41 minutes ago, C3gorach said:

The problem i see with X-Wing is that it only has ONE objective, kill or be killed... If they were to add a Mission system that would have different objectives, then most of the problems discussed previously could be solved. Also unused ships/upgrades/combinations would see play again!

Not really? People always say this about epic and missions, but if a ship is good, it's good. Most of the really good ships in this game are mobile, have some kind of defense and have good firepower. Epic, for example, pretty much rewards raw dice efficiency since arc dodging is much more difficult.

Yeah I've never really understood that theory.

I played the first mission of the Hoth campaign against a player who was used to 100/6 deathmatches. He played a Palpatine Decimator and Soontir Fel. This proved to be completely inadequate, because he could not take control of the mines. Squad selection for the second mission is also complex, especially for the Imperial player.

So I do think that changing the objectives can make a huge difference and cause different ships to shine. For example, in the first Hoth mission, it's a good idea to include PS 5 pilots, because they can economically control the mines. So by making some cut-off point for PS you're influencing the entire way the PS bidding war works out. Players then have to adapt their tactical thinking to that.

That's the value of missions.

11 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

deleted

23 hours ago, ForceSensitive said:

@Darth Meanie. I wanted to get back to you on the tractors and ion comment. Am I understanding that you feel I implied that there was a progression to each new mechanic displacing specifically the last one or another previous? If so I must clarify my position. You read my post, but I do not think you know what those words mean ;P Each mechanic released that was wholly new displaced something in the game but never really a specific mechanic at whole. Cloak displaced jouster style ships(was fixed later), tractor did it again. SLAM put a hurt on low maneuverability. Tractor smacks around high agility survivability. Etcetera so on and so forth. In the end they are still Accretion. Where Accretion is defined as new mechanics that are added that are built to work with existing core mechanics and bring new energy to the game while increasing design space. Often leaving other game components behind as no to little effort is ever given to bring them up to par (see FFG errata philosophy)

The thing that bugs at many of the X-wing fan base when it comes to some ships being viable or not is that Fantasy Flight has always pushed the living game format. Any product off the shelf is supposed to be an eternal product, and always a usable and economical purchase. Yes you will have strong and weak components, as in perfect imbalance if you prefer that definition, but so many of any given component in the living design marketing is "supposed" to be just as good. The game is "supposed" to be balanced at 100/6, and with the TIE Swarm as the point of comparison. Obviously it could never pull that off in the long run, but that didn't remove that expectation from the consumers mind.

Up until wave five if someone came into the FLGS and and hey what should I buy? I took great joy in saying dude, get whatever you want to play with to start, we can make it work from there. Now to get them in I'm answering well how competitive, what faction, okay what play style, okay start with these three ships at least, then expand from there into like this and this and maybe these things you said you really like, unless you don't mind losing alot in which case you do you fam. And then they ask me why can't I just play whatever and I'm sitting there like well, start with this flow chart, then there's this equation and... Yeah. Power creep, Accretion, imbalance, doesn't matter. There's a whole shelf of product that should not be a first purchase for a player who seeks anything more than cinematic play. And even then they are iffy. And that's geuss what, Accretion, makes the game good and exciting for existing players and keeps it moving, makes it difficult to get into for new ones.

11 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

You just introduced an alternative definition about accretion design, one that is contrary to the one from the extra credits video ;-)

I agree with SEA here; "Accretion" (and I'm gonna stick with the video definition here), is an intentionality to invalidate old components of the game on the part of the designers. FFG certainly doesn't seem to aim for this, so maybe we need a new term like "aggregation." And "aggregated" design elements don't invalidate the previous design elements, except in the eye of the player who wants to min-max their list into a solid likely-to-win list.

OTOH, I agree with you 100% on the "failure" to create a Living Game.* Again, I don't think that was the intention of FFG, but I cannot see a way that ALL components of an ongoing, growing game can have the same value in the game at all times. It is almost ludicrous to think that it is possible. I think it would be healthier (at least from a psychological stand point (customer expectation)) to acknowledge that either (1.) ships will be powerful at some point and then reach obsolescence (at least for "hardcore" top tier meta), or (2.) every ship will have its day, become outmoded, and maybe return to the top of the heap with a fix (only to again experience senescence). This was a little bit of my point in creating the "alternate classification" scheme of Gladiator/Thematic/Support ships. . .thinking about ships NOT in how they do solely in 100/6, but how they fit into the X-Wing Game as a whole.

