8 minutes ago, ThalanirIII said:

As a tournament player, I would also be among the target audience for an XWing campaign...

We both play X wing right? I don't think anyone will complain about more ways to play the game.

Same for me, would love to do another campaign.

4 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

As an X-Wing player I would not be in the target audience for a campaign expansion because I'm not interested in it.

I'm sure FFG would bundle in a new ship & pilots and an extremely powerful crew card to mean I had to buy it anyway, though.

I am not so sure it would. The Armada expansion didn't really come with anything overly powerful for Armada from what I can tell, and defo no ships. but TBH I am not as good at judging what is good for it.

28 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

As an X-Wing player I would not be in the target audience for a campaign expansion because I'm not interested in it.

I'm sure FFG would bundle in a new ship & pilots and an extremely powerful crew card to mean I had to buy it anyway, though.

But I'm sure you see how and why a campaign would be beneficial for the game as a whole.

6 hours ago, Forgottenlore said:

Getting back to the original topic and that netrunner campaign and how it applies to x-wing... [...]

Just to mention a small point: I don't think stickers would be necessary - HotAC showed us how it can be done without permanently changing the cards.

8 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

But I'm sure you see how and why a campaign would be beneficial for the game as a whole.

Well I don't know if it would be 'beneficial for the game as a whole' but it would certainly be 'beneficial for players who want to play a campaign'. I'm not one of those players but I've no reason to want to stop them from having their slice of cake as well :-)

Quote

If the campaign sis not to be aimed at veterans who own everything, it has to solve one problem: how manhe's which ships do you need? Looking at HotAC, even for two-three players only, a lot of expansions is required or has to be proxied. They could put necessary stuff in a box, but then it will become rather expensive. I don't play Armada, but I assume that there the basic game has more content than the XWing starter boxes, so the campaign can be cardboard-only.

Not really - two rebel ships, one (more powerful) imperial ship and some supporting fighters. Essentially the same as xwing core in reverse. The campaign is not intended for "core box then campaign box" without buying some extra stuff. This is a big advantage of lcgs - their starter box usually contains an all-up tournament sized deck (even if not a great one) so you can build scenarios without assuming a third purchase.

In xwing....not so much. There is a lot you can do to avoid a brand new player getting squished under a veterans better collection - Intro-and-a-bit scenarios prohibiting unique pilots, or large base ships, or modification upgrades, knock out most of the "power builds" and let you introduce a player who has just finished playing mission 3: Dark Whispers and still forgets Lukes ability sometimes, and expose him to 100 point games in scenarios where new things come one or two at a time and he's not suddenly dealing with squads full of "interaction of three seperate cards" stuff that tends to rule the roost now (like omega leader/juke/comms relay, or Norra wexley/push the limit/r2-d2 and so on).

7 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

This is the exact attitude I was getting salty about and was called to task for about 2 pages ago. And now you both reinforce my previous viewpoint that casual x-wing is considered sub par at worst or a DIY project at best.

I paid money to get involved in this game, too. Just because it never goes beyond the kitchen table doesn't mean I don't deserve professional support.

Never said it was sub-par, just said that casual games do not inherently require formal support the way competitive games do.

And what type of "professional support" do you think you deserve? What would you like to see FFG do to better support casual players the way they support competitive play?

Deleted repost.

18 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Not really - two rebel ships, one (more powerful) imperial ship and some supporting fighters. Essentially the same as xwing core in reverse. The campaign is not intended for "core box then campaign box" without buying some extra stuff. This is a big advantage of lcgs - their starter box usually contains an all-up tournament sized deck (even if not a great one) so you can build scenarios without assuming a third purchase.

In xwing....not so much. There is a lot you can do to avoid a brand new player getting squished under a veterans better collection - Intro-and-a-bit scenarios prohibiting unique pilots, or large base ships, or modification upgrades, knock out most of the "power builds" and let you introduce a player who has just finished playing mission 3: Dark Whispers and still forgets Lukes ability sometimes, and expose him to 100 point games in scenarios where new things come one or two at a time and he's not suddenly dealing with squads full of "interaction of three seperate cards" stuff that tends to rule the roost now (like omega leader/juke/comms relay, or Norra wexley/push the limit/r2-d2 and so on).

If you think it's the bigger collection that causes a brand new player to get squished by a veteran, then I think we might be playing different games.

I think there's a few more steps between finishing core set mission 3 and going out playing 100 point matches. Nobody is going straight from playing with just the core set to standard play.

In the group I played with getting started in xwing, we did smaller point skirmishes -- 37 points single ship free for all, then 60 point squads, and only after some of those did we go full 100 point standard.

