While I totally understand that the statistical swings that come with RNG need to be minimized in a high level competitive environment, this is a dice game. I love rolling the bones and see what happens. It is these wild outcomes that often make some of the most enjoyable and memorable gaming sessons for me. Feel free to send me all your Lando, R3, R5-D8, R5-K6, illict cloak, etc. I promise to give them a good home.

For fun; I love the craziness of RNG but in a competitive environment it always feels a bit risky to use upgrades that could essentially be a waste of points with so many solid choices out there.

No, playing a game of guarantees gives us the scouts, and limits list building.

Only the competitive types don't like random. They are trying to reduce as much random as possible.

I love Lando. His ability is super thematic and a decent gamble.

I haven't gotten a chance to play with the illicit cloaking device yet, but that too is super thematic (and a good gamble, since it may be worth the two points even if just used once at the right time), and I really look forward to using it at some point.

I have a problem with the RNG astromechs though. If the ability isn't thematic or requires multiple uses to be worth it, I want it to work even in a casual game. I don't get to play as often as I'd like, so if I have some synergy I'd like to try out or combo I'd like to pull off, I really want it to be within my power to do so. That's just me though.

R5-D8 on Porkins isn't bad at all. If you use his ability to remove stress on a red move, and if you take damage you then use that action on R5-D8, there is only an 11% chance of still having that damage at the end of the round.

You like playing Yahtzee too?!?!

I love the strategic depth of this game, and too much randomness ruins this element. Do not get me wrong, the intrinsic randomness of basic shooting and evading is in fact very necessary and absolutely vital to the game!!

But note: Good list building evolves around reducing the random elements of the game as much as possible (and also eliminating hard counters). Thus the top competitive upgrades do precisely that. No wonder the top upgrades are: Palpatine, Predator, Push-the-limit (more modifiers), Autothrusters, Lone Wolf, Guidance-chip, R4/Overclocked, Conners, and the like.

Upgrades that increase or add randomness have intrinsically less value, and unless they are very low cost or offer an important new capability will see very little competitive play, but are fun for casual play for sure….nah I dont like Yahtzee and I like to win!!

Yes, but sometimes people just want to play fun games with not the best of the best toys. I love pulling out a B-team list to play vs. another B-team list. The randomness can be a lot of fun, even if you lose.

Nothing is more frustrating than playing epic and having your ships get tagged by turbolaser fire at range five because you rolled 7 blanks.

Or getting shot down by the primary weapon of a Y wing at range three that rolled one crit. I'm ok with some rng and saying "That's XCOM!" but when an hours long match gets decided by one or two really bad rolls, I want to chuck my minis into a woodchipper.

Last night Maarek Stele had to choose to deliver either Direct Hit or Major Explosion. Direct Hit would leave the target with one hull remaining, so naturally I opted for Major Explosion. My opponent rolled an eye, so no extra damage, but it was still exciting. I'm right there with you on RNG.

You like playing Yahtzee too?!?!

I do like playing Yahtzee. Having a basic understanding of statistical probability can be a big advantage when deciding how to use your rolls and when to go for it. Have to give a shout out to Cosmic Wimpout too.

Thanks everyone for agreeing with me that while it may not be competitive it sure is fun.

"Never tell me the odds"

*snip*

I dont like Yahtzee and I like to win!!

a dice game?

funny, that's not what the box says

this is a game about maneuvering, even the developers have gone out of their way to say so on many occasions and have gone on to emphasize that ever since they started focusing on PWTs that care about their arc

rng is just a necessary evil to introduce variance and keep the game...well, varied. It is NOT and never should be the focus of the game. The focus should be on what you, the player NOT the dice, are able to do to influence what occurs in the game (i.e " the game part of the ******* game")

if you want a real dice game,

So many things in life are random. Being the 4th car at a light because the 3rd car passed you on a double yellow because he was in a hurry. The light turns green, everybody makes a left hand and the 3rd car, which should've been me, gets hit by a driver running the red.

We don't always get the results we expect but that makes the game more interesting.

