I think the main point for me is that one person's enjoyment or even a minority groups enjoyment is not a good indicator of the overall state of the game. Competitive players are very loud on these forums. Competitive players who are not happy with certain things are even louder. That doesn't mean they are the majority. It also doesn't prove the opposite, so I will refrain from saying the game needs to remain as it is.

I think many of the complaints are expected and necessary. Power creep and complexity are bound to continue. Otherwise people would get bored with the same old game and move on. Again speculation, but from experience, the new shiny makes sales. You're not going to have a good business plan by having the original core set being the top of the meta for the game's entire existance.

I don't mind suggestions for tournament changes. The one suggestion I've seen that I really like is a tournament series legal card list. The casuals aren't even touched with this, and the tournament players get a finer granularity of balance. Some mention a reboot of X-Wing back to a new core set. I don't see that happening anytime soon.

2 hours ago, eagletsi111 said:

2) Whenever you roll 4 or more attack dice with a Primary Weapon, all crits are turned to hits. Use the same rule as heavy laser cannon, so target locked re-rolls can be crits. However, you may choose to roll less than 4 dice for any PW attack.

You do realize this would be a pretty big buff for anything with Gunner and effects that benefit the first shot (FCS, HSCP, Bossk etc.), right?

24 minutes ago, Luke C said:

well thats a little mean. If I am mentally ill, how do you feel now?

Justified in pointing it out? You've no constructive input other than to repeat that anyone whose opinion isn't yours should just shut up.

18 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

In truth, there are 8 pages of great ideas, and civil discourse about the state of the game right now. Then, you showed up.

oh ive been posting in this thread for a couple pages now. But I probably was a little trololololish, sorry.

I think the point @Luke C is trying to make is that "enjoyment" is subjective. Some people enjoy X-Wing, some don't. Determining whether X-Wing is objectively "good" or "bad" is difficult because it is both to different people.

1 minute ago, Smutpedler said:

I think the point @Luke C is trying to make is that "enjoyment" is subjective. Some people enjoy X-Wing, some don't. Determining whether X-Wing is objectively "good" or "bad" is difficult because it is both to different people.

Well, it becomes quantitative over how many are in each camp. And shouting down anybody from the opposing camp for daring to have an opinion is not very helpful.

Just now, Stay On The Leader said:

Well, it becomes quantitative over how many are in each camp. And shouting down anybody from the opposing camp for daring to have an opinion is not very helpful.

I agree with the second point and the first to a certain degree. For example; a lot of the old timers dislike the change in direction with variance reduction, ridiculous action economy, combos, timing windows etc. but that doesn't mean the game is "bad". Just that it no longer appeals to the crowd it once did. It doesn't mean the games is "bad" and newer players enjoy it thinking the game is "good".

Personally; I find a lot of the newer timing windows, condition cards etc. clutter a game I enjoy for it's simplicity and ease to play in an evening after work with a faded brain. I do find it a bit irritating and maybe dislike it myself; but that doesn't mean the game is "bad". If I want complexity I'll play some Infinity, for me X-Wing has always been a great pick up and put down game and the more it grows; the further it feels it is from why I started. Again; doesn't make it a "bad" game or mean it was a "good" game when I first started playing, simply that what I enjoy isn't necessarily what the game designers enjoy. I really don't enjoy 40k but it's sales figures over the last 30(ish) years show it's not a "bad" game. Many people enjoy it but it's not for me. AoS was widely heralded as a "bad" game but there's a growing number of players who enjoy it and think it's a "good" game. Very subjective IMHO.

10 minutes ago, Smutpedler said:

I think the point @Luke C is trying to make is that "enjoyment" is subjective. Some people enjoy X-Wing, some don't. Determining whether X-Wing is objectively "good" or "bad" is difficult because it is both to different people.

6 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

Well, it becomes quantitative over how many are in each camp. And shouting down anybody from the opposing camp for daring to have an opinion is not very helpful.

