10 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

The thing is, what makes the Jumpmaster viable in all those roles is that it's way more cost-efficient than anything else in the game so it's allowed to be an all-rounder because it's all-round better than anything else for the cost.

Make other stuff as good as the Jumpmaster and the Jumpmaster becomes the unplayed 'all-rounder' that the T-65 is.

It's the only cost efficient 2-die pwt in the game. We could go and nerf it down and work to ensure that every ship takes one action per round but then every ship becomes a boring POS and the game becomes more mathematical than before.

To be fair, the contracted scout is a bit over the top, but honestly I would have left the price the same and made it PS1 and left everything else intact. Manaroo is the only support ship that works consistently other than Palpshuttle, etc. The other support ships in the game should be more like Manaroo if they want to get played. The range restrictions tend to force them into the fight where their lack of cost-efficiency harms them.

14 hours ago, PremiumGoldLeaderDeluxe said:

I really don't see why people would be objected to this idea - its not taking away anything, its making the game more inclusive for players who feel that the current tournament structure is far too restrictive and only allows for one type of play in what has been shown to be an incredibly versatile game.

Why I don't exactly disagree with your general point, I disagree with this part.

There's no strong indication that FFG has the design, production, organized play and playtesting capacity to keep supporting 100/6 to the level they are now and simply start supporting other formats more.

IMO there's a realistic possibility that more support for alternative formats would mean less support for 100/6, and that's something people who primarily enjoy 100/6 understandably don't want to see.

15 minutes ago, LordBlades said:

Why I don't exactly disagree with your general point, I disagree with this part.

There's no strong indication that FFG has the design, production, organized play and playtesting capacity to keep supporting 100/6 to the level they are now and simply start supporting other formats more.

IMO there's a realistic possibility that more support for alternative formats would mean less support for 100/6, and that's something people who primarily enjoy 100/6 understandably don't want to see.

That's a fair point, supporting alternate competitive formats would probably require a few new hires and a shake-up of the development and release process.

I don't see how it would have that much of a negative impact on 100/6 support, though. You don't even need to make changes to ship design or anything like that - Objective game modes would simply allow for different types of meta to develop and flourish and potentially revitalise older ships without any need for major errata or redesign of the current system.

58 minutes ago, PremiumGoldLeaderDeluxe said:

That's a fair point, supporting alternate competitive formats would probably require a few new hires and a shake-up of the development and release process.

I don't see how it would have that much of a negative impact on 100/6 support, though. You don't even need to make changes to ship design or anything like that - Objective game modes would simply allow for different types of meta to develop and flourish and potentially revitalise older ships without any need for major errata or redesign of the current system.

If you just want the objectives (or any alternate format from that matter) to be 'glued on' the existing system, just an alternate way to play with existing toys then yeah, you probably just need a small creative sub-team to do it (hell, you can even make all releases digital only if the production capacity is an issue)

If you want full support however, with dedicated ship releases and tournaments, then it's a much bigger endeavour. FFG would either need to release more ships and hold more tournaments overall, or cannibalize some of the existing ship releases and tournaments, turning them into objective play releases/tournaments.

Multiple play systems also come with their own can of worms which I am unsure FFG is ready to tackle (they're struggling with balance with only 1 game systems). If they start designing dedicated ships aimed at objective play (or narrative play or whatever), not only do they need to insure these ships are balanced in their intended format, they also need to insure they don't accidentally break any of the other formats.

The main point is that different game modes make different units better.

To go back to Magic, some cards are designed for casual play, and can be okay for drafting - but never for competitive constructed play. Some are designed for drafting - in a draft environment, it's a game-ending wincon, but in competitive constructed it's okay at best. Some are designed for Standard constructed (the last four sets) and once that set rotates out it's obsolete. A rare few are designed for the eternal formats, and those are the cards competitive players LIVE for.

Right now we have two formats (Deathmatch and Epic) and while some ships are definitely BETTER in Epic (Jonus is a 22 point crewmember for the Raider who insists on flying his own ship!) there are few ships designed for it - and with older ships especially (but with some newer ones, Sarco Plank I'm looking at you!) the only design philosophy seems to be "This seems like it'd be silly fun!"

The problem with that being, of course, that there IS no silly fun format.

