.

I like Mynock, they're probably my favorite podcast about X-Wing right now, but this episode wasn't really to my taste as a newer player (for which I loved recent episodes like the Epic coverage and the one on starting buying). Maybe it's just because I use the forums regularly, but from a passive sense it gets dull to hear the same opinions of varying chicken-little levels over and over again. I like the game as is, I hope it continues to grow and explore more design space - I think at it's heart most of the time its still got a low introduction curve for people with any experience in other tabletop game hobbies and simple tactile understanding and enjoyment if you just like tiny plastic spaceships. And I don't know how many people play X-Wing, but I'm willing to bet money there are less steady players than estimated audiences for some of the stuff ships have been pulled from. While that's not a film which has existed for literally 40 years numbers levels of exposure it's pretty good. Obviously the game can improve - I mean, what human creation can't?

But y'know, between the cycle of production it's not like improvements can come instantly, even FAQ fixes probably need to go through revision, testing - pick the right timing to drop a new rule, etc. Nor is 2.0 a magic wand (though I think Mynock is a little less pushy with that idea than some other groups. That's just, like, the name for the theoretical in the community). Change comes, it comes deliberately and actually some players want it to come even more deliberately. Me I want more plastic crack. Everybody's boring me to death with their talk about the same **** from Wave X already - I want to know what stuff they'll bore me to death with next!

And, to mix metaphors here - Overwatch is but one video game, but I expect and have an entirely different play experience playing VS Easy AI or some goofy Arcade modes to grind loot boxes then I do when I pop into Competitive mode to play against "skill matched" players from all over the server region looking for a serious competition.

5 hours ago, LordBlades said:

For many people Star Wars is mainly about the movies, so in that context Rebels ships aren't exactly recognizable as Star Wars.

Yes, Rebels is technically canon,but it likely has significantly lower (probably by orders of magnitude) audience numbers compared to the movies.

In that context, if you step into a store during the cut of a tournament as a casual SF fan, odds are the only ship you will immediately recognize is the Lambda Shittle. Everything else you're likely to see is either from Rebels (Lancer, Protectorate) or EU (JM5k, Defenders, K-Wings, E-Wings)

To be really pedantic, TIE Defenders are now in Rebels

I think the game is still largely recognizable. While the Scum ships will give pause to anyone not versed in the EU, ALL Empire ships are instantly recognizable as being Star Wars, if only because they have that round cockpit and weird wings in different arrays. Ships without that cockpit are the Lambda shuttle, the Upsilon shuttle and the Slave-I. For the Rebels, I agree K-wings, E-wings, the HWK-290 are not recognizable, but the rest are actually most of them movie ships!

2 hours ago, UnitOmega said:

I like Mynock, they're probably my favorite podcast about X-Wing right now, but this episode wasn't really to my taste as a newer player (for which I loved recent episodes like the Epic coverage and the one on starting buying). Maybe it's just because I use the forums regularly, but from a passive sense it gets dull to hear the same opinions of varying chicken-little levels over and over again. I like the game as is, I hope it continues to grow and explore more design space - I think at it's heart most of the time its still got a low introduction curve for people with any experience in other tabletop game hobbies and simple tactile understanding and enjoyment if you just like tiny plastic spaceships. And I don't know how many people play X-Wing, but I'm willing to bet money there are less steady players than estimated audiences for some of the stuff ships have been pulled from. While that's not a film which has existed for literally 40 years numbers levels of exposure it's pretty good. Obviously the game can improve - I mean, what human creation can't?

But y'know, between the cycle of production it's not like improvements can come instantly, even FAQ fixes probably need to go through revision, testing - pick the right timing to drop a new rule, etc. Nor is 2.0 a magic wand (though I think Mynock is a little less pushy with that idea than some other groups. That's just, like, the name for the theoretical in the community). Change comes, it comes deliberately and actually some players want it to come even more deliberately. Me I want more plastic crack. Everybody's boring me to death with their talk about the same **** from Wave X already - I want to know what stuff they'll bore me to death with next!

