (I think that's especially true in this last wave and with the T70 pack) and that's not a direction I'm super excited about but I also don't think it's as deliberate as some people may think. It's just a method that they're sticking to that is becoming a bit burdensome.

My guess is that the model works, i.e. it is profitable. I don't think ships are being released with known flaws intact, like some software as I've heard, just to make more money with the upgrade. But the effect is the same.

Some here seem to think it is really important what FFG's motivations are, but I am not one of those people. If a released ship is not designed well and I am later supposed to pay for the fix, I feel a bit cheated, regardless of whether the publisher meant well or did it on purpose. I am a customer, not a gentle apologist for a company. Their actions are what really speaks to me, not primarily the ideas behind those actions. Good intentions do not make for a better game or a more affordable product.

I do feel that a lot of the ships here have not been fully thought out - but coming from game development myself, I understand the need to push out a product within a reasonable time.

The main problem with testing is that its incredibly tedious repetitive - and sometimes testers and developers don't even realize certain flaws and "bugs" until much too late. A self contained game, something like Risk or Monopoly which has no expansion path is easy to test - you just need to understand the set limits and design your test cases around them.

A living game which is designed to expand and "grow" is amazingly difficult to test and balance. As a game gets bigger - it progressively get even harder and harder to test and balance. A lot of times it comes to a point where everything is just a huge mess of bandaids and needs to be torn down and rebuilt, a lot of MMOs do this.

I'd say X-Wing is about halfway to a point where everything needs to be re-done, basically creating a new edition. While there is still plenty of room for expansion, a lot of ships are fast becoming toally unplayable without a upgrade from another expansion. Imps and Scum seem to bear the brunt of this - already 4 Imperial Ships have been "fixed" and Scum's first wave was quite a hit and miss affair with the Aggressor being both interesting in concept and fun to play, the StarViper, which about half the players think is great and awesome while the other half think it's overcosted junk, and M3-A Scyk - possibly the worst naked ship availible now. The Rebels have the X-Wing which has seen its initial superiority surpassed by later ships and now needs a boost to return to its former glory.

When I wanted to start this game - to be honest it was very very intimidating the amount I would have to spend. If I didn't but a older player's (who no longer had time to play) set of ships, I think I'd still be struggling to get enough ships.

In a lot of cases, I feel like I'm paying for the first half of a ship that will be "finished later" when they release an aces pack or upgrade card that makes it playable because, as they tend to say, "it's easier to fix a ship that's underpowered than one that is overpowered."

I feel like the upgrades are certainly becoming more important than the ships in some ways (I think that's especially true in this last wave and with the T70 pack) and that's not a direction I'm super excited about but I also don't think it's as deliberate as some people may think. It's just a method that they're sticking to that is becoming a bit burdensome.

My guess is that the model works, i.e. it is profitable. I don't think ships are being released with known flaws intact, like some software as I've heard, just to make more money with the upgrade. But the effect is the same.

Some here seem to think it is really important what FFG's motivations are, but I am not one of those people. If a released ship is not designed well and I am later supposed to pay for the fix, I feel a bit cheated, regardless of whether the publisher meant well or did it on purpose. I am a customer, not a gentle apologist for a company. Their actions are what really speaks to me, not primarily the ideas behind those actions. Good intentions do not make for a better game or a more affordable product.

Intent doesn't matter insofar as it affects you, especially if they're not going to change their philosophy, but I think it's important to know because if a company is doing something that doesn't work but with good intent I hold out hope that they'll be more willing change their approach in the future. In this context, I'm at least confident that that the designers will continue to make X-wing a good game, but I've changed my purchases to try and speak to the aspects of the game that I feel are designed well. For example, limiting my purchases of ships I feel aren't going to need a future fix and avoiding paying $70 for a set that contains one very useful card and a couple of others I "might" occasionally use (Side note: A person in our playgroup purchased the Gozanti and resold every other part of it except for Kallus). If I felt that the motivation behind it was different, I'd probably avoid purchasing anything at that point.

I'd say X-Wing is about halfway to a point where everything needs to be re-done, basically creating a new edition.

People talk about X-wing 2.0, but I can't imagine how tenuous a venture that would be. Are they going to re-release another X-wing model? Another Tie Fighter model? Are they going to release non-ship packs for those that already have been released? That's hard to imagine since they aren't doing it now and it would be a much more consumer friendly way of "fixing" ships.

We're already talking about people having more than enough of ships already released. One of the reasons I find so little value in the Gozanti is, while I have some mild interest in the TIE pilots and would like Agent Kallus, I don't need an 8th and 9th Tie (or maybe it would be 9th and 10th, I'm not sure).