*snip*

I dont like Yahtzee and I like to win!!

But... Your pseudonym is RedHotDice...

It seems that many American games have a RNG and for some reason we love them. I have several euro games and they seem to remove the luck aspect and focus more on non-confrontation like Agricola and many others. I personally love the randomness in this game. Just the other night I played a game and I had a 5 hp Poe and Z-95 vs an almost dead Corran+R2D2. My opponent went for broke and did a joust against me since he thought he was done anyway. He had initiative and he rolled 4 dice landing 2 hit and 2 crits. Both crits were direct hits and Poe died. I will probably never forget that game because it was so unlikely to happen. That's what makes this game fun.

Short answer NO

Long answer NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Though I can have fun with some of the most silly things in the world, Like using excel, or going to the DMV so maybe I am a bad person to ask.

RNG that isnt action bound is fine. I run R5K6 quite a bit and if he even works once i usually hit the target really hard with a focus/tl next round.

Action bound ones (saboteur, lando, or R5-D8 to name afew) are terrible because the Action price is so huge even if they were a 0pt card you probably wouldnt see them in a competitive environment. Well, R5-D8 you might because if you flee where you dont need to worry about defensive focus or dodging then youre free to just attempt to repair yourself all day.

R3 is probably the only RNG that isnt action bound i'll never ever use. That one isnt a "free" effect as it hurts your offense and only really works on high PS.

You like playing Yahtzee too?!?!

I love the strategic depth of this game, and too much randomness ruins this element. Do not get me wrong, the intrinsic randomness of basic shooting and evading is in fact very necessary and absolutely vital to the game!!

But note: Good list building evolves around reducing the random elements of the game as much as possible (and also eliminating hard counters). Thus the top competitive upgrades do precisely that. No wonder the top upgrades are: Palpatine, Predator, Push-the-limit (more modifiers), Autothrusters, Lone Wolf, Guidance-chip, R4/Overclocked, Conners, and the like.

Upgrades that increase or add randomness have intrinsically less value, and unless they are very low cost or offer an important new capability will see very little competitive play, but are fun for casual play for sure….nah I dont like Yahtzee and I like to win!!

I'd actually posit that the RNG mechanics actually promote strategic planning. Strategy is the art of planning and directing movements in a system. While X Wing is a game it is still based on the principles of dogfighting and military skirmishes.

The variable effects within the game mean that every decision is balancing a number of unpredictable events and in order to have the greatest likelihood of achieving your goals.

If the game is purely deterministic then all it is is a relatively simple calculation to determine the only real solution. Chess is close. You have people able to calculate in their heads the best possible solution too hundreds of moves in advance. The only thing is if your opponent plays unexpectedly.

In X Wing it is much more similar to military strategy because no event is certain. The players have to balance all possible outcomes to come up with plans to minimize the bad luck and take the best advantage of good luck.

That said. Tournament settings the players are judged on the base of extremely low number of games. A single loss can ruin their ability to get a big reward so they desire to remove the unpredictability and i feel a large part of the strategy because they don't have to plan how to handle a lot of the unpredictable events.

I dislike competitive games because I want to challenge my mind more trying to figure out what the best course of action would be and I find the deterministic mindset to simple.

You like playing Yahtzee too?!?!

I love the strategic depth of this game, and too much randomness ruins this element. Do not get me wrong, the intrinsic randomness of basic shooting and evading is in fact very necessary and absolutely vital to the game!!

But note: Good list building evolves around reducing the random elements of the game as much as possible (and also eliminating hard counters). Thus the top competitive upgrades do precisely that. No wonder the top upgrades are: Palpatine, Predator, Push-the-limit (more modifiers), Autothrusters, Lone Wolf, Guidance-chip, R4/Overclocked, Conners, and the like.

Upgrades that increase or add randomness have intrinsically less value, and unless they are very low cost or offer an important new capability will see very little competitive play, but are fun for casual play for sure….nah I dont like Yahtzee and I like to win!!

