The limit should obviously be 101 points.

That single extra point always seems to elude my best list ideas.

I think at the end we will se a mission or objective based games, like Infinity for example, where yo bring two lists to the tournament and select one (before seeing your oponent´s list) based on the kind of mission your are going to play.

People do realise that at 150 points or whatever there are still tough decisions to make, there's always stuff you can't fit in. Personally I would like 125 points to let me take an extra ship.

People do realise that at 150 points or whatever there are still tough decisions to make, there's always stuff you can't fit in. Personally I would like 125 points to let me take an extra ship.

I agree. A new meta comes out when the points are raised. When I say meta, I mean "game of the game" or way to play it, not just "which ships will be flown". A lot of things change when you change the parameters. Things like Arc Dodgers becoming less effective because you can't dodge everyone's arc at 150 pts (well, unless they take just a few ships). Arc Dodgers work best with fewer opponents and when you raise the bar, more ships are brought.

I think there would develop a more "All Comers" type style in list design. You would see some mini swarm aspects. You will see some control or area effect weapons (ordnance or bombs). Different things make it into the game. Different perspectives will become valued. B-wings and X-wings can become relevant again and won't need the repositioning that everyone seems to need at the moment.

With that said, I don't really care so much about tournament play, but I'd love to see more people play games at 150 pts. Yeah, there is Epic, but there is also Cinematic. That basically means "play whatever you want", which is my favorite version.

I love Escalation tournaments, I find it's the best way to really test yourself as a list builder and how to adapt a list that will be evolving with others and the last game of the tournament is always hilariously over the top with some of the combos you see!
I had 3 Hwks on the table and cleaned up! When do you think you'd ever say that?

The two ship lists are boring. In earlier waves you most often saw more ships on the table, and 100 pts. was great, but I have a feeling that at 150 pts. many lists would still end up with 3 or 4 ships. Right now you have aces dominating, more ships on the table might balance that out. People claiming that the game is balanced at 100 pts, and not at any other points level, well I am skeptical. We have things like assault missiles and proton torps that very rarely see use due to the small numbers of ships on the table, and generic pilots are often left behind.

I think this is one of the downsides to hyper-competitive play, the community tends to group-think and push out other possibilities, basically because they are most focused on getting really good at one thing, and other possibilities are pushed out.

I think this is one of the downsides to hyper-competitive play, the community tends to group-think and push out other possibilities, basically because they are most focused on getting really good at one thing, and other possibilities are pushed out.

This is something I really have homed in on in recent weeks.

Creative list building is fun. I love it when a new wave comes out because I can come up with new and interesting lists. A hyper-competitive scene quickly identifies the best builds, and players are drawn or pushed towards those builds. This stifles a lot of creativity.

Changing point limits, game objectives, and other basic game conditions can shake up a metagame, and allow more space for creative listbuilding. If the intense scrutiny applied to the 100-point tournament game is applied, then that metagame will be defined the same way that it becomes defined in tournament play. But if you change things up regularly, or have too many types of games and not enough scrutiny and optimization, then things may just not have time to settle out to optimal builds.

Obviously that kind of continual variation is only ever going to work in a casual play situation. Constant changes are not good for tournament play for a bunch of reasons.

the community tends to group-think and push out other possibilities

That's some flawed logic there.

The only time 100 points is the hard and fast rule, is during OP competitive events. No one no matter how competitive has any issue with people playing games that aren't 100 points.

Our only issue really is that the OP competitive events are 100 points for a reason, and those shouldn't be changed. If you want to run a escalation tournament, or a 150 tournament, or a 75 point tournament or anything else go ahead. They may be great fun. But that again doesn't mean the OP events need to or even should change.

@VanorDM

First of all I was indeed referring the the OP competitive scene as you put it. And in my experience most x-wing tournaments are at 100 pts, because the tone is set by those competitive events.

Games like 40k have benefited from a diversity on the tournament scene... both in missions and a variety of points costs. Please educate me, the logic of why x-wing is so perfectly balanced at 100 pts.

OP competitive events should be changed, yeah. That's like, my opinion. It would be good for the x-wing scene and keep it fresh. And not only that, I'll reiterate my point... when the 100 pt tournament game became popular in wave one and wave two, were there as many two ship builds? Is this where they wanted the game to go?