Creating new formats makes more ships useful. I own ONE non-core Rebel ship, an HWK-290, because it is stupid great in Heroes of the Aturi Cluster, and Garven Dreis in conjunction with Kanan and Moldy Crow/RecSpec makes me EVERYONE's friend. But actually, like, flying it in a deathmatch game? Do I look stupid? Starting in X and Y-Wings makes you really appreciate dials and yet gives you a feel for the actual, honest-to-Ghost Star Wars movies.

Or take the Mario Kart/Kessel Kup format (provided you ban the TIE Striker!); A-Wings, Interceptors, TIE/ADPs, and Protectorates are obvious choices (of which only Protectorates are meta-placing ships), but I was absolutely blown away by the hilarious trolltastrophe that was Unkar Plutt (Intelligence Agent, Primed Thrusters, BMST, and Engine Upgrade).

Adding more formats, adding missions, adding more ideas to the game makes more of your collection usable and makes the game more fun for more people. How is that a bad thing?

Adding stuff for the sake of adding it in the hope it "shakes things up" is basically what happened to 40k. Let's not repeat that.

14 minutes ago, Chumbalaya said:

Adding stuff for the sake of adding it in the hope it "shakes things up" is basically what happened to 40k. Let's not repeat that.

Uhh... no...

What happened to Games Workshop is an inward spiraling deathmarch where quarterly growth became more important than five-year growth, and so they focused their market on the 'churn and burn' sales. Grandparents would buy an entire army for their kid, who eight times out of ten would glue together a few things, lose patience, shove it under the bed, and never play the game again. Short-term income? Up. Losing that person as a loyal customer for years or even decades of sales? Guaranteed.

Combine that with a 'black snow' corporate environment (where if the CEO looked outside and told everyone the snow was black, whoever disagrees is fired), and you've got a long-term problem - particularly when you fired them for telling you that it's a bad idea to target independent stores and drive them out of business in efforts to bring them into Official Games Workshop Stores and the Games Workshop Hobby. The people who kept quiet about THAT to keep their jobs then were fired when they brought up that the United States is a vibrantly different market than the UK or even the EU, and even huge single-brand stores (like Disney's) fail to be profitable and are run as loss leaders.

Combine THAT with a rules set rooted in the worst of the 1980s and a development cycle that moves slower than the hairs grow on a buffalo's taint and you've got a zombie company barely shambling along from quarter to quarter, propelled only the fact that some game players are practically MARRIED to the sunken cost fallacy and only an utter catastrophe will finally make them try something new.

Hint, hint.

That too

2 hours ago, iamfanboy said:

The main point is that different game modes make different units better.

To go back to Magic, some cards are designed for casual play, and can be okay for drafting - but never for competitive constructed play. Some are designed for drafting - in a draft environment, it's a game-ending wincon, but in competitive constructed it's okay at best. Some are designed for Standard constructed (the last four sets) and once that set rotates out it's obsolete. A rare few are designed for the eternal formats, and those are the cards competitive players LIVE for.

Right now we have two formats (Deathmatch and Epic) and while some ships are definitely BETTER in Epic (Jonus is a 22 point crewmember for the Raider who insists on flying his own ship!) there are few ships designed for it - and with older ships especially (but with some newer ones, Sarco Plank I'm looking at you!) the only design philosophy seems to be "This seems like it'd be silly fun!"

The problem with that being, of course, that there IS no silly fun format.

Creating new formats makes more ships useful. I own ONE non-core Rebel ship, an HWK-290, because it is stupid great in Heroes of the Aturi Cluster, and Garven Dreis in conjunction with Kanan and Moldy Crow/RecSpec makes me EVERYONE's friend. But actually, like, flying it in a deathmatch game? Do I look stupid? Starting in X and Y-Wings makes you really appreciate dials and yet gives you a feel for the actual, honest-to-Ghost Star Wars movies.

Or take the Mario Kart/Kessel Kup format (provided you ban the TIE Striker!); A-Wings, Interceptors, TIE/ADPs, and Protectorates are obvious choices (of which only Protectorates are meta-placing ships), but I was absolutely blown away by the hilarious trolltastrophe that was Unkar Plutt (Intelligence Agent, Primed Thrusters, BMST, and Engine Upgrade).

Adding more formats, adding missions, adding more ideas to the game makes more of your collection usable and makes the game more fun for more people. How is that a bad thing?

