Time for a points increase?

By DarkTrooperZero, in X-Wing

Is it time the game naturally progresses to larger than 100 point games.

The game has got a lot bigger than ties vs x-wings, there's so many ships, pilots, and upgrade cards you can pick and often it can seem like the rock, paper, scissors effective happens.

I would like to see the game go to 125 points to let you fit another ship in, or some extra upgrades to help push the all comers list building style. Got 3 ships that are good at one thing but weak against another, now you can fit in a ship or some upgrades that help deal with that weakness to give you a fighting chance.

Want to build a list that competes well but needs a little bit of anti-U boats, now you can fit in that ship that wasn't 100% cost effective but fills a role you need.

In before the naysayers

Q. Game is balanced/designed at 100 points.

A. Oh please really? The daily dozens of threads about this fix, that fix, this is overcosted, this is under costed etc etc Time after time FFG don't really show much nack for perfect points. The biggest argument I have heard so far is they didn't want 5 rookie x-wings to be allowed, well look how bad that turned out.

Q. Games will take longer.

A. Extra 25 points shouldn't add that much more time and allowing an extra 15 minutes seems reasonable. Wouldn't break the time bank and tournaments could start a tad earlier.

Q. What about even more spam, 10 Ties etc

A. Maybe this could be a good thing, more ships, more arcs will limited arc dodgers a bit. I don't have enough experience with swarms though to really comment.

Thoughts ?

No. Game is balanced for 100, not higher limits. Please read the other 1,000 similar posts on the same exact topic for more info.

But how is it balanced for 100 points. Show me what exact part of the game is balanced and I can show you dozens of overcosted/undercosted ships and cards that counters any by design balance for 100 point games

Or is it just blind obedience that because FFG picked 100 points thats what people 'think' is balanced

In before the naysayers

Q. Game is balanced/designed at 100 points.

A. Oh please really? The daily dozens of threads about this fix, that fix, this is overcosted, this is under costed etc etc Time after time FFG don't really show much nack for perfect points. The biggest argument I have heard so far is they didn't want 5 rookie x-wings to be allowed, well look how bad that turned out.

The argument that it's balanced around 100 points is to say that the balance would be worse outside of 100 points. How good the balance is at 100 points doesn't factor into it.

Q. Games will take longer.

A. Extra 25 points shouldn't add that much more time and allowing an extra 15 minutes seems reasonable. Wouldn't break the time bank and tournaments could start a tad earlier.

Adding an extra 15 minutes to even a five round tournament is adding another hour, larger tournaments with eight rounds of Swiss and ten rounds of elimination would see multiple hours added to their length. These tournaments are major undertakings as is.

Q. What about even more spam, 10 Ties etc

A. Maybe this could be a good thing, more ships, more arcs will limited arc dodgers a bit. I don't have enough experience with swarms though to really comment.

Or more upgrades on the U-Boats. Or even heavier Palp-Aces.

But here's the clincher:

I would like to see the game go to 125 points to let you fit another ship in, or some extra upgrades to help push the all comers list building style.

What makes you believe more points would do that? What's to stop people using those extra points to specialise further rather than to build a toolbox squad?

The way you encourage all-rounder squads is to punish squads with holes in them. More points just means bigger squads, not more balanced ones.

Edited by Blue Five

No. Tourneys are already long enough. Tourneys already start as early as possible and many have had to move to two days.

An extra 15 minutes on 5-6 Swiss rounds plus elims is another couple hours. That's not a small thing at all.

Also 125 is just more spammy. It's not where balance has been pointed throughout development. I've played enough escalation to know I don't want to see anything like it.

It is indeed not time to increase the points in tournament setting.. casual play you can do what ever you like.. we play a lot of fun builds with varying points values. 40 point build free for alls..

4 player 2 sides same faction on each side.. the possibilities are endless...

But 100 points for tournaments.. if you go past this then the hole x-wing community starts to fall apart.. new players feel like it's a price war..

In any competitive setting, players will find the most efficient use of the resources allowed. Increasing the points limit would cause a temporary scramble, but we'd just see new variations on existing archetypes.

No.

Half the fun is trying to do what you want with only 100 points. If I could get another 25 points to play with, I could pretty much do whatever I wanted and not have to think twice about it.

I regularly run 150 point matches. I find them to be far more enjoyable than 100 points.

I'm sure you've got some awesome squad that you just can't fit into 100 points that you really want to wreck face with, but so does everyone else. ​And it's because the squad is awesome and wrecks face that it doesn't fit into 100.

Take R2D2, from the very first x-wing product ever. With 100 points of enemy ships shooting at you, 1 regenned shield per turn is pretty nifty. With 50 points, it's a must have. In a 25 point free-for-all, you've pretty much won before you start as long as nobody thinks to gang up on you. In epic, it's only gonna get the ship you put it on killed faster.

You may point out that the point cost of R2D2 proportional to everything else is different and that balances it, but the thing is, R2D2 is unique. Meaning he's balanced so that he can only make up 4% of your 100 point build. In 25 points, that's suddenly 16% of it, with the 100 point equivalent being a fleet that can cumulatively regen 4 shield a turn.

