Wow. This is precisely why I quit Netrunner. It's also why I love getting in on the ground floor of a game, when everything is fresh and new and hopeful, before the sharks break it. I'm excited for the re-release of L5R at GenCon this year, to be a part of a 'new' game but equally dreading the inevitable competive-ification of it.

14 minutes ago, Babaganoosh said:

Casual is really a huge catch-all, too. It's actually kind of useless as a descriptive term. All it really means is not competitive. There's many shades of casual play.

Yes! It's a negative space around 'competitive'. Excellent insight. But even that is enough to describe it for me. I call it 'reducing the game to math'. Where people are glued to their monitors every week for a spoiler or update so they can find some new crazy combo nobody's thought of that will eventually dominate the space...

Just now, macmastermind said:

Yes! It's a negative space around 'competitive'. Excellent insight. But even that is enough to describe it for me. I call it 'reducing the game to math'. Where people are glued to their monitors every week for a spoiler or update so they can find some new crazy combo nobody's thought of that will eventually dominate the space...

As vaunted as mathwing has become, I never really bought the agrument that mathematical analysis has driven competitive play. If mathwing had been in its prime in wave 1 and 2, then it may have done that. But it really emerged as a force probably in late wave 3-4. And in wave 4 we got the TIE Phantom, which was probably the start of the power combo in X-wing.

You can just bring your fun list to a tournament. You might run into one of the Tier 1 Power Lists, but if it's just one round out of 3-4, who cares? It can be fun to try your weird list against the power stuff -- and sometimes you'll win. So long as you don't get upset about being at the bottom of the ranking, what's the problem?

Yeah, you can bring casual lists to tournaments and expect to lose. I've done it a bunch of times. I think it would be better if there were a way to reliably get a casual game, though. Casual doesn't mean you don't care if you win or lose. It just means you aren't interested in trying to win regionals, nationals and worlds, or playing that specific version of the game.

3 minutes ago, macmastermind said:

I call it 'reducing the game to math'. Where people are glued to their monitors every week for a spoiler or update so they can find some new crazy combo nobody's thought of that will eventually dominate the space...

Basically, you don't enjoy the way others play the game.

Does their style of enjoyment truly diminish your own? Alternatively, could you simply avoid playing them?

Just now, Babaganoosh said:

As vaunted as mathwing has become, I never really bought the agrument that mathematical analysis has driven competitive play. If mathwing had been in its prime in wave 1 and 2, then it may have done that. But it really emerged as a force probably in late wave 3-4. And in wave 4 we got the TIE Phantom, which was probably the start of the power combo in X-wing.

Yeah, you can bring casual lists to tournaments and expect to lose. I've done it a bunch of times. I think it would be better if there were a way to reliably get a casual game, though. Casual doesn't mean you don't care if you win or lose. It just means you aren't interested in trying to win regionals, nationals and worlds, or playing that specific version of the game.

OP has a ton on their shoulders already and are pretty busy. that said, I think that an easy way is to run a worldwide campaign ala 40ks eye of terror or something. the problem there, is LFL 100%. They have enough problems getting LFL to approve ships etc. I cannot imagine what they would have to go through to put out something narrative like that.

8 hours ago, thespaceinvader said:

X-wing campaign box would be lovely.

X-wing campaign box with sticker sheets to fix the prices of a whole bunch of mis-priced ships would be a dream come true.

X-wing campaign box with sticker sheets to fix the names of a whole bunch of ships that should have different names (T-65 X-Wing, anyone) would also be a dream come true.

One can but hope.

I wouldn't want stickers to errata prices. Text okay but prices no. As i mentioned you could use something similar to NetRunner's most wanted list as a flexible way to adjust points, but lets let the new errata precedent have time to set in before taking anymore relatively extreme measures.

1 minute ago, Tlfj200 said:

Basically, you don't enjoy the way others play the game.

Does their style of enjoyment truly diminish your own? Alternatively, could you simply avoid playing them?

Yes, exactly. I don't want to be that kind of player - but the expectation from me and others like me - due to a lack of support - is that we have to be this way in order to keep up.