Lastly, the difficulty of getting new players into games like this has been a problem since "collectible" began being paired with "game." M:TG started producing Beginner Level versions of the game at about 4th Edition, which, come to think of it, is about at the age that X-Wing has become now.

*And, until you stated your/FFGs definition of "100% Validity At All Times", I would have assumed that Living Game meant "a game that grows and changes over time."

6 hours ago, Panzeh said:

Not really? People always say this about epic and missions, but if a ship is good, it's good. Most of the really good ships in this game are mobile, have some kind of defense and have good firepower. Epic, for example, pretty much rewards raw dice efficiency since arc dodging is much more difficult.

While "if it's good, it's good" is certainly true, "average" ships can become "good" if the parameters of the game are changed.

6 hours ago, Stay On The Leader said:

Yeah I've never really understood that theory.

Have you played Epic? Because the emphasis of the elements of the game changes a lot. For example (beside arc-dodging), Palps and discard effects become a lot less useful.

5 hours ago, Verlaine said:

I played the first mission of the Hoth campaign against a player who was used to 100/6 deathmatches. He played a Palpatine Decimator and Soontir Fel. This proved to be completely inadequate, because he could not take control of the mines. Squad selection for the second mission is also complex, especially for the Imperial player.

So I do think that changing the objectives can make a huge difference and cause different ships to shine. For example, in the first Hoth mission, it's a good idea to include PS 5 pilots, because they can economically control the mines. So by making some cut-off point for PS you're influencing the entire way the PS bidding war works out. Players then have to adapt their tactical thinking to that.

That's the value of missions.

Now, whether these will ever become an element of tournaments to shift the ideas of the meta. . .

i play Epic from time to time and yea the mentality is way different. Generics reign supreme since between your 10-15 ships you got out there, the price cut from the a LOT less impacting unique ships gets you another ship including upgrades entirely. Some uniques are still very useful in epic but generally for different reasons: Jess (T70) pretty much always gets full dice rerolls theres so many allies around, Dark Curse tends to laugh at a lot of people unable to mod against him, and Deathrain (gasp! a punisher!) front-bombs is really hard to avoid with so many ships around.

First time i played Epic my opponent brought all imp aces. He had half the ships i did if not less (imp v imp since i didnt have rebel huge ships at the time). 1-3 more ships than you got, arc-dodging is still possible. When its ~8+ yeah you aint dodging jack buddy. Soontir, Jax, and Vader all died first round. He killed as many ships i did but his were a lot more painful to lose.

On 1/25/2017 at 0:36 PM, Darth Meanie said:

Personally, I think the game could do well to step back from trying to beat each Wave with the next and instead explore other elements of the game . . .for example, storytelling and missions.

Yes this, and in case I wasn't clear this right here ^

100/6, Epic, Missions etc. all set some parameters for 'winning'. This means that, within this parameters, some ships will be better than others. If Epic and Missions were widespread enough, they too would have a meta, and there's no guarantee a given ship will be good on one of the metas. It's perfectly possible for a ship to be bad in 100/6, bad in Epic and bad in missions, just like it's possible for a ship to be good in all 3.

15 hours ago, Ken at Sunrise said:

Yes this, and in case I wasn't clear this right here ^

Personally, I kinda think storytelling should be left to RPGs. FFG already has a Star Wars RPG, a pretty good one, too.

I would honestly be down with missions if the game were designed with them more integrally but it really isn't right now. Armada does fine with missions though I think in that game you tend to see the same ones competitively.

2 hours ago, Panzeh said:

Personally, I kinda think storytelling should be left to RPGs. FFG already has a Star Wars RPG, a pretty good one, too.

I would honestly be down with missions if the game were designed with them more integrally but it really isn't right now. Armada does fine with missions though I think in that game you tend to see the same ones competitively.

Just because RPGs exist it does not follow that stories have no place in a miniatures game. As a counterexample, it would be daft to say that combat has no place in RPGs because there are miniature skirmish games.