You can't expect a newbie to complete directly with a veteran by going straight from first steps to a full run, no matter how simple or complex the lists are.

31 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

Well I don't know if it would be 'beneficial for the game as a whole' but it would certainly be 'beneficial for players who want to play a campaign'. I'm not one of those players but I've no reason to want to stop them from having their slice of cake as well :-)

Thats Sir was a beautifull thing.

1 minute ago, ScummyRebel said:

I think there's a few more steps between finishing core set mission 3 and going out playing 100 point matches. Nobody is going straight from playing with just the core set to standard play.

In the group I played with getting started in xwing, we did smaller point skirmishes -- 37 points single ship free for all, then 60 point squads, and only after some of those did we go full 100 point standard.

You can't expect a newbie to complete directly with a veteran by going straight from first steps to a full run, no matter how simple or complex the lists are.

Some people do. I've seen it done, where someone opens up the core set in the store and is back next week for a tournament. And it works, largely because of what I said a couple pages back: you can have a tournament structure while still keeping play casual and having fun.

Are they going to get stomped every match and go 0-3 for multiple consecutive tournaments? Sure. But they expect that and understand that as a completely new player they're not entitled to win games. They focus on incremental improvements (killed something each game, etc). Tournament structure makes it easy for new players to get in a lot more practice and get feedback from a variety of people. Great way to learn. I don't think I'd even played 10 casual games before my first tournament.

10 hours ago, DerekT said:

Looking at the results for Naboo Open, the top 8 included 8 different squad types. Hoth Open's top 8 also had 8 different squads, many of which weren't in the top 8 at Naboo. Tatooine Open's top 8 had 7 different squads, and a couple of those didn't appear at Naboo or Hoth.

So ...no. It doesn't look like you're required to netdeck to have a chance. There's a huge variety of squads that have a legitimate chance of winning a major tournament.

In that case, I'm happy to admit that my experience is an exception and not the rule. Thank you for the info.

I'm still left with solving my experience - which we've just proven isn't the norm - so I'm in an even more difficult situation, apparently.

Oh well...

30 minutes ago, DerekT said:

Never said it was sub-par, just said that casual games do not inherently require formal support the way competitive games do.

And what type of "professional support" do you think you deserve? What would you like to see FFG do to better support casual players the way they support competitive play?

Anyone who spends time and money on this game deserves to have that gameplay supported in some way by FFG. And it is FFG's economic interest to support casual play for several reasons:

1. It expands and preserves their non-competitive player base.

2. It allows competitive players who are feeling burnout to play games of x wing that are different, creating a safety net where players who may have dropped out of x wing altogether can either take breaks from competitive play, or transition to casual play (while still buying their product)

3. It makes the game more approachable and attractive to new players. New players typically are attracted to the Star Wars aspect of the game, and get hooked on the solid gameplay afterwards. Casual games can emphasize the Star Wars theme much better than competitive games can.

That said, the question of what support should casual players get is much trickier, and is in fact a great question. Organized Events focused on tapping into the theme and feel of the Star Wars universe would be a great start. I am ambivalent about tying competitive product releases to those events. The one thing that casual games truly lack and need is a common denominator. Self organization is hard, and while there are some gaming communities where casual players self organize and thrive, there are others - I think the majority - where casual play is exceedingly rare and difficult to organize. Some guidance in the form of a FFG supported event or format might go a long way toward supporting casual play.

49 minutes ago, DerekT said:

what type of "professional support" do you think you deserve? What would you like to see FFG do to better support casual players?

A nice campaign, for example. This very thread is about that, no?

9 minutes ago, Babaganoosh said:

Anyone who spends time and money on this game deserves to have that gameplay supported in some way by FFG. And it is FFG's economic interest to support casual play for several reasons:

1. It expands and preserves their non-competitive player base.

2. It allows competitive players who are feeling burnout to play games of x wing that are different, creating a safety net where players who may have dropped out of x wing altogether can either take breaks from competitive play, or transition to casual play (while still buying their product)

3. It makes the game more approachable and attractive to new players. New players typically are attracted to the Star Wars aspect of the game, and get hooked on the solid gameplay afterwards. Casual games can emphasize the Star Wars theme much better than competitive games can.

That said, the question of what support should casual players get is much trickier, and is in fact a great question. Organized Events focused on tapping into the theme and feel of the Star Wars universe would be a great start. I am ambivalent about tying competitive product releases to those events. The one thing that casual games truly lack and need is a common denominator. Self organization is hard, and while there are some gaming communities where casual players self organize and thrive, there are others - I think the majority - where casual play is exceedingly rare and difficult to organize. Some guidance in the form of a FFG supported event or format might go a long way toward supporting casual play.

