31 minutes ago, ThalanirIII said:

I don't think having a 2nd Edition with fundamental mechanic re-writing and keeping the playerbase is really possible. At least not in the next 10 years. Considering the overwhelming statement on here which is "If a new edition is released where I need to rebuy ships, I'm out," a fundamental rewrite would most likely require some rebuying of ships (unless FFG decide to release a pack which contains every card, piece of cardboard & bit of plastic - so upgrades, pilots, bases, dials, tokens, etc) which would damage the playerbase massively.

I think in 10-15 years, if the game has stopped, then re-releasing as a new game might work - but I don't think the kind of rewrite you're proposing would work in the short term.

So my counter-argument to this attitude has been percolating around, and it's this:

Battletech.

Have you ever played it? Have you ever heard of it? Maybe you've heard of MechWarrior Online, the descendant of Battletech, but Battletech itself was a dead game for many years - and dying even when it was still being produced by FASA in 1997 thanks to multiple poor decisions and competition from fresh blood. Namely, Games Workshop. In retrospect, it played BADLY - it was clunky, extremely small, didn't scale up, had tons of rules for tons of situations none of which related to each other... it was a very 1980's wargame.

Nowadays, they have a very playable version of the game called Alpha Strike - it's some of the most fun I've had with my pants on when it comes to giant stompy robots, it's well balanced, and... no one plays it . Almost no one has heard of it. Because instead of trying to revise the game when the popularity was at its height, FASA shuttered up and lost market share, and now the only people who play it are the guys for whom Battletech is their first wargame.

Or what about Warhammer Fantasy Battle? Time was that it was second in popularity only to Warhammer 40k. You can't really blame Privateer Press for stealing the audience there - straight fantasy epic armies versus steam-powered magically controlled robots isn't much of a competition. Instead, the game went through Typical GW Cycling, because GW was confident it would always be top dog of wargames and even their BAD games would still sell, and....

It's dead. Anyone who cares about epic fantasy armies from the old GW days is playing Kings of War, and there's a new market for it with the Runewars stuff.

Compare that to Malifaux or Warmachine - M2.0 came out at a height of its profitability because the devs realized their game was impossibly clunky, and WM/H is on its third revision for good **** reason (they wanted to make it about the giant stompy robots and scary big monsters instead of infantry swarms!). Rather than wait until people left in droves because the game was unplayable, they said, "We're doing this, folks, buckle up because we'll have a much better game out the other end..."

And they were right.

A game that waits to reinvent itself until it's dead stays dead . You need to strike while the iron is hot and the community is large; while you'll lose SOME people, a good revision ensures that it'll be as few as possible, and make it more accessible so that you'll pick up more people afterwards - some of which will be the "NeverEditioners" slinking back.

What are the parameters of this thread? How much are we allowed to change? Like just a card or full core rules?

7 hours ago, jmswood said:

Based on your original post, it looks like you want a second edition of the game to nerf a couple cards you don't like. Do you have any ideas that would actually require a complete revision of X-wing?

Do I want a 2nd edition just to nerf a couple of cards? Not at all, and I'm kind of wondering how you got that impression. I said "if there were a second edition or if FFG just revised some cards or embraced hard errata..." I do have some ideas that could come about with a complete edition but that's a discussion for another topic.

7 minutes ago, ForceSensitive said:

What are the parameters of this thread? How much are we allowed to change? Like just a card or full core rules?

Whatever you need to achieve your vision, bud! Stay on the Leader said something that Thalanir and imafanboy followed up on that is threatening to derail this into an "Are you looking forward to a 2nd edition PT II" thread, so keep it to how you'd modify cards (with or without modifying core rules) and I'll be happy.

Without a doubt, replying just based on the first post alone, I would completely remove Biggs darklighter, porkins, and any other Red Squadron Pilot who died at the first death star. Corran Horn wouldnt be inside a E-Wing anymore, he would be inside his own X-Wing with his R2 unit Whistler, and maybe even give him a special Cor-Sec X-Wing title for his ship.