4 hours ago, LordBlades said:

100/6, Epic, Missions etc. all set some parameters for 'winning'. This means that, within this parameters, some ships will be better than others. If Epic and Missions were widespread enough, they too would have a meta, and there's no guarantee a given ship will be good on one of the metas. It's perfectly possible for a ship to be bad in 100/6, bad in Epic and bad in missions, just like it's possible for a ship to be good in all 3.

Why does it have to be all or nothing? The idea here would be that if a ship has value in at least one of those scenarios, it is a "good" ship.

Gladiators are good in 100/6. Thematic ships are good in Epic and missions.

What you buy depends on what style you like to play. And, far more importantly, would up some design space for ships that are not pure 100/6 Gladiators.

Xwing with missions would be intersting but the stat system is just too simple for the ship hierarchy to change

Some ships are simplymathematically more efficient

It isnt like armada where you can have giant clunkers with massive but close range guns threatening zones or fast nippy long-range buggers racing to pick up objectives. In both cases in xwing, youd just have x7s as theyre fast and great damage soaks with the same or better offense as the vast majority of ships in the game

You need a more complex system where ships become more efficient relative to one another depending on range and/or other distinguishing features

28 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

Some ships are simplymathematically more efficient

This is not true because of the Wild Card Poker Paradox, which also influences X-Wing. Briefly, it goes like this: if you introduce a wild card in poker (which can have any chosen value) then some combinations become more likely then some less valuable combinations. This means that their values have to be switched relatively. But then that means that the now more valuable combination becomes more desirable, and more likely because you're always going to use the wild card for the more valuable combination. Thus, introducing a wild card makes it mathematically impossible to attach values to card combinations.

X-Wing has many wild cards, because the player chooses how certain abilities will be used. The player will use them to achieve the game's victory conditions. By changing the victory conditions, you change the way the abilities are used and how useful the various combinations are, which influences how easy it is to win. This changes the mathematical efficiency of the ships.

1 hour ago, Darth Meanie said:

Why does it have to be all or nothing? The idea here would be that if a ship has value in at least one of those scenarios, it is a "good" ship.

Gladiators are good in 100/6. Thematic ships are good in Epic and missions.

What you buy depends on what style you like to play. And, far more importantly, would up some design space for ships that are not pure 100/6 Gladiators.

My point was that,even if you open up more types of games,there will still be good ships and bad ships for them, and there still isn't any guarantee some ships won't still be bad at everything.

2 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

Why does it have to be all or nothing? The idea here would be that if a ship has value in at least one of those scenarios, it is a "good" ship.

Gladiators are good in 100/6. Thematic ships are good in Epic and missions.

What you buy depends on what style you like to play. And, far more importantly, would up some design space for ships that are not pure 100/6 Gladiators.

Okay, i'll bite. Describe the attributes of a good "Thematic" ship. What kind of things make a ship "Thematic".

5 minutes ago, Panzeh said:

Okay, i'll bite. Describe the attributes of a good "Thematic" ship. What kind of things make a ship "Thematic".

I'm guessing good thematic ships are one's who accuratly portray their in-universe counterparts. For Instance, I think most if not all of the TIE class ships are well done thematic wise, excpet the SF, which for all intesive purposes should manuver like a standard FO.

26 minutes ago, LordBlades said:

My point was that,even if you open up more types of games,there will still be good ships and bad ships for them, and there still isn't any guarantee some ships won't still be bad at everything.

True, but now it has a 1-in-3 chance instead of a 1-in-1 chance.

14 minutes ago, Panzeh said:

Okay, i'll bite. Describe the attributes of a good "Thematic" ship. What kind of things make a ship "Thematic".

7 minutes ago, Sir Orrin said:

I'm guessing good thematic ships are one's who accuratly portray their in-universe counterparts. For Instance, I think most if not all of the TIE class ships are well done thematic wise, excpet the SF, which for all intesive purposes should manuver like a standard FO.

This ^. Ships like the TIE Punisher that should be big ship busters, not dogfighters. Or, all of the tramp freighters that have been lamented as way too maneuverable in the game and can outfly space superiority fighters.

More importantly, they are ships, that since they portray their in-universe counterparts well, do not do well in 100/6 but would work just fine in "thematic" battles--Missions, Campaigns, and Epic.

Which, OTOH is not to say that some of these ships should not be more "heroic" (for example, the Millennium Falcon vs. a generic YT-1300); all it would need is a nice buff title.