Your suggestion goes the other way, so for 125 points R2D2 and other such cards would weaken, and other cards would strengthen, and generally the game would just be thrown a little out of whack and come out of the whole affair a little less balanced. Then we'd need a chosen one to come along and murder everyone till it returned to normal again, and nobody wants that.

Also, as an ex-40k player, one of the most refreshing things about x-wing for me has been the hard limit of 100 points. All you need are 3 ships and you can battle literally anyone and compete in any event, and upping that to 4 isn't gonna help things.

I am a former 40k player too and the point increase creep is why I quit playing..

Holding fast to the 100 point build is a good decision in my opinion..

I feel constrained by the 100-point limit. And that's a good thing. You're optimizing under constraints, and that limit is a tough one. You can't bring everything you want. Your build can't eliminate every weakness. Your list can't take on every other possible list and autowin. The constraints, weaknesses and holes can only be addressed by clever tactics... much like in the movies (and actual war, where 'you only gets what you brung') I think the question about "designed for balance" is a slight mis-emphasis. The competitive game has point values that were designed for a 100-point game... designing in the specific constraints we play under. Epic is a blast, and I regularly spot my kid an extra 15 points so that he can essentially have a perfect fleet to make up for his more limited tactical eye. I do believe, though, that making the standard game 125 points will substantially wreck it.

Wow, is it this time of the week already?

Q. Game is balanced/designed at 100 points.
A. Oh please really? The daily dozens of threads about this fix, that fix, this is overcosted, this is under costed etc etc Time after time FFG don't really show much nack for perfect points. The biggest argument I have heard so far is they didn't want 5 rookie x-wings to be allowed, well look how bad that turned out.

Okay, look at it this way: FFG specifically designs and playtests things for the 100-point level, and there's STILL all this broken* crap. Do you REALLY want to open the floodgates and start playing at a level they DIDN'T design for?

*Not my personal opinion. I think the game's great. Variance in power is a necessity, and the only thing that makes a game unwinnable is player skill.

I think the game should go to less than 100 points, so they'll play quicker.

I wonder, as points limits have stayed the same how much more are we seeing 4 ship builds, and swarms? Looking at the top tournament lists most of them are 3 ship builds. Not so long ago, it was extremely tilted towards 2 ship builds.

I just have a hard time imagining the designers ever intended that, because for me the perfect number of ships for an interesting game is like 4-8. The game was originally like that for the most part, but now it's all aces and large base ships. Yes some swarms, but even they have shrunk in numbers.

I imagine that if the competitive scene were dominated by 2-ship builds, with these massive large base ships on the table, or 50 pt. aces that completely dominate in late game if they last, you would still have people making excuses and saying the game was perfect.

No.

Too simple? Then HELL NO!

Moving points up solves nothing, changes everything, and probably even makes the game less accessible to anyone just getting into it. Take a look at any # of previous threads on the topic and nothing has changed to make more points any more desirable.

Nah - Tournaments can stay 100 points, or move into other formats - Casual play exists, and 150 points is a blast... so is 132 and 248 - The only real nasty imbalances seem to come in the game with ship count and low point regen - just using the epic 12 small ship, 6 large ship limits seems good enough.

As a casual player, I haven't played at 100 points since I mastered the basics of the game. I could care less about the need for 100 point matches in tournaments, but I completely agree that said dynamic should not change for all the reasons listed. OTOH, I wish the FFG would look a little more at supporting/designing for the just-for-fun 100+ point style of play (more than just creating a couple of bigger ships per side and saying "now you can play Epic battles").

the time was actually wave 5 but we missed our window :(

just using the epic 12 small ship, 6 large ship limits seems good enough.

Well, yes and no, IMHO. Epic play could use a little more "commander" style play (something that adds an extra strategic level) than "let's have a 100-point dogfight with twice as many points that therefore takes twice as long."

Or is it just blind obedience that because FFG picked 100 points thats what people 'think' is balanced

Man, I don't have strong feelings either way on the points value of the game, but when your knee-jerk reaction to anybody disagreeing with you is to act like you're the only one who's thought things through, and everyone else is just blindly obedient and slavishly loyal to our FFG overlords, you're not leaving the impression you mean to be leaving.

Well, yes and no, IMHO. Epic play could use a little more "commander" style play (something that adds an extra strategic level) than "let's have a 100-point dogfight with twice as many points that therefore takes twice as long."

A commander style of play sounds like fun and I'd support it

- My comment was more about the actual balance of the gameplay - as in - once you have 12 HLC scyks running amok, its one of a few points where you might have a bad break in epic - but it's not 13 - same with jumpmasters, I think you could probably tighten those limits a bit - where as at the low point end of the spectrum - dual regen at 50 points can be too much for many lists to handle entirely.

side note, 200 point games don't take 2x as long though - the length of x-wing is more proportional to ship count than point count. ive had 300 point games shorter than 100 point games, since 150 points was a corvette, and 150 points were in the falcon and 2 e-wings...

No.

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