3 hours ago, Jeff Wilder said:

This interests me, primarily because I don't know what "better for competition" means.

Does "better for competition" mean that when two people play, the one who plays better will always win?

Does "better for competition" mean that more people will actually dip their feet into competitive play?

See, for me, it's the latter. For some people, it's the former. (Micanthropyre obviously intended the former, though I can't say for sure that's really where he fully stands.)

This is obviously reductive, but please allow it just for the sake of making a point: why don't people who earnestly believe the better player should always win ... just take up chess or go? (If it's the models, there's are some really nice Star Wars chess sets out there.)

Hear, hear! I've got a bad habit of flying lists in small local tourneys which aren't necessarily the easiest for a new player to fly against. But overall 2e feels a lot better for this than 1e. Like, bringing random stuff up against Miranda Doni was no doubt frustrating.

Don't get me wrong, I loved watching the recent World Chess Championships last November. The fact that it was 12 draws in 12 games is kind of deceptive. The flow of games was pretty interesting, leading to some tense moments, and watching folks like Jerry at Chess Network talk about plays and examine different potential lines of play was fascinating.

But Chess has wicked **** replay values for players of differing skill levels. Go's a bit better, since there are built in handicaps.

X-Wing, though, has never and IMO should never be a pure-skill game like Chess. It's closer to a card game like MTG. Sure, the selection of cards in the list matters. But also hugely important is making reads on opponents. Knowing when they'll try for a K-Turn or have a particular card answer in hand. It's knowing when to risk playing into an opponent's tools, and what your potential outs are. And no matter how consistent you try to make any given deck or list, you can get screwed by a bad shuffle or bad dice roll. If time allowed, it'd be great to play Best Of Three in X-Wing, but clearly that time isn't there. Like, even Chess tends to play multiple games against the same opponent (case in point, 12 draws between Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana, followed by 4 rapid games).

And as many have pointed out, there's a pretty high correlation between how well someone did at 1e and how well they're doing at 2e.

This is kinda rambling a bit.

//

I'll also add: these preferences also probably somewhat regional. The smaller the local X-Wing scene, I'd guess the more folks will prefer the "better for feet dippers" side. In a larger local community, it'll be easier to prefer a "best player wins," simply because there are enough folks to play against.

//

That said, one of the the 1e lists I really regret never flying was a monster of dice consistency. 4 B-Wings with Thrust Corrector and Linked Battery. Guaranteed evades on 8 HP (so it'd be essentially impossible for 2 Harpoons to kill; it'd take a 3rd attack of some kind), with Focus and a reroll on attack granting decent reliability. Math would have worked out well against 5 X-Wings, too. Sure, the target potentially gets a stress pile, but an opponent will almost surely still have to invest an attack or two into killing it, because Linked Battery makes the red dice enough of a threat.

Even if there were no dice and combat had zero variance x wing would still have the ability to perform individual moments of brilliance and unexpected plays.

I'm not advocating for the removal of variance btw

7 hours ago, Jeff Wilder said:

No, it really can't be both. If the better plays always wins (and note that is what I said, and it is the logical outcome of a zero-variance game), that is an immense barrier to overcome when you want to draw new players to a game, and especially to competitive events for that game. I can't overstate how big that barrier is. There is a reason the average X-Wing player doesn't have any interest in travelling (even to their local community center or whatever) to play competitive chess. 

Now would I. But there's a big, big gap between "strong" correlation and "perfect" (or even "almost perfect") correlation.

I don't think you and I disagree. If at all, it's not much.

Basically, X-Wing's success as a game depends on it being a game where the dice matter. I'm not saying that the dice decide anywhere even close to half the games, but I am saying that the dice decide more games than most "top players" want to believe. And, further, I'm saying (well, Socratically, anyway) that that fact is "good for competition."

Yes, I see we agree.

I was jumping too quickly to Xwing, simply ignored your "always", and did not say clearly enough that Xwing does not have a perfect/almost perfect correlation of winner and better player. The only hint I gave was the "... isn't binary?" and that was not clear enough.

I don't get why there should be need to go into extreames like saying 1.0 was space chess where the better player always won or like 2.0 is just a dice rolling contest: they are neither, variance still had its weight in 1.0 and manouvers still matter in 2.0

What I'm not enjoying is the feeling that right now variance matters way more than what I like.

I don't think anyone has advocated for a "0 variance just skill game"...

Jeff is raising an interesting point about tying an healthier tournament environment with increased variance because, according to him, it makes the game feeling "more open" and thus leading to bigger attendance.