2 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

True, but now it has a 1-in-3 chance instead of a 1-in-1 chance.

That's debatable. FFG right now designs ships for 100/6, and sometimes they fail. Few of those failed ships are good in other formats, most likely by pure coincidence (AFAIK there's never been any indication FFG designed anything but Epic ships and upgrades with something else than 100/6 in mind).

If they start designig ships for other things, some will fail, and only by pure coincidence few of them will be good in a format they weren't intended for.

Therefore I think your assesmeny is way too optimistic.

They should leave standard play alone. As far as metagames, diversity and balance goes, it's very good right now compared to more popular games.

I do agree they should appeal to casual players more. Why can't there be multiple formats? Epic should be a sanctioned format with its own support and I think there should be a "gateway" format where only the latest four to six waves are ever legal. It would cut down on startup investment, remove problematic design over time which would consequently open up the number of playable ships.

Over time, players would gravitate towards the rotating format since it's the only way to balance expanding games over time. Most of the player's issues would be easily addressed in the design space of smaller cycles. Competitive players would gravitate there as it'll naturally see more play than the other formats. No player would be displaced because there would be a format for everyone.

While it's legal, I'll play the best stuff but I have no aversion to playing a rotating format with "better" balance. I say "better" because balance and design-wise, it's actually pretty good right now. Yes, it displaces some players because of what or how they like to play but from a balance and skill perspective, it's better now than most other times in the past. I also understand that over time, it will become impossible to balance the game without rotation. I just love the game and will play whichever format would be most competitive. The way you fix perceived problems is multiple formats. One format just won't please everybody.

I like the "aggregation" aspect. As a person who shunned BBBBZ back in the day and even flew B's last year in regional (the over-costed elite kind) I may have a slightly different perspective. What I use to do back in the day (improve efficiency of dice - because I should never play dice games) is now easier with many different ships and combinations. So is there creep? Sure...but not outside the bounds of the game. Problem. New content have left the original thematic core ships (Wave 1-4) inadequate.

BUT, there IS an unacceptable mechanics creep. SCUM large ships. This will become a problem in the future as more design space is filled. All those green and white moves damage the game in two aspects, Thematic and Mechanics. Wave 1-4 ships just can't compete maneuver wise. Basically, nearly all older ships have been neutered. I get the designers prefer Scum over all the other factions but this is getting to the point of ridiculous.
Another is Scum Crew Cards. They are under-costed if compared to Rebel and the nearly non-existent Imperial (unless you play Epic). With lower costs the combinations increase changing the play testing and options.

For a Draft League I made some Fun Pilot Cards for the players in the league and I could not believe how much awesomeness the Scum maintains, especially with Crew cards. In fact, with new players who want to be competitive, I point out to Scum and tell them to buy the 5-7 boxes that give them nearly ALL options (except Bro-Bots).

I like Scum but please stop the mechanic and crew creep.

Thank you.

On 1/28/2017 at 6:30 AM, Panzeh said:

Personally, I kinda think storytelling should be left to RPGs. FFG already has a Star Wars RPG, a pretty good one, too.

Perhaps that is your tastes and there's nothing wrong with that. But there are plenty of miniature games out there. But some specifically got into this one because of the Star Wars feel to it.

I have not had time to read the entire thread so this may have been pointed out already, but people need to remember that the early game was not balanced at all and the power creep we have seen has been a deliberate attempt to add more diversity to the number of viable lists.

The core set was where it started. TIE fighters were way more efficient points wise than the X-wing and the available EPT's did not make taking elite pilots worth it. In addition, torpedoes were obviously mathematically inefficient and added virtually nothing to a list. This was before FFG realized that X-wing would go on to become the #1 game in the wargame market and so things were not playtested to the level they are now. TIE fighter swarms or Biggs based rebel lists ruled supreme on the competitive scene.

The designers saw that they needed to make named pilots worth taking to break the endless boring swarm meta and so over the next three or four waves we saw a dramatic improvement in named pilot abilities and EPT options. Torpedoes have been brought up to par through extra munitions and guidance chips so that they are actually worth taking now.

TL;DR version: The 12 point TIE fighter was broken since the core set and the designers have deliberately crept the power curve up to bring everything else on par with it.

18 minutes ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

TL;DR version

Paint me stoopud, but 1 year later and I still can't figure out what this abbreviation means.