I'd actually posit that the RNG mechanics actually promote strategic planning. Strategy is the art of planning and directing movements in a system. While X Wing is a game it is still based on the principles of dogfighting and military skirmishes.

The variable effects within the game mean that every decision is balancing a number of unpredictable events and in order to have the greatest likelihood of achieving your goals.

If the game is purely deterministic then all it is is a relatively simple calculation to determine the only real solution. Chess is close. You have people able to calculate in their heads the best possible solution too hundreds of moves in advance. The only thing is if your opponent plays unexpectedly.

In X Wing it is much more similar to military strategy because no event is certain. The players have to balance all possible outcomes to come up with plans to minimize the bad luck and take the best advantage of good luck.

That said. Tournament settings the players are judged on the base of extremely low number of games. A single loss can ruin their ability to get a big reward so they desire to remove the unpredictability and i feel a large part of the strategy because they don't have to plan how to handle a lot of the unpredictable events.

I dislike competitive games because I want to challenge my mind more trying to figure out what the best course of action would be and I find the deterministic mindset to simple.

*snip*

I dont like Yahtzee and I like to win!!

But... Your pseudonym is RedHotDice...

WTF!!!! What is this suppose to mean?!!!!

It means your alias is about having good rolling dice and it's ironic that you don't like rolling random dice. If your dice were hot, then the random rolling would be extremely favorable to you. You stated that you don't like rolling a lot of dice...like Yahtzee. This seems contrary to your alias that you picked.

Having luck to counter skill makes a a game more strategic? Uhhhhhh.....

I'm in the middle.

I like random effects (for a long time, Lando was my favorite crew card), but -- and this is key -- the average effect needs to be slightly better (only slightly) than the upgrade's point value, or it's just objectively a bad card (like R5-K6). "Variance" (or "unreliability") is a cost in a game like X-Wing, and that cost needs to be factored into the benefit. Similarly, "reliability" -- such as an upgrade that not only works whenever you need it, but makes it easy to engineer the need for it (e.g., Palpatine) -- needs to be factored into making a card more expensive.

What really pisses me off is when you have a card that strikes the balance reasonably well, like Lando, and then just gut the card. It's not like Lando was tearing up competitions, but it's also not like Lando's inclusion make an otherwise tourney-worthy list untenable. Until, for no goddamn good reason, Lando gets neutered in the latest FAQ. (Sorry for the image, BDW fans.) That's just basically FFG just bending over and grabbing their ankles for the anti-random crowd, who are already disproportionately represented in competitive play. (Note that I didn't say "disproportionately successful," though that may well be true. They are disproportionately represented, for various reasons having to do with more random effects in the game and how people who use them are judged.)

I classify myself as a competitive player, but I like RNG because it adds to the excitement.

In my local gaming group, laughter or "Oh my god!" is usually due to some anomalous RNG result.

And that's absolutely great.

I try not to complain about dice because I'm assuming that the dice average out, even if not in a single game, then across all the hundreds of games I've played.

Having luck to counter skill makes a a game more strategic? Uhhhhhh.....

Being forced to make tactical decisions without perfect knowledge is what forces your mind to exercise is ability to use strategic thought.

If you know the exact outcome of every action then there is only one optimal decision at any given point in time. Following from that action to another means that if both players are playing well then the outcome of the game can be predicted unerringly once the first ship is placed.

When you don't know what the outcome of a single action is then you have to make a decision on the risk/benefits of different options. Do you go in arc of an enemy to try to take a action if there's a 50% chance of it working or do you evade the arc and lose the shot but try to set up a better situation next time.

Without randomness you're just a simple tool moving toys around the board in a pattern building on the first step. With the added randomness though the knowledge of how the game plays out is constantly changing throughout the game meaning that even two people with perfect plays must adapt and over time a person who is better able to adapt to the changing situation produced by RNG's will win consistently.

That said in very small sample pools such as the 4-8 games in a tournament you will get a game lost by a single bad crit or RNG action kills you. In a tournament that hurts your chances but out of 100 games against friends it all balances out and just provides story opportunities.