So yeah, changes in point limits and also tournament mission packs. Would be a great thing for the game. Just compare it to a triathlon where the competitor has to prove their mettle in different areas of skill. If you have an x-wing player who can only play well at 100 pts, is that truly a great xwing player or just a player who has mastered the format and the metagame?

Of course, there is an appropriate rate of change. If there was no new content to the game, no new lists and the game was always at 100 pts, we would essentially be playing some kind of chess thing where the opening moves are all known and the lists are more or less stagnant at top levels of play. FFG has done a good job of coming up with new content to keep the game fresh but the side effect seems to be the number of pieces involved in the game has shrunk.

Casual play .. anything goes as long as it has been agreed to.. we often play a free for all with 40 points. Aso you die you just restart on the edge with the same 4p points or different 40 points it doesn't matter.. it's quite a lot of fun and we have had as many as 8 playing at once. One guy managed to play for the 2 hours without dying... He has been playing for about 2 months and ended the night being the last on the table..

The game is balanced fairly specifically for the 100-point level; a lot of design decisions have been made around that cap (from Kirhaxz and X-Wing costs to Firespray costs and so on). Likewise, there's a lot more playtesting for the 100-point level, which means ships are generally better balanced there. Look at the VCX-100; it's a solid ship in the standard setup, but gets weaker the more enemies it faces (cus zero agility). Making 150 the new standard pretty much kills it.

Sure, the Kihraxz.... and T-65's... that worked out well. In wave two.

I assume they also balanced the game to allow for 3 contracted scouts loaded at 100 pts. Great job.

As for the VCX thing... simply another manifestation of the myth that the game is just that well tested. I am willing to believe the game is playtested at 100 pts. more than other points levels but... it is far from a perfect system man. My only point is that it is not perfect enough that the whole universe should revolve around it. And I'm not saying x-wing isn't a great game or a well-tested game either.

The 100-point scale is not infallible, and any other point value is not blasphemous.

For a few months, me and my best X-wing friend completely swapped over to the 120 point level, and it never felt out-of-balance. We've done a 150-point store tournament (with an aforementioned 3-brobots list in attendance) back when the standard match length was 60 minutes and just bumped it up to 75 (where it is now), and no more matches went to time than usual. Our 120 point games had a different meta, to be sure, but it wasn't substantial. Plus, it's not like you can just add 20 points to a pre-built 100-point list and call it good. Sure, some lists are like that, but those are very few and far between. You had to totally change your list-building mindset to fit the new level.

Changing to 150 is totally feasible. Or adding another 150 point league. I personally still think there's plenty of depth to be had at 100 points, so I don't think a flat-out paradigm-shift could happen. However, I would love to see them adding a parallel point-level just to see something different.

Some of y'all are really overreacting here. The game doesn't fall apart when you adjust the point level, and that's one reason why I love it so much. 100 is great. 120 is also great. So is 150. The differences aren't as sharp as some would think, you just have to change your list-building mindset.

Ah yes, I do love these topics. Escalation is rather fun. But I have proven the point that 150 is easily broken. I know RGPs are out of vogue for 100 (though they shouldn't) but there is a thing of beauty when you see 4 interceptors and a doomshuttle on the board. Literally have not lost a ship outside of the doomshuttle in any 150 point match. Ever. People try all these "OP" combos to realize that most things die to 18, 23 at range one, focused red dice and a for sure crit. All behind 3 agility and a evade token.

It's one of the reasons I stay away from 150 points. It becomes to easy to boost PS a bit and focus fire generics down before they fire, ships that at one time could survive a couple turns, die in a turn. That is a problem. While yes more ships on the board is cool and fun for different diversity, it also largely becomes a issue with how the stat lines in the game crumble to directed focus fire.

150 will Trump aces and token-lovers

I say HELL YEAH!

I play 150 points at my local club sometimes and it is fun. If you have a bit more time to play the game then why not bring along a few more of your favourite toys?

