4 hours ago, Eye of Thokem said:

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This is it folks! The End Times have come to X-Wing!

The good news is, FFG have moved their X-Wing design and production facilities to Hosnian Prime. That's got to be good news right?

Right?

Oh nuts! I guess I'll just pack my bags and find a new hobby interest.

Actually that would be 40K with the destruction of Cadia and t

I still like both games but there was sort of an element of fun that has been lost.

Troubling trend? This is a good trend! Certainly, some enemy dice mitigation cards may go a little far, but cards like Juke and Crack Shot have blunted the annoying trend from the old game a few years back when good moves and tactics could still not kill a Phantom.

If a 4TLT player catches an ace in all four turrets or a Ghost catches an enemy at R1 with an Autoblaster Turret, they probably should some results for their trouble.

14 minutes ago, numb3rc said:

Troubling trend? This is a good trend! Certainly, some enemy dice mitigation cards may go a little far, but cards like Juke and Crack Shot have blunted the annoying trend from the old game a few years back when good moves and tactics could still not kill a Phantom.

If a 4TLT player catches an ace in all four turrets or a Ghost catches an enemy at R1 with an Autoblaster Turret, they probably should some results for their trouble.

So let me ask you this. Would X-wing be a better game if you just remove the dice completely? (Do something like double hull shield value or every 3rd damage flips the 2nd card face up). If you had X-wing with no dice, just stats and damage cards, would it be better?

I'm split on this. I think it's okay if dice don't matter sometimes. If the opponent roles all blanks and can't modify, I won't bother rolling the greens. Or some upgrades should limit dice--I'm okay with that. But I also remember reading a thread here where one person said something along the lines of "you'll have to have blank, blank, and blank just to have a 97% of getting a hit" which seemed wrong to me. Not the math, but the idea that the particular ship made it hard to have guaranteed hits.

(note: this was from a different conversation about a different issue and i'm not attacking that person, who, iirc, was more focused on the math of that ship than the issue in this thread)

I guess what seemed wrong was the idea that X ship/upgrade combo is OP if it takes a bunch of tokens, etc. to get a guaranteed hit. Most of the time, it should be hard to get a guaranteed hit. I like chance being part of the game, even if it means my FIVE evade dice fail me and my protectorate gets effing destroyed. And we need upgrades/abilities that giveth tokens and those that taketh away.

One nice trend I've notice in my FLGS group is that the pilot skill race is no longer in effect.

42 minutes ago, Marinealver said:

So let me ask you this. Would X-wing be a better game if you just remove the dice completely? (Do something like double hull shield value or every 3rd damage flips the 2nd card face up). If you had X-wing with no dice, just stats and damage cards, would it be better?

The current game wouldn't support it - you'd need much higher stats for everything for one.

But I'm fine with a little uncertainty.

Not remove them completely. But good manouvering should be awarded. If you have a ship in range 1 of one of mine and have focus + TL then I wouldn't have anything against it if there was some rule that gives you a free hit. Because I had it in my hands. I could've outmanouvered you. Also I wouldn't be put off by giving a free evade at range 3 instead of the additional die.
This would lead to manouvering becoming more important, than token stacking.
Outmanouvering should be the main part of a dogfighting game, shouldn't it?

The game IS after all primarily about maneuvering predictions over dice. Part of the reason i love it is a large aspect of the game IS NOT solid RNG. Thats kinda the big reason i stopped playing 40k, not because GW is a prick or money is too tight: it felt like all i did was place models, move models, hope i dont roll 1s. No matter how hard i tried it always just felt like pure luck to win. Even using the complete joker units i could pull wins not because i am an amazing player but because OMG SO MANY SIXES ROLLED LOL!! and i despise that.