And, to mix metaphors here - Overwatch is but one video game, but I expect and have an entirely different play experience playing VS Easy AI or some goofy Arcade modes to grind loot boxes then I do when I pop into Competitive mode to play against "skill matched" players from all over the server region looking for a serious competition.

Yeah I think a couple of them were nostalgia tripping, though it's mentioned in passing that for the first three waves, the TIE swarm was pretty much the best list in the game. Most upgrades weren't worth the points and it took a lot of things coming together with the later packs to make upgrades more worthwhile. I would dare them to bring, say, a group of four tie advanceds without the raider upgrades and hope to win against pretty much anything else.

Great thread guys, I have enjoyed the banter. Great thoughts! I think the state of X-Wing is not only a current topic that rises to the top of the lists from time to time, but it is essential for the game's health. As a dovetail to this OP, the latest episode of The Shuttle Tydirium also has a wonderful rant that very much fits in, albeit a bit more passionate, with a restraining bolt loose, haha:

https://shuttletydirium.podbean.com/

7 hours ago, EastCoast said:

Well gosh, thanks for telling us what you think is wrong and stupid about a podcast you didn't listen to.

Luckily for me, I clearly don't have to spend the time listening to it since it has been aptly summarised repeatedly - the prevailing notion is less one of a detailed and interesting discussion on the state of the game, and more of a whinge about how it isn't 'the good old days' (where all we had were X-Wings and TIE Fighters, and we liked it) any more.

Given that I've heard the same old complaints before, in an entirely seperate X-Wing podcast, I'm hardly inclined to spend the time to verify the exact content of this one, which in turn the gentlemen at Mynock might or might not find useful as feedback as to why I chose not to do so.

Either way, I can't help but feel that my contribution to this thread, however poorly I set the tone of it, is a lot more relevant to the topic at hand than your snide remark.

When they finally get to it, I completely agree, timing windows and weird combination triggers is the wrong turn for the game. Used to be a game I played to relax after work, have some fun, dog fights with some cool ships. Now its who has the best understanding of the timing chart and built lists that get the max out of weird combos, half the time clearly not intended to work like that. Like Bossk being able trigger both IG-88 and gunner etc etc. I have been feeling the same game play fatique for a long time. I really like the new Tie Striker, it takes me back to when it was about the flying, a shame it was designed for a game that was, maybe two years ago?

2 hours ago, chilligan said:

To be really pedantic, TIE Defenders are now in Rebels

I think the game is still largely recognizable. While the Scum ships will give pause to anyone not versed in the EU, ALL Empire ships are instantly recognizable as being Star Wars, if only because they have that round cockpit and weird wings in different arrays. Ships without that cockpit are the Lambda shuttle, the Upsilon shuttle and the Slave-I. For the Rebels, I agree K-wings, E-wings, the HWK-290 are not recognizable, but the rest are actually most of them movie ships!

To be even more pedantic, we have yet to see an actual Defender 'in the flesh' in Rebels

It's a good point however that most Empire ships are recognizable. A TIE Defender is easy to recognize as some kind of TIE Fighter.

That being said, I wasn't really talking about the game in general ( I think it's pretty recognizable as a whole), but about what's competitive at the moment. Apart from Imperials, I don't think the top tier competitive squads of the other factions are very recognizable, taking a look at http://stayontheleader.blogspot.ro/2017/02/many-bothans-died-to-bring-us-this.html?m=1 for example.

I think the 'nostalgia' is part of it, but at the same time the game has clearly changed a lot recently and many players who previously enjoyed it are finding that they don't enjoy the current shape of it. That seems a valid concern to air.

I think X-Wing in particular pulls us on emotional levels as much as rational. For many of us we want to be playing with TIE Fighters and X-Wings because we want to playing Star Wars. I don't think many of us got into the game because somebody said "hey man, check out X-Wing because it's actually pretty balanced" but because we looked at the Millenium Falcon expansion on the shelf and went "I MUST HAVE THIS GAME RIGHT NOW, OMG!".