Is it is balanced as 100 points? I am not sure either way. Possibly some ships get a little stronger or a little weaker at that level but for casual play I don't see that as being a problem as those ships are spread across all the factions. Want to run triple Bro-Bots? Go for it!

It is laudable that FFG have put so much effort into balancing individual ships rather than just whole factions (something GW could learn from) but that is most important in a competitive tournament setting. If you are playing a fun game and want to try out some new stuff, go for.

Who know? You might have fun!

The 100-point scale is not infallible, and any other point value is not blasphemous.

Wow... Way to read things that aren't there. That statement alone really makes pretty much everything else you say pointless.

Please educate me, the logic of why x-wing is so perfectly balanced at 100 pts.

Because the game itself is designed with 100 points in mind. It's quite clear if you care to look that 100 points is what the dev's have in mind when they produce upgrades or set point costs.

Is this where they wanted the game to go?

Yes it is where they wanted the OP games to go.

Would be a great thing for the game.

No it wouldn't. Changing it to 150 would require more time, which would make already long days take even longer, perhaps even start to push events to 3 days. That would kill the OP circuit.

There is nothing wrong with the game as is, and increasing the points isn't going to really add anything to it.

There's nothing wrong with 150 point, 125 point, 136 points or whatever you want to play. However 100 points is the standard for OP games for a reason and no one has provided anything that comes close to a valid reason to change it.

If you want to play other point values, go for it. Host a league or run a tournament with those point values, have fun with it. But don't expect OP to fix something that isn't broke, and would quite simply cause a lot of issues.

Because you can not run a 128+ person tournament at 150 without it taking 2-3 days.

At 150 I could play some or all of my favorites.

Here is something overlooked (or I missed it in the pages) at 100 points if you lose 1-2 ships there is a chance you can still come back to win. If your increases those points higher it becomes very hard if impossible to win if your left with say 50 points or less vs 100 points or more. For tornys that will just bring out more forfits and sloppy play if the time limit is the same. I feel like 100 is perfect for torny play and go crazy for fun-ize

OP competitive events should be changed, yeah. That's like, my opinion. It would be good for the x-wing scene and keep it fresh. And not only that, I'll reiterate my point... when the 100 pt tournament game became popular in wave one and wave two, were there as many two ship builds? Is this where they wanted the game to go?

Umm, yes. Very much so. I swear, no one remembers the Summer of the Double Falcon.

I often thought that a build restriction with larger points might be fun. This is a WIP and needs further work.

100 points of ships, no more than 50 points spent on aces

50 points of upgrades.

I am fairly certain that some builds would not actually be able to get to 50 points of upgrades, but this was just a thought exercise for list building larger than 150 points without going to overboard on upping the ship numbers.

OP competitive events should be changed, yeah. That's like, my opinion. It would be good for the x-wing scene and keep it fresh. And not only that, I'll reiterate my point... when the 100 pt tournament game became popular in wave one and wave two, were there as many two ship builds? Is this where they wanted the game to go?

Umm, yes. Very much so. I swear, no one remembers the Summer of the Double Falcon.

To be fair, a huge proportion of the current player base came in after double Falcons were a thing (or rather, after they were talked about online, then largely failed to follow through in tournament play).

The problem with the argument for increasing the point value for OP events...

First, the game is actually balanced around 100 points. That doesn't mean 125, 150, or some other value isn't balanced, but it is not the value they had in mind. That means some other value is at best no better balanced than 100 points is. That means the net gain is nothing, with the possibility of there being a serious imbalance being created.

Second, the idea that it would change the meta means nothing. The meta changes every time a new wave comes out. It also doesn't mean the meta will be better than before. Because if 125 or 150 becomes the standard then everyone will look for the best builds at those point values. So again the net change is at best nothing, a new meta isn't inherently better than the current one. But it could very well lead to something worse.

Third, an increase in points will require an increase in the time per game. For even small events, say 32 people or less you're looking at pretty much a full day, increase the day by 2-3 hours? That means even those small events won't be over until after midnight.

Larger ones are going two 2 day events, you'd now be looking at the possibility of 3 days which would pretty much kill attendance for OP events.

All of this for again what would be at best no real change, and the very real possibility of making OP events worse.

The biggest change would be a sliding focus on generics over aces.