Hello X-Wing players, Hello FFG, Hello Gamers,
I’m going to sum up how has been my first year of playing the game and share my point of view, and a feedback of experience that I have as a new player. I hope it will help some wherever they are playing the game and relate to this user experience.
My background : I always liked playing social games, but lacking a little sister or brother made me go toward video games on PC such as RPGs or FPS when I was a teen. Later, I discovered Magic the Gathering and the competitive play and I loved it for quite some time. I tried, of course, back in time Star Wars CCG by Decipher, Lord of the Rings, Legend of Five Rings (Shadowlands, Crane, Lion, Crab, Unicorn), and the old school Netrunner (which to me is the best version, I never got hooked by the new one). I also tried some miniature wargames such as Confrontation (playing Devourers and qqing because overwhelming armies were too strong).
As on the long run video games tend to exhaust you because of the lack of face to face social human interaction, I came to reconsider community gaming (which transforms into competitive gaming) and found tabletoptournament.com that listed all the tabletop games. X-Wing was my pick of choice because I could play it right off the hat without having to paint it, as I am a slow painter, not too expensive to be competitive compared to collectible card games which have obsolescence of cards when a mini doesn’t, nor having a huge army such as 40K or Warhammer Fantasy. Also it appeared more appealing than a regular skirmish miniature game.
So I dived into X-Wing, I bought everything, some ships several times, in order to be able to play everything. Rebels and Empire had a lot of references, too many for me to get into it so I was attracted by scum and started with Brobots because I couldn’t find jumpmasters anywhere. So I learned to loose, still learning of course and I’d say I’m an average player now able to do an average 1st day at an open. I only play in tournament on weekends because of lack of time and I’m bit scared to jump into Vassal, not sure if my opponent will just scream if I make a mistake using it (you know when you click a ship to choose a move and it slips a bit). Overall I’m having a great experience and the community is one of the best I have yet encountered in my gaming experience.
What I would like that I don’t have today:
I miss the fact that I can’t really experience all the past waves and ships in competitive play. For example I need to train for the european championships so I try to play as much as possible my actual list. So obviously I won’t risk to spend a tournament (which is the best place to improve) on a casual list just to see how it plays and if that ships sucks or not. I also want to be better with the ships I will be playing, I want to grind more experience with them. It is part of the unbalanced state of the game, as you don’t see much older ships on the table, or said weak ships, you don’t train against them so you can’t really know how they behave or to beat them. The older players do have a certain advantage here. The first time I met a K-Wing (a regular K Warden) I got wrecked. If all the ships were to have a near equal visibility on the tables I would surely catch up much quickly as the meta would allow for more diversity. I wish FFG finds a way to make old ships viable on an equal level as their new entries, and that would be X Wing 2.0.
I perfectly understand that not all pilots or cards are meant to be top-end. But if you look at how Diablo 3 works, you notice that every item in the game functions well to a relatively high level, and to make it to top of the top you then need, perfect rolls on set items which bracket is defined. That means that the developers has set what should work or not at top end by developing an environment. I feel like for X Wing, at the moment, this is not very well defined. On the other hand items in D3 are free, ships are not. This means that each ships should have some competitive pilots and some a bit less. I know it’s a nightmare to balance a game, but business wise you don’t it to be balanced. You want it to be on the verge to it, so the game need tuning on the long run, this is what give it its lifespan. Chess is an exception because of its simplicity and depth of skill needed to master. If it had a mastery level easily attainable, players would have dropped the game a long time ago out of boredom.
As in all games that need balance (everything except chess) I see on forums, reddit, and the like, comments and opinions about that particular card, ship, pilot, die (yes balanced dices make the game different, and even more enjoyable, just try it). So each time the best players in the world who thrive for optimisation and there is a point here : these are able to draw the maximum of this optimisation, win tournament with the same bracket of list, ships, etc, everybody else will at a point discuss balance issues and eventually call for a nerf. Nerfing is like tinkering one single element to down it a bit. But then something will rise instead of it and you will have to nerf the new thing, then a new wave gets in, and you have to nerf a new element because of a new combination. Nerfing should address in a very subtle way a small imbalance that got too big of an impact on the environment (meta). Say there’s a build that has 5% more efficiency than all others, it’s not a big deal because the skill of the player, the rng of the dice will smooth it. But then you have a 10% better efficiency, it becomes a problem because it is noticeable and then the hype will focus on this build and set everything else aside especially by top players, people are fashionistas, they play what works and the new thing becomes a deal, smart people mostly plays what they really mastered, (geniuses play 1 tie fighter, go figure :p). Then a nerf is where you rip off, 5 or 10% if you can, but not 15% because then a new build rise with the same problem. So as a rather new player I found myself caught in this gravity train which is the neverhappymeta played by neverhappyinternetpeople. I lack the experience or the genius to come up with efficient out of box list able to win tournaments (but I’m sure there are) and then I’d have to play them well, and have luck on the match ups, etc.