When you got into "a game about Star Wars and maneuvering" and find that it's now "a game about squadbuilding and things people have told you are in Star Wars even though you've never heard of them yourself" then it's fair to realise that you're not enjoying it as much, and wonder quite how you got from A to B and can we go back to A now please?

.

There are many reasons for banning cards, not just for power level.

You seem a nice guy. Strong empathy score.

Mynocks are my favorite podcast (best combination of personality, quality, and frequency). It makes me sad that they've got a case of the X-wing blues.

Dr. Biophysical's* prescription is to do what he does:

1.) Pick a ship that you think is neat.

2.) Play the crap out of it, dissecting all power matchups by playing both sides to know your strongest opposition inside and out.

3.) Do better than you probably have any right to do with you jank squad. You probably won't win a Regional, but Ryan probably gets his templates.

When I write it down, this sounds more boring than it is, well, at least to me.

*a real doctor, but not of medicine, psychology, or X-wing, so ymmv

49 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

I think the 'nostalgia' is part of it, but at the same time the game has clearly changed a lot recently and many players who previously enjoyed it are finding that they don't enjoy the current shape of it. That seems a valid concern to air.

Absolutely. But there's also players who enjoy it more now than ever before. (That would be me, for example.)

10 hours ago, Marinealver said:

Well many people are ruminating over the game so Mynock are not just the only ones. Even Dee the writer for Dave the Direman expressed concerned that people don't recognize the models you see on your typical X-wing table as something associated with Star Wars.

You do realize that the Dee you mention here is the same one on the podcast, or did I miss the joke? But yes, it seems that every major podcast and a lot of longtime players are sharing similar concerns about the game.

14 hours ago, player346259 said:

The last episode was frankly unbearable. It's understandable if you have a down time or don't enjoy the current meta, but all that whining gets really old, really fast..

If you don't enjoy the game at the moment, I recommend to recharge your batteries by doing something else and come back later.

There is a lot of people who are enjoying the game, and none of them is interested in listening or reading the same complains all over again.

I think it's totally understandable that someone didn't like this. But, to be fair to the podcast, it was really clear in so many ways where they were going from the description and the start, so if you continued or expected something different, that's kind of on you. Also, I thought that they went through several different areas beyond just the meta (and I think this was actually the least of their concerns).

9 hours ago, Marinealver said:

Not everyone watches Rebels, but most people do watch the movies. Still the latest movies are not as iconic as the original X-wing and TIE Fighter. Then again there are people that are familiar with Star Wars but still don't know what a B-wing is. But yeah not everyone is watching $tar War$, even those who like or are fans of the Star Wars movie.

Displacement is a part of Accretion as new stuff essentially replaces old stuff. Yeah that could be considered a form of power creep and you wouldn't be wrong.

So by change the battlefield do you mean add in objectives? As for now the standard elimination is the easiest to balance because you can figure average damage output to defense. (hence Jousting Values). You don't exactly have jousting values with Armada because of all the different variables and game doesn't often end in tabling opponent although that is still a common scenario.

Well, if that level of recognition is required, FFG ran out of ships a loooooong time ago.

Mathwing is exactly what is stunting this game. Since you have a set playing field, it is a non-variable. Then, you can solve for X (-wing) [ha ha!].

So, by change the battlefield, I mean make the playing field PART of the list building, if you will. Objectives is one possibility. Changing the number of asteroids up or down is another. Seismic torps and dumped cargo debris were moves in this direction, and I think we need more of them. But I'm talking even bigger effects like nebulae that reduce target locks, or atmospheric battle that change agility, or derelict Epic ships instead of asteroids, not deploying along the opposing table edges, a token that inhabits an asteroid with a space slug that attacks nearby ships, stationary point-defense satellites (essentially non-mobile ships), or whatever. And these effects would be condition cards that cost points that players add to their list totals so that they can influence the outcome of the battle before the battle is even joined.