If everyone in your local league is this type of competitive, then it's just impossible for folks like me to enjoy the game. We might as well play against ourselves by running to the other side of the table. I'd wager that might be more fun than EVERY time you play someone, you expect to lose, and then you do lose. Because they're running meta and you don't want to play like that...

Not trying to change how others play - just would like to find more who want to play like I do. I'm too old, have too many responsibilities and other games to stay on the 'cutting edge' of X-Wing. But I love the game and its mechanics, so I'm in that difficult place looking for others like me while everyone else zips past, drooling over spoilers...

In general, the problem mentality is an "entitled to win" mindset that fails to respect that the opponent has just as much right to win as they do. The issue is this comes from very different places. On one hand, you've got the more competitive, grind them beneath my boots, do everything that's technically not cheating (or worse) attitude that demands its wins. On the other, you have an attitude often labeled casual that wants the opponent to only try hard enough to make it obvious they're not throwing the game, but gets upset if they're not getting their fair share of wins. Regardless of origins, the root problem is a lack of respect for the opponent's right to win or their opportunity to lose.

1 minute ago, macmastermind said:

Yes, exactly. I don't want to be that kind of player - but the expectation from me and others like me - due to a lack of support - is that we have to be this way in order to keep up.

If everyone in your local league is this type of competitive, then it's just impossible for folks like me to enjoy the game. We might as well play against ourselves by running to the other side of the table. I'd wager that might be more fun than EVERY time you play someone, you expect to lose, and then you do lose. Because they're running meta and you don't want to play like that...

Not trying to change how others play - just would like to find more who want to play like I do. I'm too old, have too many responsibilities and other games to stay on the 'cutting edge' of X-Wing. But I love the game and its mechanics, so I'm in that difficult place looking for others like me while everyone else zips past, drooling over spoilers...

It may take some work, but I am sure you can build a local community for this kind of play. As Bobaganosh said, Shuttle Tydirium is a great place to start.

5 minutes ago, Babaganoosh said:

Casual doesn't mean you don't care if you win or lose. It just means you aren't interested in trying to win regionals, nationals and worlds, or playing that specific version of the game.

I consider myself a casual player, but I've never been to a tournament without the intention of trying to win it (even when I've taken "silly lists", they've still been lists that I've won enough games with to feel confident enough to take them to a tournament).

Problem is if I went to one of those tier levels of tournament, I know full well I wouldn't stand a chance unless I took one of about 3 or 4 specific lists, which holds no interest for me. This game needs to be rebalanced. People often talk about how there were types of lists with a sort of "rock paper scissors" effect between them. Right now I'm reminded of the little kid in Volcano saying "I'm not paper; I'm lava... what beats that?"

4 minutes ago, Timathius said:

OP has a ton on their shoulders already and are pretty busy. that said, I think that an easy way is to run a worldwide campaign ala 40ks eye of terror or something. the problem there, is LFL 100%. They have enough problems getting LFL to approve ships etc. I cannot imagine what they would have to go through to put out something narrative like that.

Maybe. Whatever the reason, there's nothing stopping myself and the rest of the Shuttle Tydirium crew from running our own event!

Just now, Babaganoosh said:

Maybe. Whatever the reason, there's nothing stopping myself and the rest of the Shuttle Tydirium crew from running our own event!

DO IT.

also, surprised I spelled that correctly.

X-wing should be fun to play... then meets Biggs/ Captured Tie, TLT lists...

2 minutes ago, Stevey86 said:

I consider myself a casual player, but I've never been to a tournament without the intention of trying to win it (even when I've taken "silly lists", they've still been lists that I've won enough games with to feel confident enough to take them to a tournament).

Problem is if I went to one of those tier levels of tournament, I know full well I wouldn't stand a chance unless I took one of about 3 or 4 specific lists, which holds no interest for me. This game needs to be rebalanced. People often talk about how there were types of lists with a sort of "rock paper scissors" effect between them. Right now I'm reminded of the little kid in Volcano saying "I'm not paper; I'm lava... what beats that?"