Wedge, Wes, Tycho and etc would be all be great pilots, would synergize a lot better and there would be no "x-wing is utter useless" bs going about.

And anyone crying about not having biggs in the game with that ability of his to take shots, that isnt what Biggs is about, Biggs was actually a better pilot then Wedge was at the time of the death star run, and if he would have survived, even Wedge admitted he would prob be leading Rogue Squadron instead. Any rookie pilot can take the ability biggs has, but at the same time, such an ability completely breaks the game how it currently is, because it prevents the x-wing from gaining any buffs it despertly needs as a space superiority fighter it is supposed to be portraying.

As far as the Empire, there really need to find a way to swarm more and more tie fighters then what is currently possible for a tie swarm, just let the x-wings mop the floor with them and dodge all day, especially the high end pilots, you just need to find a way to out fly the x-wings with your swarm.

Gosh. There's so much. I think if I had to choose just one to talk about, it would be the dice need changed. Lasers(generic), Ordinance(heavy damage), specialized(accurate), as attack dice and potentially an armor mechanic to offset the shield conundrum. This would be worked in with keywords that allowed us to further interpret the dice face results in different ways. Like a "evasive" mechanic on interceptors might allow you to spend one evade result to cancel one whole dice when defending, which might have double damage icons, instead of individual icons. Perhaps a new icon result like the accuracy in Armada could be implemented. I would start with this and see what that allows me to do.

13 hours ago, jmswood said:

@mkevans80 Based on your original post, it looks like you want a second edition of the game to nerf a couple cards you don't like. Do you have any ideas that would actually require a complete revision of X-wing?

Ship card redesigns to assign actions and upgrade types appropriate to earlier wave ships.

Dial re-design to fit more maneuvers and assign maneuvers to earlier wave ships that those maneuvers didn't exist for when they were released.

Remove many of the worthless titles/modifications that were designed as "fixes" and integrate their abilities onto the original pilot cards, paving the way for those ships to take actual valuable modifications and titles if applicable.

Reevaluate point costs for ordnance.

Those alone are badly needed and more or less entail an entire overhaul of the core components of the game aside from the models. If they are going that far, might as well make some tweaks to mechanics we know are a bit wonky and get all the special rules condensed into a single rulebook.

The potential loss of players is a complete non-concern. I know a lot of people like to feel special, but games like this have an inherent turnover, and Star Wars is a robust license. Anyone who leaves will be replaced by somebody new. Most veteran players already bought their ships anyway, and the secondary market isn't any more robust for X-Wing as it is for 40K, and 40K is 30 years and now 8 editions old. As Ray Kinsella's daughter said, "People will come."

That said, it would also be possible for them to sell upgrade packs with new dials and ship cards that would be manageable for veteran players to accommodate with only the smallest of whining. Might even just allow people to play with the old cards and dials if they really want to, and have an FAQ for new point values. It's not like a lot of ships need things taken away. Most of them actually need things added .

I think the biggest change that I'd like to do is HUGE:

Uncouple Pilot and Ship cards.

Basically, you buy a ship and it's at PS1 - say, an X-Wing. THEN you equip the Pilot card to it - there would be generic pilots to increase its PS, or maybe give it an EPT slot - or possibly other things, like "Ordnance Maniac - Fill in one slot on your ship to add a Torpedo slot".

Named Pilots would have a limited variety of ships they'd go into, based on fluff - Luke Skywalker would be in X-Wings, Y-Wings, and E-Wings, for example. One fun thing I'd like to see is Wedge Antilles limited to X-Wings, E-Wings, and TIE Defenders (thanks to him flying a Defender in the X-Wing novels) - some pilots being cross-faction, but in very limited chassis...

This would also free up a nice space that's currently only being used for fluff on the main card to put the new brainstorm of 0-cost Title abilities right there.