This sort of modification of the battlefield would encourage diverse list building in 2 ways: (1) you would build a list to take advantage of your battlefield effect, and (2) you would need to be more of a generalist since you have no idea what will happen on the table.

Because for X-Wing right now, there is one strategy and one strategy only: kill enemy ships as effectively as possible in and amongst 6 obstacles. There is no other play style available, and thus there is less creativity.

11 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

Well, if that level of recognition is required, FFG ran out of ships a loooooong time ago.

Mathwing is exactly what is stunting this game. Since you have a set playing field, it is a non-variable. Then, you can solve for X (-wing) [ha ha!].

So, by change the battlefield, I mean make the playing field PART of the list building, if you will. Objectives is one possibility. Changing the number of asteroids up or down is another. Seismic torps and dumped cargo debris were moves in this direction, and I think we need more of them. But I'm talking even bigger effects like nebulae that reduce target locks, or atmospheric battle that change agility, or derelict Epic ships instead of asteroids, not deploying along the opposing table edges, or whatever. And these effects would be condition cards that cost points that players add to their list totals so that they can influence the outcome of the battle before the battle is even joined.

This sort of modification of the battlefield would encourage diverse list building in 2 ways: (1) you would build a list to take advantage of your battlefield effect, and (2) you would need to be more of a generalist since you have no idea what will happen on the table.

Because for X-Wing right now, there is one strategy and one strategy only: kill enemy ships as effectively as possible in and amongst 6 obstacles. There is no other play style available, and thus there is less creativity.

I honestly think the modern meta lists are pretty versatile and have a lot of different plays in different positions. It's generally the bad ships that do one thing and one thing only.

1 hour ago, Panzeh said:

I honestly think the modern meta lists are pretty versatile and have a lot of different plays in different positions. It's generally the bad ships that do one thing and one thing only.

Ok, fine, and I don't necessarily disagree with this, but I think a lot of people are still finding the game stagnating. But where do you go from here? Revisit every Wave 1-2 ship with a fix? Create new ships with one-off abilities? Fill in the missing PS slots of ships that exist? More ships like the current ones to prevent power creep? Ongoing accretion?

I think that with 50+ ships available, it is time to explore design space that is not ship-related, and this may even "fix" ships that don't see tournament play.

I have to admit that I was talking with 2 friends after some games last night. One of them is fed up with the game right now. He even plays things on the more casual scene, but the latest power creep is definitely a thing. There are just some really broken stuff out these days. There are some ships that really just don't have much of a place in the meta these days. Even for casual X-wing, it's gotten a bit silly as some of the OP bleeds into non-tournaments. Expertise with TLT's was the case last night. It's just frustrating to a lot of people.

As for the people saying that it sounds like a lot of old men whining about the good ole days...when did you actually start playing? I've been playing the game since Wave 1 and it used to be more fun. There has definitely been a shift in the game that has been going on for years. I think it's recently hit a certain threshold where even tournament goers are really fed up with it. If you haven't been around to see it, you aren't really qualified to say much on the game as you are just coming into it.

2 hours ago, Biophysical said:

Mynocks are my favorite podcast (best combination of personality, quality, and frequency). It makes me sad that they've got a case of the X-wing blues.

Dr. Biophysical's* prescription is to do what he does:

1.) Pick a ship that you think is neat.

2.) Play the crap out of it, dissecting all power matchups by playing both sides to know your strongest opposition inside and out.

3.) Do better than you probably have any right to do with you jank squad. You probably won't win a Regional, but Ryan probably gets his templates.

When I write it down, this sounds more boring than it is, well, at least to me.

*a real doctor, but not of medicine, psychology, or X-wing, so ymmv

Huh. That probably explains why I don't have the blues: I have been DYING for Kylo Ren's shuttle to make it into this game, and now that it's here, I plan to play it, and play it until its wings fall off (the Force forbid that should ever happen).

But I also want to revisit Alpha Fleet Officer and see how it does currently. Man, not enough time for all the X-wing I want!