Chicago regionals had a hwk win. Yes it was scum but you can only buy one version of the hwk at the moment.

On ‎2‎/‎18‎/‎2017 at 8:24 PM, Panzeh said:

It's kinda funny how people calling for missions are terrible at the game and think putting in a senator's shuttle will suddenly make them good, or that somehow 4x TLTs won't be able to be really good at the missions designed to help 4-ship builds or whatever.

17 hours ago, Panzeh said:

It seems like people who don't even really play the game at a high level, because i'll see statements like 'The x-wing is actually a very versatile ship' or 'This will bring new list variety' in vague. ill-defined ways.

When I see 'the ships in the meta are extremely specialized ships good at only one thing', I think that person has no understanding of the game.

17 hours ago, Stay On The Leader said:

I'd tend to assume that if I've got a good 100/6 list I'll just destroy all your ships then do the mission.

15 hours ago, LordBlades said:

There's no strong indication that FFG has the design, production, organized play and playtesting capacity to keep supporting 100/6 to the level they are now and simply start supporting other formats more.

IMO there's a realistic possibility that more support for alternative formats would mean less support for 100/6, and that's something people who primarily enjoy 100/6 understandably don't want to see.

Well, let's see, as a casual player I have been called "terrible at the game," "unable to play at a high level," and "easy to destroy." Then I'm told that FFG probably doesn't care what I want because "it would mean less support for 100/6."

Wow. Just wow. Can someone explain to me why any casual player would want to give their money or support to this game??

17 hours ago, Stay On The Leader said:

I do struggle to see how missions would change a whole lot, but then I haven't looked at any of the missions in expansions.

I'd tend to assume that if I've got a good 100/6 list I'll just destroy all your ships then do the mission.

Man, the first time someone starts reinforcing against you is going to be a bit of a shock. [Ex. Many missions]

That or when you realize that you have to build a specific list [ex Mission 11: Interdiction, RAC (w/ preset Upgrades) + 2 Academy Pilots]

Or you are playing 90pts vs 150pts [Mission 5: Preystalker]

etc., etc....

58 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

Well, let's see, as a casual player I have been called "terrible at the game," "unable to play at a high level," and "easy to destroy." Then I'm told that FFG probably doesn't care what I want because "it would mean less support for 100/6."

Wow. Just wow. Can someone explain to me why any casual player would want to give their money or support to this game??

Because humans are entirely capable of making their own changes to a game which at its roots is awesome and has great models and disregard everything they wish to in favor of playing the game how they would like to as opposed to playing the game as they are asked to?

Sounds like you are pretty good at that, so sounds like you are set man.

You guys pushing so hard for the missions really don't seem to get how games, especially highly competitive ones, and their metas work. Here's the thing, I'm all for bringing missions to X Wing. Generic Armada style missions that provide an alternate means to win or bonuses on top of kills and allow players some influence in mission choice so that lists can be tailored to them. It would be a massive undertaking and extremely difficult to get right, frankly likely more difficult than they are capable of, but if done well it would probably be good for the game overall. So I'm not arguing against their inclusion.

But they won't do anything like what you're hoping they will. For a given mission and wave release there will be a handful of ideal setups (at most as missions allow even tighter list specialization) and people will absolutely find it. More likely than not that ideal setup will include the same ships that are present now in the meta because they are simply better. A 6 hp ship, with green 3-5 K turns, that can take 3 actions a turn is just flat out better than a T-65 and therefore will also be better at accomplishing missions. Action economy helps with everything including accomplishing mission objectives, not just killing 100 points of ships on the other side of the table. Manaroo, attani, x7s, Miranda, all the usual suspects will be there for the party with bells on. And if you try to force people to list build in certain specific ways via draconian mission restrictions then you've just lost the people that actually enjoy list building and anyone else that doesn't own that specific set of ships. Good luck having that be more popular or even more than a blip on the radar next to 100/6 which it will be competing with for people's limited leisure time and store play space.

Anyways missions or no missions there will still be a meta, the best ships will still hit the table, and the same people will still be winning events

1 hour ago, Darth Meanie said:

Well, let's see, as a casual player I have been called "terrible at the game," "unable to play at a high level," and "easy to destroy." Then I'm told that FFG probably doesn't care what I want because "it would mean less support for 100/6."