I've been playing Android: Mainframe since it was first released and have had no support from FFG in terms of competitive or casual play. Not even any promo alt arts or sleeves or a deck box or anything, but I don't go complaining about it because all I deserve is the stuff that comes in the box.

But the real question is what type of support casual players want to see. More thematic play? Do the missions that come in the expansions. Worried about getting stomped by the power meta? Well, they don't necessarily work for the missions, and you can easily restrict upgrades to things released up to the point of the mission. Wave 5 mission? No wave 6-11 ships or upgrades.

If you want something like FFG to put together prize support for a Protect the Senator night or something though ...guess what, it's no longer casual. People will test and theory craft and come up with the power squads to win that mission. Now you're back to square one.

3 minutes ago, Draconis Hegemonia said:

A nice campaign, for example. This very thread is about that, no?

FFG has released how many missions now? It's somewhere around 25-30. And the epic ships come with mini-campaigns. And they're not just new rules and scenarios, but they also come with unique tokens/obstacles/etc to make the missions work. Seems like the support for thematic play outside of 100 point dogfights already exists.

23 minutes ago, DerekT said:

FFG has released how many missions now? It's somewhere around 25-30. And the epic ships come with mini-campaigns. And they're not just new rules and scenarios, but they also come with unique tokens/obstacles/etc to make the missions work. Seems like the support for thematic play outside of 100 point dogfights already exists.

I've never said otherwise, we have some casual play support now, but your ask was about how I would like to see FFG do an even better support... Well, a nice campaign (like the armada one) is a viable answer to that question.

1 minute ago, Draconis Hegemonia said:

I've never said otherwise, we have some casual play support now, but your ask was about how I would like to see FFG do an even better support... Well, a nice campaign (like the armada one) is a viable answer to that question.

So you mean like... Epic? Where 98% of the stuff in the box is useless in standard play and they come with multi-mission campaigns?

(Also, Correllian Conflict has an OP kit and seems very much geared towards supporting the competitive community. Corellian pilots are the new meta.)

4 hours ago, Keffisch said:

Nowhere in their posts do they call it subpar. They call it the standard, which it is.

FFG already support casual play, by releasing products.

You might want to stop reading more into it, for that way leads to anger.

It's not anger, it's passion:

If 100/6 is "standard," and the rest of the play styles are not supported as much, they are then "sub-standard." Semantically speaking. I chose subpar cuz I was gettin' salty again.

2 hours ago, DerekT said:

Never said it was sub-par, just said that casual games do not inherently require formal support the way competitive games do.

And what type of "professional support" do you think you deserve? What would you like to see FFG do to better support casual players the way they support competitive play?

A campaign.

Small and large based ships that are not-tournament ready.

Squadron rules.

Fixed emplacements.

More than 1 Epic release per year.

Space stations.

Mine fields.

Commander cards.

Shall I go on?

1 hour ago, DerekT said:

Some people do.

There are always the exceptions to the rule.

1 hour ago, Draconis Hegemonia said:

A nice campaign, for example. This very thread is about that, no?

1 hour ago, DerekT said:

I've been playing Android: Mainframe since it was first released and have had no support from FFG in terms of competitive or casual play. Not even any promo alt arts or sleeves or a deck box or anything, but I don't go complaining about it because all I deserve is the stuff that comes in the box.

But the real question is what type of support casual players want to see. More thematic play? Do the missions that come in the expansions. Worried about getting stomped by the power meta? Well, they don't necessarily work for the missions, and you can easily restrict upgrades to things released up to the point of the mission. Wave 5 mission? No wave 6-11 ships or upgrades.

If you want something like FFG to put together prize support for a Protect the Senator night or something though ...guess what, it's no longer casual. People will test and theory craft and come up with the power squads to win that mission. Now you're back to square one.

No, your not back to square one. FFG is now finally supporting something other than "Standard."

43 minutes ago, DerekT said:

So you mean like... Epic? Where 98% of the stuff in the box is useless in standard play and they come with multi-mission campaigns?

(Also, Correllian Conflict has an OP kit and seems very much geared towards supporting the competitive community. Corellian pilots are the new meta.)

So, I guess it is really easy to make it sound like we are being a bunch of cry babies when you are getting what you want out of the game. OTOH, there are a lot of people who are not satisfied with what is being presented by FFG. You might respect our position as opposed to (a) pointing out there is a bare minimum of support and (b) turning our grievances into our own problems to solve (DIY, listing expectations).