2 hours ago, Stay On The Leader said:

There are many reasons for banning cards, not just for power level.

You seem a nice guy. Strong empathy score.

Bans are an extreme measure that should only be undertaken when the game has been completely taken over by a card or tactic. Handing out a ban to whatever happens to be on the top of the heap is both lazy and very damaging to a game.

Attanni only recently entered the spotlight, and the community seemed to have earlier dismissed it as bad. I think you did a lot of great work in that article, but have to agree that the balance changes you've proposed were highly hyperbolic. There's a wide field of competitive viability, banning two things that recently rose to the top is a knee-jerk reaction.

2 hours ago, player346259 said:

Sorry, there is no way back in the living customizable game.

The game will never be the same as it was 6 waves ago, and neither it should attempt to.

There are some valid balance concerns currently, which I'm sure will be addressed by developers.

But by the very nature of evolving and living game, the complexity of squad building is ever increasing just based on the increasing number of upgrade cards and combinations.

There have always been balance issues in the game. Alex Davy is on record saying that in wave 1 the game was not in a good place, because the TIE Swarm was such a dominant list. The developers have long been trying to get game balance to "a better state", but I think most people vastly underestimate how difficult a task it is to design a set of ships that are all competitively useful without simultaneously creating power creep. Thus far they have not really been successful at achieving both. Ship designs are largely hit or miss competitively, with some ships not being competitively viable (especially vanilla generics for several years now), while others push the game's power curve upwards.

The increasing number of permutations of combos is inevitable, but makes the balance problem exponentially more difficult.

1 hour ago, Darth Meanie said:

Mathwing is exactly what is stunting this game. Since you have a set playing field, it is a non-variable. Then, you can solve for X (-wing) [ha ha!].

So, by change the battlefield, I mean make the playing field PART of the list building, if you will. Objectives is one possibility.

I like the idea of adding objectives. However the victory conditions in many objective scenarios can still devolve into "solution by deathmatch", so you still need the game to be well balanced. Mathematical analysis is ultimately only a method of predicting (useful for design) and explaining (useful for post-mortem analysis after a wave releases) what's actually going on in high level tables. Even if MathWing analysis didn't exist, the same ships would end up seeing success on the top tables anyway. In that sense, MathWing isn't stunting the game, it's just telling you what the real problem is.

10 minutes ago, PiebeatsCake said:

Bans are an extreme measure that should only be undertaken when the game has been completely taken over by a card or tactic. Handing out a ban to whatever happens to be on the top of the heap is both lazy and very damaging to a game.

Attanni only recently entered the spotlight, and the community seemed to have earlier dismissed it as bad. I think you did a lot of great work in that article, but have to agree that the balance changes you've proposed were highly hyperbolic. There's a wide field of competitive viability, banning two things that recently rose to the top is a knee-jerk reaction.

Attani entered the fray pretty much as soon as cost-effective scum ships with good green moves became available. Push The Limit has been in the fray since it was printed, carried by any cost -effective ship with good green moves. And it's about the way these two upgrades in particular discriminate against half the ships in the game that don't have the greens to use them. That's a bad thing. The 'late blooming' of Attani Mindlink basically serves to prove why it's a problem, not that it's fine as it is.

And bans have had significant positive effects in Magic pretty much every single time they've been used.

Mynock Podcast hits the nail....

... into my head.

Seriously, I have nothing but love and respect for podcasters, but the detour into Banterbury was a bit much.

.

18 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

Attani entered the fray pretty much as soon as cost-effective scum ships with good green moves became available. Push The Limit has been in the fray since it was printed, carried by any cost -effective ship with good green moves. And it's about the way these two upgrades in particular discriminate against half the ships in the game that don't have the greens to use them. That's a bad thing. The 'late blooming' of Attani Mindlink basically serves to prove why it's a problem, not that it's fine as it is.

And bans have had significant positive effects in Magic pretty much every single time they've been used.

Let's just ban every action economy upgrade. Sounds good!