Doesn't seem like a problem. If you're not trying to win a national championship then it's not a problem that you don't have a chance of winning a national championship.

"Casual" to me just means im not running the super optimized lists, probably because of a certain gimick i wanna mess around with not being that great to begin with, but at the same token im not playing a throw-away game for the luls.

All of my lists, even my "Escort Duty" list which is one of the most thematic lists ive done (Lambda w/ Rebel Captive escorted by 4 tie fighters) is still strong enough to be fairly difficult to completely walk over for an auto-win. I dont usually play super competitive, but on the same token it bugs me to have a list that is practically guaranteed to fail barring some obscene luck.

3 minutes ago, Stevey86 said:

I consider myself a casual player, but I've never been to a tournament without the intention of trying to win it (even when I've taken "silly lists", they've still been lists that I've won enough games with to feel confident enough to take them to a tournament).

Problem is if I went to one of those tier levels of tournament, I know full well I wouldn't stand a chance unless I took one of about 3 or 4 specific lists, which holds no interest for me. This game needs to be rebalanced. People often talk about how there were types of lists with a sort of "rock paper scissors" effect between them. Right now I'm reminded of the little kid in Volcano saying "I'm not paper; I'm lava... what beats that?"

I've just been kind of reading from the sidelines, but this is as good a place as any to interject with...

If what's the best right now gets nerfed, there will be a new best, and it will be just as oppressive to everything else as the current best is. Not enjoying what the current "top meta" is fine and reasonable, but don't expect a rebalance to help it. If we remove mindlink, jumpmasters, and bombs, TLTs and Defenders are the boogeymen again. Take them out? Crack shot is breaking the game! Re-balancing all of it at once is impossible, you just need to pick your poison.

2 minutes ago, DerekT said:

Doesn't seem like a problem. If you're not trying to win a national championship then it's not a problem that you don't have a chance of winning a national championship.

You've missed my point. I would love to try and win a National championship.

I don't want to have to fly a certain list to do it.

6 minutes ago, macmastermind said:

Yes, exactly. I don't want to be that kind of player - but the expectation from me and others like me - due to a lack of support - is that we have to be this way in order to keep up.

If everyone in your local league is this type of competitive, then it's just impossible for folks like me to enjoy the game. We might as well play against ourselves by running to the other side of the table. I'd wager that might be more fun than EVERY time you play someone, you expect to lose, and then you do lose. Because they're running meta and you don't want to play like that...

Not trying to change how others play - just would like to find more who want to play like I do. I'm too old, have too many responsibilities and other games to stay on the 'cutting edge' of X-Wing. But I love the game and its mechanics, so I'm in that difficult place looking for others like me while everyone else zips past, drooling over spoilers...

A game like this is actually composed of many different 'sub-games'. In most games, your basic position is pretty well defined. Not so in X-Wing. You can do many different things by varying the victory conditions, points values, startig positions of ships, obstacles, and of course matchups - what side is going to fight against what? It's like there are an infinite amount of board games with only the rules as a common factor.

But the focus on competitive play then takes away a huge chunk of those sub-games.

1 minute ago, Stevey86 said:

You've missed my point. I would love to try and win a National championship.

I don't want to have to fly a certain list to do it.

You don't. I made it to top 4 of the last US Nationals flying Tel Trevura. Remember the powerful Tel Trevura meta? No, no you do not.

5 minutes ago, Stevey86 said:

You've missed my point. I would love to try and win a National championship.

I don't want to have to fly a certain list to do it.

The problem, as Brunas alludes to, is that in any competitive setting there will always be the "best" options. So what you are saying is that you want YOUR favorite things to be in that position. Which is reasonable as a human to want, but it is not balance. True balance can never exist in a game like this. There have always been and always will be competitively better options.

But, there are A LOT of good options in this game compared to nearly any other game like it.

7 hours ago, LordBlades said:

I think players who have fun while being destroyed over and over (no matter the outcome) are just as rare as the players who have fun only from the game result.