Wow. Just wow. Can someone explain to me why any casual player would want to give their money or support to this game??

Way to quote people out of context. Good job ! You seem pretty good at it. You practice often I assume?

My post you selectively quoted had absolutely nothing to do with what FFG 'probably cares about' or should care about. Nothing at all.

It was a response to somebody wondering why anyone would object to adding other play modes because it's not taking anything away from the game. I pointed out that, given limited resources, it would probably mean less 100/6, which would make 100/6 lovers unhappy.

1 hour ago, Darth Meanie said:

"it would mean less support for 100/6."

My quote of your original statement.

10 minutes ago, LordBlades said:

Way to quote people out of context. Good job ! You seem pretty good at it. You practice often I assume?

It was a response to somebody wondering why anyone would object to adding other play modes because it's not taking anything away from the game. I pointed out that, given limited resources, it would probably mean less 100/6, which would make 100/6 lovers unhappy.

Your 2nd quote.

I left out "probably" and added "support."

I didn't quote you out of context, but I did use it for personal spin, which is not the same as misrepresenting what you said.

12 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

My quote.

Your 2nd quote.

I left out "probably."

I didn't quote you out of context, but I did use it for personal spin, which is not the same as misrepresenting what you said.

You claimed my post you quoted said something it clearly didn't.

You wrote

Quote

Then I'm told that FFG probably doesn't care what I want because "it would mean less support for 100/6.

while my post contained 0 judgement on whether FFG cares or should care about what you want.

You selectively took a quote out of an entirely different discussion then claimed it said something it didn't to make your victim case the hope people reading your post would just glance at the quotes and focus on what you wrote.

35 minutes ago, Makaze said:

You guys pushing so hard for the missions really don't seem to get how games, especially highly competitive ones, and their metas work. Here's the thing, I'm all for bringing missions to X Wing. Generic Armada style missions that provide an alternate means to win or bonuses on top of kills and allow players some influence in mission choice so that lists can be tailored to them. It would be a massive undertaking and extremely difficult to get right, frankly likely more difficult than they are capable of, but if done well it would probably be good for the game overall. So I'm not arguing against their inclusion.

Anyways missions or no missions there will still be a meta, the best ships will still hit the table, and the same people will still be winning events

And you guys who only go to tournaments to win don't seem to understand that some of us who play this game would like to see a game that is not explicitly designed as a way to sit down at a dining room table and crush your 11 year old nephew with the best of the best.

And of course, I could not try to destroy my nephew and try to have some fun, but that is me re-purposing the game.

3 minutes ago, LordBlades said:

while my post contained 0 judgement on whether FFG cares or should care about what you want.

True. As I said, I used it for personal spin. I apologize that I offended you.

2 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

And you guys who only go to tournaments to win don't seem to understand that some of us who play this game would like to see a game that is not explicitly designed as a way to sit down at a dining room table and crush your 11 year old nephew with the best of the best.

And of course, I could not try to destroy my nephew and try to have some fun, but that is me re-purposing the game.

That... sounds like a personal problem to me. I go to tourneys to have fun playing X Wing all day. Sometimes I make the cut, sometimes not, but the point is to play not just to win. When I'm playing casual weekly games I sometimes run less than top tier lists (way less) depending on the skill level of my opponent and how good their list is. That's not me "repurposing the game", that's me giving myself a slight handicap so that both players can have an enjoyable time.

I'm really not sure what it is you're asking for here. X Wing is explicitly designed as a competitive game, adding missions to it won't change that. You'll only be crushing your nephew in a slightly different context in a slightly different way, it won't change the outcome.

6 hours ago, iamfanboy said:

Uhh... no...

What happened to Games Workshop is an inward spiraling deathmarch where quarterly growth became more important than five-year growth, and so they focused their market on the 'churn and burn' sales. Grandparents would buy an entire army for their kid, who eight times out of ten would glue together a few things, lose patience, shove it under the bed, and never play the game again. Short-term income? Up. Losing that person as a loyal customer for years or even decades of sales? Guaranteed.