Currently, I have to say I enjoy the game a lot. I think a lot of great fixes have come down the pipes, and I actually enjoy the level of complexity the game offers rights now. Since I only really play Epic, maneuvering has not been as much of an element of the game as it is at 100/6, so most of those complaints are lost on me (although I'm sure they are valid). While I have a certain level of dissatisfaction with the game, it's more of an unease about "does this game intend to evolve in a new direction, or is X-Wing slated to be a game of new wave-fix/balance--new wave-fix/balance forever." I mean, the latter works, and people can homebrew, but I think officially, the game can offer so much more.

.

Well, in the context that everything posted on the internet is usually a waste of human effort I would tend to agree. But I'm still going to do it.

And we do have the recent example of forum comments forming part of an overall community feedback that was seen by FFG and lead to significant rules changes on IDs.

3 hours ago, eagletsi111 said:

My two cents on this game and how to fix it right now. No changes to cards. Changes to rules

1) Whenever you move and overlap or bump another ship, you cannot gain any actions from friendly ships. Period. No Manaroo passing, no special cards that allow. No Evade for Defenders. No Mindlink. Fly Better!!!

2) Whenever you roll 4 or more attack dice with a Primary Weapon, all crits are turned to hits. Use the same rule as heavy laser cannon, so target locked re-rolls can be crits. However, you may choose to roll less than 4 dice for any PW attack.

3) Whenever you have 5 or more stress, all white maneuvers become red.

IMO - This makes the game more about maneuvering and flying better (What the developers want for the game) and less about throw dice or take free actions.

No cards are changed, just 2 simple rules and the game goes along way to being balanced again. Swarms would make a comeback also

1) And now what happens if you got tokens from friendly shpis (such as from mindlink) BEFORE you bump?

1 hour ago, VanderLegion said:

1) And now what happens if you got tokens from friendly shpis (such as from mindlink) BEFORE you bump?

Ooh interesting. I love the idea of blocking and stress mattering again. In the case of blocking;

"You must skip your perform action step and may not be be assigned focus or evade tokens for the rest of the turn"

Something to that effect but maybe the wording would need tightening.

I left it at just the two green tokens and split the effect between your activation and whole turn so as not to restrict things like FCS and ACD. Means Manarooto still can pass TL but not the all important focus and Airen Cracken can still pass an action. Squad Leader would still function but be restricted to non focus/evade actions.

I'm sure there is a more elegant to way to word it.. maybe so that Squad Leader could still trigger all actions to allow the focus or evade in that combo etc. Not sure it's a card that can be saved anyway though?

Mindlink would still work from the lower PS linked ships but not from higher as the punishment only kicks in at the point that you bump.

it word impact Defenders so they have to care about bumping without making x7 rubbish.

I think something along these lines could work without being massively complicated so long as well worded?

2 hours ago, Stay On The Leader said:

Well, in the context that everything posted on the internet is usually a waste of human effort I would tend to agree. But I'm still going to do it.

And we do have the recent example of forum comments forming part of an overall community feedback that was seen by FFG and lead to significant rules changes on IDs.

Exactly. People who say that complaining on the forums doesn't achieve anything do not understand how companies get feedback from their customers. FFG employees are watching what happens at the official tournaments most closely, but they are also watching these forums, other larger forums from organized players, /r/xwingtmg, listening to conversation on X-Wing podcasts, etc.

That's how you keep your finger on the pulse of your playerbase to catch problems. There are no better game testers than 1,000,000 monkeys breaking your game and paying your company for the pleasure to do it. Discussion (complaining) on the forums is how we let them overhear our concerns.

1 minute ago, kris40k said:

Exactly. People who say that complaining on the forums doesn't achieve anything do not understand how companies get feedback from their customers. FFG employees are watching what happens at the official tournaments most closely, but they are also watching these forums, other larger forums from organized players, /r/xwingtmg, listening to conversation on X-Wing podcasts, etc.

That's how you keep your finger on the pulse of your playerbase to catch problems. There are no better game testers than 1,000,000 monkeys breaking your game and paying your company to do it. Discussion (complaining) on the forums is how we let them overhear our concerns.

Right and I'm doing my part to tell them that this is not a concern.

Just now, Luke C said:

Right and I'm doing my part to tell them that this is not a concern.

More power to ya. I'm just addressing the people saying that people need to stop complaining because its not going to change anything.