I would love to get out of that, and be able to do true “deckbuilding” (upgrade building if you want). Because X-Wing is separate into 2 main aspects, or this is how I understand it:
The combination and upgrade/feats/ building where you chose powers of your pilot, cards weapons and the like
The ship itself and its dial which should be the most important part to win a match, which proves skill of the player
If you compare to chess, what old school players refer to at “flying” is, correct me if I’m wrong, the skill to play the right move, the right action with the right ship at the right time. There’s no combo-mambo of any sort involved, yet.
Right now I feel a bit locked into this imbalance. How was it to fly B-Wings ? or E-Wings ? or Z-95 ? or Kihraxz ? Or Starviper ? Or Tie Advanced ? Or … the list goes on and on. Which leads me to think that we need an X Wing 2.0 just like 40K is having its 8th edition, something that will settle an entirely new environment and at least for a moment make everything re-discoverable, maybe viable.
What could make me stop playing ?
- Routine is the first word that comes to my mind. And FFG seems to be aware that it is a threat to their baby, as they introduce a new kind of actions with Kylo shuttle and Wookie ship for example. And that’s very good for obvious reasons.
- Black & white metas : I used to play Magic. At some point the meta was half of the hall playing deck n°1 and the other half playing deck n°2. This nearly killed the fun to play at all because of no diversity at all. But the rotation of expansions in Magic saved it 3 months later.
- A more appealing game with a bigger player base : X-Wing is so popular, grinded so much market parts over Games Workshop products and may others that it has a target on its and competitors are coming with sharp teeth. Shadespire looks to be one of them. So in order to stay on top of the tactical skirmish game, X-Wing will need a revamp at a certain point and some genius innovation. It is a need because, it’s a marketing necessity, renewal of the market, renewal of the core rules, puts aside a 37845 pages FAQ that became too heavy to know by heart and make your cards obsolete, makes people that stopped come back to rediscover the game, and catch even more players into the loop. Also, production of ships has seen its quality rise. Of course it’s all thanks to the Star Wars license and X-Wing 2.0 will give 5 more years of very good business.
- At a certain point X-Wing will die, just like any other game and its replacement must be planned for business reasons. Unless it becomes an eternal franchise like 40K and Fantasy or World of Warcraft, Diablo, Final Fantasy and other licenses that last because the community is THAT big (the problem with star wars is that FFG doesn’t own it).
- Lack of organized play at a small scale : to give an example, there was only 1 tournament since mid-April until the European championships in Paris because organizers, who are benevolent, were just busy with life. They do do a great job at that but I feel some communities are better organized than others depending of the country. It also depends on the stores that definitely, according to their words, think it is too complex to organize official tournaments and not worth the work (in Paris at least). As well, managing a world wide calendar is quite a challenge when you need to ship for prizes in several different languages.
What will make me play more and more :
- Innovation : Innovation gives players new ways of thinking the game so new things to learn, build, test, play. This is key to keep people hooked. In card games it is done by doing a rotation of the products and adding new powers that are bound to an expansion.
- Cutting off the FAQ when it gets too overwhelming, back when I discovered my first tournament I felt overwhelmed by the FAQ, it was a lot to integrate at a single time and it took me quite some time. This is possible by the release of a new edition (or core set in this case) with a refresh of X-Wing.
- Accessibility : When a new wave comes out it is a thrill to imagine he new lists that we’re going to play, and dream of the thrill of the meta change. A new wave needs to have an impact on the meta because if it is not so, players will feel that the actual star ship is too good because it is still a star, the new wave is not worth investing and make casual players less appealed to them. Hardcore lovers will still go for it because they are passionate, but that’s it. So new wave in order not to create more imbalance then need to revisit older ships and make them appealing again for elder players and to younger players that will discover them (yes that means reprint, wait no, that means new colour schemes yay !). Best games ever all bow to one first rule : Easy to learn, hard to master (some ships are harder than others to master especially when you compare older ships to newer ones -dials-).