Some dice is needed. It not only adds an element to a game that otherwise needs a computer program but it adds a flare of "Oooh whats gonna happen?" - as long as it isnt 40k level of crazy where the difference between a 1 and a 6 on a D6 is "utter destruction of your unit w/o save" or "your unit is now a god"

Me and a buddy floated the idea between us when we were discussing Battletech lately, about how the game would look, if, instead of accuracy and damage rolled into one dice roll, ships had an accuracy value and a damage value. For example, a ship like the TIE Fighter would have a very high accuracy value, as the chin lasers are grouped tight and close to the center, and are easy to aim, but of course low damage value, the principle being that if one laser hits, the other one usually will as well.. Meanwhile, an X-Wing would have a slightly lower accuracy due to how spread the lasers are, but higher damage potential, contrasting to the TIE Fighter in that you're less likely to land all lasers on the target, but it'll still do more damage overall.

So we were mostly discussing fixed damage values, like it is in Battletech, which spurred the conversation. You roll to hit based on accuracy values vs. agility, then deal fixed damage, plus or minus 1 or so depending on the results. Like, for example, say you hit, but only one hit result got through. That'd be a glancing blow and deal 1 less damage. Likewise, if you hit and not a single hit result was canceled, deal 1 damage as a crit. Going off of the earlier examples, TIE Fighters with, say, an accuracy value of 3 or 4 will usually hit and almost never be reduced to having only 1 hit get through, so it'll usually deal full damage and have a higher chance to do a crit,(but a low value for balance) whereas an X-Wing would be 2 or 3 accuracy and risk only floating one hit through and losing a bit of damage.

This is almost certainly something that would have to come through a complete game redesign, ala X-Wing 2.0. It's actually relatively similar to something i've been working on for quite some time as a more "granular", as my friend would put it, version of X-Wing, with the exception that you merely add on another roll of dice to see which part of the craft gets hit. Using the Battletech example, X-Wing as it is now is like Alpha Strike; my version is very similar in scope to the full Battletech game.

On ‎2‎/‎1‎/‎2017 at 4:59 PM, Vineheart01 said:

The game IS after all primarily about maneuvering predictions over dice. Part of the reason i love it is a large aspect of the game IS NOT solid RNG. Thats kinda the big reason i stopped playing 40k, not because GW is a prick or money is too tight: it felt like all i did was place models, move models, hope i dont roll 1s. No matter how hard i tried it always just felt like pure luck to win. Even using the complete joker units i could pull wins not because i am an amazing player but because OMG SO MANY SIXES ROLLED LOL!! and i despise that.

Some dice is needed. It not only adds an element to a game that otherwise needs a computer program but it adds a flare of "Oooh whats gonna happen?" - as long as it isnt 40k level of crazy where the difference between a 1 and a 6 on a D6 is "utter destruction of your unit w/o save" or "your unit is now a god"

I had the opposite problem in 40k. No matter how many sixes I rolled, and according to my friends it was a ridiculously large percentage, I still lost. Like every game. I think in 40k it was the army building phase that really defined your chances of winning. If you had the right codex and the right units, your odds started at something like 7:1 for the win, but if you didn't optimize your list or played a less recent codex, it could swing the other way depending on your opponent's list and require mad luck to not get stomped.

I think X-wing has started down that road of list building winning games, most notably with torp scouts a while ago, though you could make a case for a number of catalysts like Palpatine, Autothrusters, Fel, Fat Han, or even TIE swarms. Thankfully, it's not as obvious and pervasive as it seemed in 40k and FFG is not afraid to errata cards to fix balance mistakes (Deadeye), though the JM5K is still a force to be reckoned with. it's dial is perhaps too good.

I have long advocated for decoupling accuracy from damage. In my opinion, there is no greater place to do that than ordnance. New torps and missles would roll a certain number of dice to hit, then if it hits, deal a set amount of damage, or roll a different number of dice for damage. What if a proton torpedo, if it hits, does 3 hits and a crit automatically.

i feel if the hull values were a bit higher that would be a good idea. But theres too many ships that would just flatout 1shot....and insanely cripple the rest.