So some very interesting discussion here. A couple of points.

I was drawn to this game (way back when) on the ships themselves. X-wings vs. Tie fighters do put butts in seats, and it certainly put my butt in a seat. I am put off a bit by playing the game against ships I don't recognize, and am certain others are too.

Power creep. I don't believe that it's inevitable in all games, and think more play testing and better design could avoid it. I don't mind losing games, I know sometimes the dice will bite you in the rear and that's unavoidable. Heck some folks are simply better players than I. What I hate though is losing when I know I wasn't beaten by a better player, but by a better list.

To pile on to that. My son quit the game after wave fun. He didn't really enjoy the game. However, he is quite the gamer (side effect of being raised by his gamer dad). I'm certain I could give him the latest "meta" list, be that Palp Shuttle/Defenders or Dengaroo or whatever, and after a rules refresher, he'd probably win a tournament or place very high. That to me is a bad thing.

I miss the dogfights. If the consensus is that those days are over, and never coming back, than maybe this isn't the game for me anymore.

I like X-wing on it's surface. It needs work though. I hope FFG is willing to put in the work. I'm not sure the are. They've had a history of letting me down.

3 hours ago, player346259 said:

That is irrelevant, for several reasons.

FFG is not designing the game based on the forum opinion, which is indeed a good thing.

You will never get anything good designed by having the general public voting about it. All these "5 simple points to fix X-Wing" are generally pretty terrible and would break some of the existing fundamental rules. Which could be usually demonstrated by 5 minutes analysis. This is a reason why Apple is never doing focus groups - group of people from general public will not tell you the next brilliant idea. That needs to be done by a very limited designer group.

Secondly, this forum is absolutely in no way representation of majority of players out there. The group of people here are generally like-minded, and prone to publicly ventilate all their feelings and opinions. The more negative opinion, the more is the person ventilating. That is Internet forum 101 for you.

Having these forum philosophers designing the game would be the ultimately terrible idea.

Having us "forum philosophers designing the game" would actually be a pretty great idea, but not the way you're thinking of it. We are not trying to force FFG to make the game play the way we want, what we're trying to do is bring some very good suggestions forward for FFG employees to consider and discuss with us as to why the ideas we're coming up with would or would not work. Game design is a collaborative art. You'd be surprised at how many really great ideas for games of all types get recognized through forums. Developers do a disservice to their game and their community when they block out all feedback from their player base.

I'd also be curious for you to tell me what general ideas you've seen suggested that would be terrible for the game. You say these flaws could be demonstrated in a five-minute analysis? Then show us those flaws. I want the developers themselves to also show us what flaws exist in the suggestions we've put forward so that we can make the game better.

As for your example using Apple, I'd say that's an incredibly poor example to bring up. That company has so many blinders on their eyes that they removed a universal headphone jack from their latest line of phones. Apple has acted on many baffling, and many objectively poor decisions as a result of not listening to their consumers, so I'm very surprised they are the first example you bring up when defending your point. If anything, you've proven that your point is invalid to some extent.

As for the forum not being representative of the majority of players out there, I'd also beg to differ. There are numerous viewpoints on the state of the game that have been brought to attention with a lot of information and reasoning behind those viewpoints. You say that the people here are generally like-minded and that we are prone to "ventilate." Go ahead and show me some examples of how you've seen people ventilating on this forum without providing reasoning as to why they are frustrated with a particular mechanic of the game. Having negative opinions or critical thoughts with certain aspects of the game doesn't mean that a person will just blindly spew negativity, and I've seen no blatant examples of that happening so far.

1 hour ago, Luke C said:

Right and I'm doing my part to tell them that this is not a concern.

Maybe you could delve into detail as to why you feel that the issues being discussed are not a concern? What is your reasoning and logic for not being bothered by the mechanics that have bothered others? Can you bring forward some examples and evidence as to why these systems are balanced and fine in your eyes? Because if you aren't willing to contribute to the conversation, and would rather simply criticize those of us on this thread, then you'll probably be seen as a troll.

1 hour ago, kris40k said:

Exactly. People who say that complaining on the forums doesn't achieve anything do not understand how companies get feedback from their customers. FFG employees are watching what happens at the official tournaments most closely, but they are also watching these forums, other larger forums from organized players, /r/xwingtmg, listening to conversation on X-Wing podcasts, etc.