- Simplicity : is genius. At least that’s what I think. Genius lies in simplicity. That’s why chess is such a genius game, simple rules, endless possibilities, until the game ends. X-Wing is close to that when you compare game rules and play. So adding too much new powers without controlling how much combinations are on the table will get the game more messy and less fluid and take off flying skills to focus on combinations and power cards. This needs a balance as combos tend to attract new players and younglings and flying skill appeals more to hardcores which involves a harder learning curve.
- More organized play : and variety with prizes (I don’t have any light green focus tokens and only have 1 evade token, so yes I want some as well). But what about alternate ships ? There are several levels of prize kits : 1, 2 and 3. Each are meant to award a certain number of players in the tournament. For tournaments over say 60 people, the winner could have an alternate say “X-Wing”, or an alternate “Tie Fighter”. Even if it is a different paint job it would be awesome to have more variety in prizes. The Ultimate Guard green box at the European championships was a brilliant idea. Hopefully next time it will be large enough with slots for movement trays and dials. What about a magnetised box to hold your ships ? Possibilities are endless.
- The switch to the digital : An application that lets you buy cards and dials. I work for a company that has created an innovation board and directorate. I was part of several workshops and digitalisation is key to development when it is relevant. The motive must be the user experience and among many tools digitalisation is one of them that is of great value. Having an application that lets you :
- Program your dials : hide and show (and no more loose dials)
- Have you squad list : let you to count shields, hulls, face up or face down upgrade cards, and extra munition
- Just like Nintendo did with their DS and Pokemon, people playing each others that uses the app, the app itself can put itself a tournament mode where it updates all needed information as the game flows (ergonomy is key and needs to aim for the least number of clicks : setting dials, hiding them, modifying stats). Focus, evade, target locks, should stay on the table for example)
- We use lasers to determine whether we’re in arc or not, touching an obstacle or not. Imagine how convenient our life would be with movement templates projected by lasers on the table. No more problems of marking ships, removing them, moving them, putting them, etc.
How can I help the game spread :
- Share : my love for the game
- Help : with organized play. Maybe a coordinator per country or region is needed, to keep track of tournaments, results, behaviours of players, prizes, etc
- Help : with communication, each chooses the channels he follows. I follow FFG in english, reddit and twitter and don’t go to forums for example. Well that made miss some news like the announce of the French Nationals, or the one of Tatooine open serie and maybe some others. I wish FFG could support.Tabletoptournaments or Listjuggler and Vassal or Tabletop Simulator as it is a great place to have an international overview of ongoing tournaments. It still allow it to stay open source and open to the community.
- Be a good player, win tournaments, comment games and stream them in the most understandable way. To learn I viewed tons of videos. So I know for sure that it helps new players. But as the meta is moving content must be flowing and updated, just like Miniwargaming or Guerilla Miniature Games channels do on youtube.
If you are a new player and feel overwhelmed by more than 4 years of content :
Well, start with the newest ships and one of the core set and later the second one. I wish FFG releases a new core set at a point. You will surely have fun and they tend to include all the needed upgraded to be good at what they do.
If FFG would have released an app with in app purchase you would be able to buy the cards and pilots that appeal to you, but hey, meanwhile, see your local store if they can ditch old references. You still need to buy the ships (I waited 6 months for a YT2400, that I happened to bump into all by luck).
Proxy anything you want and just test whatever you want
When you are ready for your tournament, people can lend you the cards you lack and the best one to ask for that is the organizer of the tournament. They are meant to help you get in. It’s in their interest. Which level up a question : do organizers have some spare cards, dials or ships on their event for new-comers ? Let’s keep that for another time.
Try to fly generic ships at first (I wish we had more and better generics, why not generic aces ? and heroes be more valuable). It will save you a lot of time in the learning process. I didn’t do it and I feel I should have.
Fly casual
All in all I’m having a wonderful time, thanks to the community, thanks FFG for the game and the Organized play teams that put out greatevents
Cheers !
Comments welcome !
Shout-out to the 186th Squadron guys, George of Team Warlords, congrats on your title man, Escadron des têtes brulées. Will see you soon again guys I hope