Luckily, I'm one of those players. I played for about 2 years without ever winning. It is one of these reasons I joined these boards, but in the long run, a few adjustments to what I played did the trick--and ironically, it is the antithesis of these boards since I play Epic.

7 hours ago, DailyRich said:

Anybody can "net deck," but I'd rather fly something I feel like I have an attachment to.

I think that was a little bit the point of the article. Lost is the personal investment of trying things out and learning slowly (while losing and winning). Now, it becomes impossible to have that personal journey. Even if you try, your "let's see what this does" list has no chance against an "I looked this up on the internet and only bought what I needed to win" list.

4 hours ago, Otacon said:

Losing can be fun if it's a close game. Getting blown out completely is never much fun though.

4 hours ago, Babaganoosh said:

Here's a neat, two-step trick that I like for making matches that are as close to fair as possible, while still allowing unorthodox list design:

I like the idea in comments section of the article--randomly draw pilot cards that are just shy of 100 point, then play those.

3 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

Usually I'm the guy making the lists by now, and we previously discuss them for strengths and weaknesses. I'm not interested in wasting an afternoon/evening to "win" without having fun.

It does feel a bit like being in the backseat with a drunk driver. I'm more in the trunk, but some people are much closer to the driver and still can't do anything, apparently. And no offense intended, but the frustrating part is the lack of communication by FFG. You'd think that companies, especially ones that rely so much on a community and voluntary work, would be much more proactive nowadays.

A simple "we're currently reviewing these cards/mechanics/ships" or "we are aware of these problems" would suffice.
And I've mentioned it before, but WotC asks for feedback every time they release some new unearthed arcana. Even if they were to not even look at it, they still give us the feeling of caring about our opinions. Games like these have often some great people in the community that can provide excellent feedback. Basically for free. So why not use this ressource?

100% agree. X-Wing doesn't feel so much like a game produced by members of the community, but rather a set of designs and rulings issued from on high.

3 hours ago, BlodVargarna said:

Because when you go to your FLGS for a casual game, some competitive player has brought his Parattani or whatever the flavor of the Wave is and curb stomps you.

It is the great divide. Casual and tournament will never mesh in this game, and I begin to think it is folly to expect it to in the future. We will always be 2 communities: one that wants to fly the best and win, and one that wants to celebrate Star Wars via plastic ships and rulers. As a member of the 2nd category, my disappointment evolves from the Ivory Tower approach of the company and the trickle-down design of X-Wing for casuals.

1 hour ago, Kdubb said:

" Our prize for getting good at the game was realizing that every deck we made wasn’t competitive. "

This one hit home for me. It's really rough opening a listbuilder for scum and thinking, "Okay, so I either run Jumpmasters, Mindlink, or Fenn Rau, or I accept that my chances of building something equally competitive is less than 1%". That really always sucks for someone who enjoys listbuilding as much as I do (although I don't think I'm particularly good at the game, but I am aware of what performs and what doesn't).

Also, why do things like this always become a calling card for the fictional divide between casual and competitive players? I really detest the whole "Just play casual, because we don't care about what's good and what's bad! We just have fun!" thing (almost as much as I detest the "run a netlist because winning is all that matters" mentality).

People who bash Netrunner should recall the alternative card game and its long history of boring the hell out of everyone.

Seriously, MtG is the worst game ever made and it continues to crap out new sets to rope in unsuspecting dopes and takes up valuable table space at the game shop. Wizards crams events down retailers throats like its some kind of fetishistic torture and everyone who plays it claims to love that. Then watch as four different guys refuse to play each other because they play different formats! EDH! Modern! Legacy! Standard! Kitchen Table? Boo Hiss! Casual format is broken because of x reason or I dont play against Modern because y reason. Should the day come where Netrunner turns into that, so help us all because by that point we ourselves will be arguing about whether or not to play old xwing or xwing 2.0. Formats kill scenes.