Furthermore, Scum and Villainy has been around since 2014. Three years later, they still can't field an Epic ship yet. That's pretty lame support for Epic.

It's not sub-standard, it's astandard or para-standard. Perhaps contrastandard. Some might say infrastandard, but I'd dispute that.

3 minutes ago, DerekT said:

So you mean like... Epic? Where 98% of the stuff in the box is useless in standard play and they come with multi-mission campaigns?

(Also, Correllian Conflict has an OP kit and seems very much geared towards supporting the competitive community. Corellian pilots are the new meta.)

No, I mean like an even better campaign than the ones that comes with the epic ships, something like the Corellian Conflict, no, no, wait, why not?even better than that...

CC could be improved, and Xwing sales are way bigger than the armada ones. FFG perfectly could do a better and bigger job.

So yes I would like to see FFG do a better support to casual play this way. It would be gorgeous.

And if with this campaign FFG also achie a way to improve the competitive play. That would be the icing on the cake.

Just now, Draconis Hegemonia said:

No, I mean like an even better campaign than the ones that comes with the epic ships, something like the Corellian Conflict, no, no, wait, why not?even better than that...

CC could be improved, and Xwing sales are way bigger than the armada ones. FFG perfectly could do a better and bigger job.

So yes I would like to see FFG do a better support to casual play this way. It would be gorgeous.

And if with this campaign FFG also achie a way to improve the competitive play. That would be the icing on the cake.

Well **** then, we might as well be complaining that they're not doing enough to support competitive play either. The norm is for stores to have monthly tournaments, but kits only come out quarterly, so competitive players spend 8 out of 12 months with nothing new to compete for. The prize kits have also gotten significantly worse -- fewer tokens, and no more first place prize. Also no folders or posters. They cut an entire store championship season. Registration for worlds is a mess. The binder from last year was very meh. Casual play has gotten Final Mission and Patrol Ambush from Heroes of the Resistance and the U-Wing while competitive play got virtually nothing from those expansions. There's still no prize support for escalation tournaments, and pirate format and hunger games have not even been recognized as official play styles.

When is competitive play going to get the recognition its earned by spending money on core sets and expansions?

We should really be clear that FFG prize support is just pretty turd all round, it's not really worth arguing about.

I dont get the problem here...

Im like competitive play and attending tournaments. But I also enjoy random, obscure list.

Every Wednesday I attend the xwing night at our FLGS. Before the ame I ask my opponent, if he would like to do some pre-tournament testing, or a more relaxed fun-play. Are a week before a large regionals? Lets do Defenders vs mindlinked Fenn-masters! Nothing major on the horizon? Lets do Z95/G1a Swarm versus Imperial Firesprays!

No issues so far, I can't imagine playing with an opponent who would refuse to change a highly competitive list playing against something funny... Maybe it's the community problem?

Just now, Voitek said:

I dont get the problem here...

Im like competitive play and attending tournaments. But I also enjoy random, obscure list.

Every Wednesday I attend the xwing night at our FLGS. Before the ame I ask my opponent, if he would like to do some pre-tournament testing, or a more relaxed fun-play. Are a week before a large regionals? Lets do Defenders vs mindlinked Fenn-masters! Nothing major on the horizon? Lets do Z95/G1a Swarm versus Imperial Firesprays!

No issues so far, I can't imagine playing with an opponent who would refuse to change a highly competitive list playing against something funny... Maybe it's the community problem?

I compete in a tournament every Tuesday night, and even then I'll get 1 meta list, and 1 fun list, and then the third list is a toss up. It's all fine. If you lose your first match to a meta list, you'll probably get 2 fun lists after that. If you beat the meta list, you have higher odds of playing another meta list, but not always. And I've never heard someone genuinely complain about facing the meta lists there. We just see it as a challenge, and challenges are fun. Even if you get stomped, the challenge isn't always to win, but to push yourself to do better. If I go up against a meta squad I know I have a bad chance against, then I'm playing to get a decent MoV.

1 minute ago, DerekT said:

I compete in a tournament every Tuesday night, and even then I'll get 1 meta list, and 1 fun list, and then the third list is a toss up. It's all fine. If you lose your first match to a meta list, you'll probably get 2 fun lists after that. If you beat the meta list, you have higher odds of playing another meta list, but not always. And I've never heard someone genuinely complain about facing the meta lists there. We just see it as a challenge, and challenges are fun. Even if you get stomped, the challenge isn't always to win, but to push yourself to do better. If I go up against a meta squad I know I have a bad chance against, then I'm playing to get a decent MoV.

This.

If you dont like meta lists, dont go to the tournament. Stronger lists = bigger challenge = more fun of beating it. Simple as that!