That's how you keep your finger on the pulse of your playerbase to catch problems. There are no better game testers than 1,000,000 monkeys breaking your game and paying your company for the pleasure to do it. Discussion (complaining) on the forums is how we let them overhear our concerns.

Campaign Box Set. Campaign Box Set. Campaign Box Set.

3 minutes ago, CosmicCastawayA90 said:

Maybe you could delve into detail as to why you feel that the issues being discussed are not a concern? What is your reasoning and logic for not being bothered by the mechanics that have bothered others? Can you bring forward some examples and evidence as to why these systems are balanced and fine in your eyes? Because if you aren't willing to contribute to the conversation, and would rather simply criticize those of us on this thread, then you'll probably be seen as a troll.

Sure. Little bit of background. I play a ton of Xwing and it is almost all geared toward tournament play.

I feel like every few months we get a "power creep" or "broken" or "NPE" thread. It always is viewed like the sky is falling, but that rarely seems to be the case. @Rytackle was complaining about how broken Kanan/Biggs is on the podcast. This isn't a new list, I saw it on stream at the Georgia regionals back last may. Just because he didn't bring a list that could deal with that threat or didnt have a good plan, doesn't make the list broken, it makes him unprepared.

For me personally, I like the challenge of adapting to a changing meta. I placed high in multiple regionals with two Tie s/fs. You don't have to play meta lists to win, what you do have to do is understand what you will probably be facing, practice, and have a plan for how to beat it.

Next, many of these conversations are complaining about the spirit of the game, e.g. fortressing is against what people think of as a dog fighting game. I just don't buy it. As a tournament player primarily, the game is about developing a strategy that would allow you to have the best chance to win. for me that is literally the end of it. The challenge for me (which is why I play this game) is to develop and initiate a strategy that can beat it. If I can't do that, I brought the wrong list for that matchup. Luckily a tournament is multiple games and usually you can come back from one loss, If you can't, you misread your meta, better luck next time.

In conclusion, I refuse to push my beliefs about xwing onto other people, I dont want them to fly things I feel is fair, I want to be challenged with new ideas and strategies. I want people to fly hard things, that way I can think creatively as to how I should beat them. Does it mean some ships get relegated to the shelf? yup. But luckily depending on the tournament, I have a chance to bring them out again. Will I ever fly 4 rookies? No, but I will take biggs or wes, wedge, or even Luke out on occasion, even if its just testing new ideas. QQ more please is pretty much my answer to any of these threads.

Hope that helps.

5 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

Campaign Box Set. Campaign Box Set. Campaign Box Set.

They have to be working on it, right? At this point, it's just leaving money on the table.

Pretty much. I know I got the campaign expansion for Descent back when I played that, and I know Armada just recently launched theirs. I believe with the very warm reception of HotAC (which has stolen away some guys from my FLGS X-Wing nights) they will likely view the sales and reception of Armada's and then release one for X-Wing.

1 hour ago, Luke C said:

Sure. Little bit of background. I play a ton of Xwing and it is almost all geared toward tournament play.

I feel like every few months we get a "power creep" or "broken" or "NPE" thread. It always is viewed like the sky is falling, but that rarely seems to be the case. @Rytackle was complaining about how broken Kanan/Biggs is on the podcast. This isn't a new list, I saw it on stream at the Georgia regionals back last may. Just because he didn't bring a list that could deal with that threat or didnt have a good plan, doesn't make the list broken, it makes him unprepared.

For me personally, I like the challenge of adapting to a changing meta. I placed high in multiple regionals with two Tie s/fs. You don't have to play meta lists to win, what you do have to do is understand what you will probably be facing, practice, and have a plan for how to beat it.

Next, many of these conversations are complaining about the spirit of the game, e.g. fortressing is against what people think of as a dog fighting game. I just don't buy it. As a tournament player primarily, the game is about developing a strategy that would allow you to have the best chance to win. for me that is literally the end of it. The challenge for me (which is why I play this game) is to develop and initiate a strategy that can beat it. If I can't do that, I brought the wrong list for that matchup. Luckily a tournament is multiple games and usually you can come back from one loss, If you can't, you misread your meta, better luck next time.