At least in Netrunner you are always playing the game at all stages of it. Runner got 6 stolen points? You can still flatline them. Corp got 6 points, you can still win by stealing that last agenda they try to advance. It is a great game for keeping both players involved. MtG? Oh crap I got no mana for three turns, I lose. I have a hand full of counter spells, oh joy. Looks like you dont get to do anything on your turn except turn cards for no **** reason.

Dont get me wrong, I like Magic. I have a collection of white borders that I play with, but only against certain people whose company I enjoy. It really doesn't take up that much of my life in any regard.

But here we are, following suite with Wizards and trying to expand the games beyond what they are, or even need to be. Does netrunner need a story mode? Card games certainly dont lend themselves to roleplaying. Neither does a competitive format game like xwing. You want an RPG in that setting FFG is already catering to you in two different formats, IA and the actual SW RPG. XWing exists as a competitively written ruleset that can also be played casually and as HotAC proved the system lends itself to consumer creativity.

You all ***** and moan about the game, quit playing then. Its that easy. Either that or use the resources available to you to enjoy the game in your own way. We are not FFG. We are not game designers. We are consumers of a product and as such have very little say in what a product should do for us. If we want certain things, we simply go out and find those things in other products. Should FFG decide to release certain things that is their agenda and we as consumers must vote with our wallets as to whether or not we support them. However, given the size and activity of this forum and others, I think its safe to say we are all relatively happy with XWing as it is. Noisy game mechanic haters aside, but really! If XWing sucked we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

People need to adjust their own attitudes about gaming and what constitutes fun and competitive and casual. You are the catalyst for change, not the faceless game company who makes your toys.

I agree that the divide between Casual and Tournament isn't so great. Most do both. You can play one without ruining the other.

What I hate is when I see guys that want casual that play other games as well that just show up on game night and want to have fun. They didn't check in to see if it's a casual night or if there is a tournament coming up. They walk in and can't find a casual game. I feel for whomever it is and have witnessed it before. I've seen a fair number of people drop out of the scene because of it. I wish most people didn't think the default way to play was 100/6 at tournament level.

1 hour ago, Kdubb said:

The costing system means everything should be able to be costed at least closely to its true value. The issue is that this is difficult to do consistently, and when FFG doesn't cost something correctly, it derails that balance.

It's been my experience that points really don't work the way players believe they should. The issue is just that as long as there's any redundancy between what models do, points just determine which one is more efficient at that job. This is really noticeable in X-Wing because you take a small number of large point pieces (3 items costing 33 points+/-10ish) so points create weird issues where the true value doesn't really matter if it puts it at a point where it doesn't combine well with other models. Have a great list with something costing 42/22/36 points? Get something new and exciting that costs 38 points? You're starting the list from scratch. In general I've found point minutia is less valuable then having things at similar cost brackets and making sure things that cost the same are substantially different mechanically.

Where I think X-Wing struggles is just that the combat engine makes it difficult to make ships that are truly different from one another to provide incentive for players to run different ships as opposed to finding the most efficient ones. As much complication as the game has taken on, at its core is still a sort of damage out vs health points equation to beat. There's really only one kind of attack in the game and it removes things that, in spite of the mechanical subtleties of hull/shields/evade tokens really don't vary all that much.

And at its core, there's only space in your list for about 3 of these things and most expansions add at least 4 (some of which can be taken in multiple). Essentially, every new expansion contains enough content to fill up all the space available to the player,which doubles down to make it really hard for the meta to evolve in a more stable, incremental manner.

Just now, heychadwick said:

I agree that the divide between Casual and Tournament isn't so great. Most do both. You can play one without ruining the other.

What I hate is when I see guys that want casual that play other games as well that just show up on game night and want to have fun. They didn't check in to see if it's a casual night or if there is a tournament coming up. They walk in and can't find a casual game. I feel for whomever it is and have witnessed it before. I've seen a fair number of people drop out of the scene because of it. I wish most people didn't think the default way to play was 100/6 at tournament level.

One thing I would say to that is I have seen the same thing. But the person, never said a word. I had to ask them later what happened.

If they would have simply said something most of us would have pulled out a different list.