Combine that with a 'black snow' corporate environment (where if the CEO looked outside and told everyone the snow was black, whoever disagrees is fired), and you've got a long-term problem - particularly when you fired them for telling you that it's a bad idea to target independent stores and drive them out of business in efforts to bring them into Official Games Workshop Stores and the Games Workshop Hobby. The people who kept quiet about THAT to keep their jobs then were fired when they brought up that the United States is a vibrantly different market than the UK or even the EU, and even huge single-brand stores (like Disney's) fail to be profitable and are run as loss leaders.

Combine THAT with a rules set rooted in the worst of the 1980s and a development cycle that moves slower than the hairs grow on a buffalo's taint and you've got a zombie company barely shambling along from quarter to quarter, propelled only the fact that some game players are practically MARRIED to the sunken cost fallacy and only an utter catastrophe will finally make them try something new.

Hint, hint.

Well they are shaking up their ways. Not with great rules or reasonable pricing (although the latest Blood Bowl releases are quite solid on that front - 25€ for all the dwarfs you'll ever need is quite the deal), mind you, but they finally started to understand that there was value in having a community and -gasp- interacting with it! It looks like the increased market pressure pushes them towards reason lately.

GW even tested updated points costs at an independent Age of Sigmar tournament in the UK and mentioned it on their official blog. Pretty safe to say there's been some pretty major changes in management style over the couple.of years I've been away from their games.

8 hours ago, Makaze said:

I'm really not sure what it is you're asking for here. X Wing is explicitly designed as a competitive game, adding missions to it won't change that.

What I'm asking for is what the last 20 pages of this thread were about: for FFG to considered what this game could be for a few friends gathered around a kitchen table on a Sunday afternoon. An afternoon of X-Wing that is about theme, storytelling, reliving the movies, and fun, non-competitive pew-pew-pew. And then put products on the shelf that do that.

4 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

What I'm asking for is what the last 20 pages of this thread were about: for FFG to considered what this game could be for a few friends gathered around a kitchen table on a Sunday afternoon. An afternoon of X-Wing that is about theme, storytelling, reliving the movies, and fun, non-competitive pew-pew-pew. And then put products on the shelf that do that.

The last 20 pages have been about a whole host of meandering things, not just your specific request...

Xwing is already just that to a lot of people, a fun game to play with friends over a couple of beers. The only thing stopping you from enjoying it like that is you. As far as product, I have real no objection to them printing some scenarios but given how completely and utterly flat the ones that come with the expansions have fallen it's a questionable move. You feel very strongly about this, a couple of other loud people here do too, but there's little evidence to suggest it would be worth the expense on their part. Their time and money is better spend cranking out more plastic crack. Not to mention as I said above once they're in the wild people will figure out their solutions and you'll be right back here complaining again about how FFG sucks because you netlisted an 11 year old into oblivion.

On the other hand the Heroes of the Arturi Cluster has been very well received, it's almost baffling they haven't jumped into that design space with both feet. But then that's co-op and a completely different beast all together, not scenarios or missions being added to X wing.

Rather than fighting in the trenches of the forums I thought it best to just take the time to clearly lay out my thoughts in a blog dedicated to the subject.

http://stayontheleader.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/the-state-of-x-wing-part-i-phantom.html

1 hour ago, Makaze said:

The last 20 pages have been about a whole host of meandering things, not just your specific request...

Xwing is already just that to a lot of people, a fun game to play with friends over a couple of beers. The only thing stopping you from enjoying it like that is you. As far as product, I have real no objection to them printing some scenarios but given how completely and utterly flat the ones that come with the expansions have fallen it's a questionable move. You feel very strongly about this, a couple of other loud people here do too, but there's little evidence to suggest it would be worth the expense on their part. Their time and money is better spend cranking out more plastic crack. Not to mention as I said above once they're in the wild people will figure out their solutions and you'll be right back here complaining again about how FFG sucks because you netlisted an 11 year old into oblivion.

On the other hand the Heroes of the Arturi Cluster has been very well received, it's almost baffling they haven't jumped into that design space with both feet. But then that's co-op and a completely different beast all together, not scenarios or missions being added to X wing.

I wasn't aware I made any specific requests, unless you mean "try something new." Obviously you view this entire thread through the rose-colored glasses of "everybody is having fun playing X-Wing except Darth Meanie cuz he's a stick in the mud and needs a Life Coach." Hopefully you and FFG are right about that, because Mynock's podcast was about "this is the moment of our discontent."