In conclusion, I refuse to push my beliefs about xwing onto other people, I dont want them to fly things I feel is fair, I want to be challenged with new ideas and strategies. I want people to fly hard things, that way I can think creatively as to how I should beat them. Does it mean some ships get relegated to the shelf? yup. But luckily depending on the tournament, I have a chance to bring them out again. Will I ever fly 4 rookies? No, but I will take biggs or wes, wedge, or even Luke out on occasion, even if its just testing new ideas. QQ more please is pretty much my answer to any of these threads.

Hope that helps.

First of all, kudos for being able to articulate exactly what you get (and want to get) out of this game. And secondly, I think one reason you are happy with X-Wing is that you don't have unrealistic tournament expectations. Your fun is trying to find the best ships for the best moment, and letting the rest go. It often seems to me that players expect every ship to be viable at any moment in time, and that is just not possible, leading to fix this/nerf that.

I also find it amusing that we really have the same goal (try out new ideas and strategies), but with a completely different view point. I want to fly fun things, and could care less whether I could win with it. I will fly four rookies, just cuz I want to see them on the table, and my creative challenge to myself is to see if my list can pull off just one cool thing during a game.

3 hours ago, Luke C said:

Sure. Little bit of background. I play a ton of Xwing and it is almost all geared toward tournament play.

I feel like every few months we get a "power creep" or "broken" or "NPE" thread. It always is viewed like the sky is falling, but that rarely seems to be the case. @Rytackle was complaining about how broken Kanan/Biggs is on the podcast. This isn't a new list, I saw it on stream at the Georgia regionals back last may. Just because he didn't bring a list that could deal with that threat or didnt have a good plan, doesn't make the list broken, it makes him unprepared.

For me personally, I like the challenge of adapting to a changing meta. I placed high in multiple regionals with two Tie s/fs. You don't have to play meta lists to win, what you do have to do is understand what you will probably be facing, practice, and have a plan for how to beat it.

Wanting to be challenged by an opponent's strategies is what everyone wants out of the game, however, I don't see how creating decks that decide the outcome of the game before it begins could be seen as truly strategic and skilful. Wasn't this game focused on dogfighting and maneuvring skills when it released? Anticipating an opponent's actions and planning to counter those actions is one thing, but shouldn't a player have a chance to beat their opponent with skill in flying their ships?

3 hours ago, Luke C said:

Next, many of these conversations are complaining about the spirit of the game, e.g. fortressing is against what people think of as a dog fighting game. I just don't buy it. As a tournament player primarily, the game is about developing a strategy that would allow you to have the best chance to win. for me that is literally the end of it. The challenge for me (which is why I play this game) is to develop and initiate a strategy that can beat it. If I can't do that, I brought the wrong list for that matchup. Luckily a tournament is multiple games and usually you can come back from one loss, If you can't, you misread your meta, better luck next time.

2

Why exactly don't you "buy" the idea that fortressing goes against dogfighting? Because your given explanation could be applied to literally every form of competition mankind has created. "As a tournament player primarily, the game is about developing a strategy that would allow you to have the best chance to win. for me that is literally the end of it." Wanting challenge in developing and initiating strategies to beat an opponent is also the basic definition of any strategy game. Again, you reinforce the concept that the current meta is not a suitable road for X-Wing as a whole.

"If I can't do that, I brought the wrong list for that matchup. Luckily a tournament is multiple games and usually you can come back from one loss, If you can't, you misread your meta, better luck next time." This sentence solidifies that the way the game is currently played means that a match is determined before the game even begins. There is no mention of the possibility of a comeback through out-flying your opponent, or a mention of the possibility that maybe your opponent will make mistakes in their positioning that you can capitalize on. Even your use of the phrase, "better luck next time," shows that skill does not seem to be a factor into the game outside of the deck building process. As a wise Jedi once said, "There's no such thing as luck," yet he might stand corrected when it comes to X-Wing's meta.

If you want the kind of experience the current X-Wing meta provides, why not play Collectable Card Games? The unique flying mechanics of X-Wing are just barely mentioned by your comments, which is the problem I and other players have with the latest waves released for the game. The one thing that makes this game unique, is also the one thing that is rarely mentioned by yourself. Memorizing meta decks isn't a skill, it's memorization. If I took a multiple choice test and memorized all the letters that were the correct answers throughout the test, I'd get a 100%, but it wouldn't be through skill or true knowledge of the material.

10 hours ago, CosmicCastawayA90 said:

Wanting to be challenged by an opponent's strategies is what everyone wants out of the game, however, I don't see how creating decks that decide the outcome of the game before it begins could be seen as truly strategic and skilful. Wasn't this game focused on dogfighting and maneuvring skills when it released? Anticipating an opponent's actions and planning to counter those actions is one thing, but shouldn't a player have a chance to beat their opponent with skill in flying their ships?

Why exactly don't you "buy" the idea that fortressing goes against dogfighting? Because your given explanation could be applied to literally every form of competition mankind has created. "As a tournament player primarily, the game is about developing a strategy that would allow you to have the best chance to win. for me that is literally the end of it." Wanting challenge in developing and initiating strategies to beat an opponent is also the basic definition of any strategy game. Again, you reinforce the concept that the current meta is not a suitable road for X-Wing as a whole.

"If I can't do that, I brought the wrong list for that matchup. Luckily a tournament is multiple games and usually you can come back from one loss, If you can't, you misread your meta, better luck next time." This sentence solidifies that the way the game is currently played means that a match is determined before the game even begins. There is no mention of the possibility of a comeback through out-flying your opponent, or a mention of the possibility that maybe your opponent will make mistakes in their positioning that you can capitalize on. Even your use of the phrase, "better luck next time," shows that skill does not seem to be a factor into the game outside of the deck building process. As a wise Jedi once said, "There's no such thing as luck," yet he might stand corrected when it comes to X-Wing's meta.

If you want the kind of experience the current X-Wing meta provides, why not play Collectable Card Games? The unique flying mechanics of X-Wing are just barely mentioned by your comments, which is the problem I and other players have with the latest waves released for the game. The one thing that makes this game unique, is also the one thing that is rarely mentioned by yourself. Memorizing meta decks isn't a skill, it's memorization. If I took a multiple choice test and memorized all the letters that were the correct answers throughout the test, I'd get a 100%, but it wouldn't be through skill or true knowledge of the material.

Shh. You don't get it. You got to practice, you got to practice against what you think you are going to face. And you can't make flying mistakes. So it still is a skill based flying game.

on the flip side, we are at the point where every list has a counter and if you run into it, the battle is uphill and almost lost going into it. Kwings vs aces is a good example of this. The aces have a LONG uphill battle. In a tournament if you run into counters for your list often, you either 1) didn't practice or 2) brought the wrong list for that meta.

As more ships come into the game you will not get around this. Duncan Howard is ostensibly the best pilot around and even he gave up soontir. The idea that any list can win 6 games in a row at any given event is probably a pipe dream unless your name is Howard, Bunke, Manzano, or a few others. You have to pick your ships carefully, practice, and then you will have a good shot.

You our are correct though. We are at the point in the game where listbuilding matters. Flying is still the most important part in this game though. So many people were at the bottom tables during regionals flying meta lists. This was because even though they picked a list for the meta, they didn't practice and they didn't have a plan.

1 hour ago, CosmicCastawayA90 said:

"If I can't do that, I brought the wrong list for that matchup. Luckily a tournament is multiple games and usually you can come back from one loss, If you can't, you misread your meta, better luck next time." This sentence solidifies that the way the game is currently played means that a match is determined before the game even begins. There is no mention of the possibility of a comeback through out-flying your opponent, or a mention of the possibility that maybe your opponent will make mistakes in their positioning that you can capitalize on.

Also I want to make special note of this. If this is what you think pm me. I'll send you my regional squad that I have over 100 games with now. You build any list you want and I'll play you a game on vassal. I promise I will win. Why? Because I practice, I know exactly what my squad can do. I don't talk about flying well because that is obvious. Against a practiced opponent though, lists absolutely matter.