For me, and for most of the "hardcore" tournament goers that I know, the one who spent lots of time and money to travel around Italy and Europe just to play xwing, it's the opposite: having a "levelled game" is a huge demotivator

11 hours ago, Boom Owl said:

You know 2.0 is really good when the only thing people have left to really complain about is dice.

Have we already forgotten Redline, Whisper Vader and Boba Han?

19 hours ago, Oldpara said:

While variance factor raised from 1.0 to 2.0 I find pretty much the same ppl winning. Ergo variance factor isn't a thing

Oh but the same people is still winning in 2.0 here too, even I just won a major trophy. It's just I'm not enjoying the game as I used to do.



On an unrelated note, @Brunas krayt cup wonderfully formatted data when?!?!?

Fite me Sunday:

the idea that 1.0 allowed the ‘best player to win’ is massively over-believed, and as 1.0 aged, that became less and less true (skill gap was decreased)

Last 18 months of 1.0 was basically "May the best card combo win".

When I can dumpster things with a 50 point b-wing and another 10 health ship with 1agi you know **** went sideways somewhere.

49 minutes ago, Tlfj200 said:

Fite me Sunday:

the idea that 1.0 allowed the ‘best player to win’ is massively over-believed, and as 1.0 aged, that became less and less true (skill gap was decreased)

2.0 still allow the best player to win, I only think it makes otherwise pretty even matchup much more reliant on luck than before and open up the game to, at least for me, more frustrating moments where you see your better manouvering mattering less because you failed to roll paints on reds.

In fact I think that's what I'm missing: widespread red dice modifiers.

I might be an outlier here, but I really liked to play against post deadeye nerf Jumpmaster because it was a huge positional game: you were either not eating torpedoes (because range, control, blocks or arcdodge), or you were losing.

You saw yourself usually rewarded if you managed to catch a fenn rau in arc at r2

On the other side 1.0 had a huge luck component in matchup, it was particulary true in its last days where things like Ghost Fenn vs 4 Wookies could happen, but I would have preferred if the devs went into soft fixing the degenarate stuff they kept adding to the game (I still don't get how things like Lowhrik and reinforce in general happened to exist after they had already experienced the mistakes that Palpatine, Manaroo and x7 were...) rather than hard reset it and sell us a bunch of cardboard to play in a open beta environment.

Writing this it got me thinking: at what point did devs stop caring about the game? At what point the "test to see how far we can stretch it" became "let's make the game miserable so the nerds won't miss it when we start over"?

12 minutes ago, viedit said:

Last 18 months of 1.0 was basically "May the best card combo win".

When I can dumpster things with a 50 point b-wing and another 10 health ship with 1agi you know **** went sideways somewhere.

That Ten Numb Nym list was **** thought, it could dumpster few things and offered little space to improve its chance with good manouvering against what he couldn't

1 hour ago, Tlfj200 said:

Fite me Sunday:

the idea that 1.0 allowed the ‘best player to win’ is massively over-believed, and as 1.0 aged, that became less and less true (skill gap was decreased)

Correkt

1 hour ago, Tlfj200 said:

Fite me Sunday:

the idea that 1.0 allowed the ‘best player to win’ is massively over-believed, and as 1.0 aged, that became less and less true (skill gap was decreased)

You need to pick more controversial things my friend.

X-Wing is fine Sunday:

"Common" complaints about Hyperspace X-Wing right now: This is probably the most wholesome list of problems X-Wing has ever had?

• 5 Ship i2 Rebels out joust me and thats unfair
• Princess Leia Crew is undercosted
• Rear Arc + Boost + Focus is undercosted
• That ship I like in Extended is not in Hyperspace
• That faction I like is "bad" because the good lists that are available to it don't fit my playstyle or preferred archetype.
• Scum is bad because Boba can't take Han Gunner
• Empire is bad because I can't run Trip Aces
• Resistance is able to take lots of i5+ ships with a 10-20 pt bid and still be competitive while other factions aces run closer to 200 pts.
• Offensive & Defensive Token Stacks are not available to all ships or the specific ship I like
• Dice

Movement Mechanics

• 2.0 puts such a huge premium on movement choices that the moment something arrives that operates outside of normal movement constraints its a potential issue.
• Luke Gunner, Supernatural, Rear Arc Boost, Stressless Turn Around Moves, and High Init Double Reposition should all always be costed aggressively.

Dice is a "wholesome" problem?

Again, I think that's another great way to summarize our differnt views

Time for a real Spicy Opinion.

Listbuilding should not be as important of a factor that it is, since it's not a true skill as other people can do it for you. Other people can't set your dials.

13 minutes ago, Sunitsa said:

Dice is a "wholesome" problem?

Again, I think that's another great way to summarize our differnt views

For me yea mostly. I understand your opinion/perspective and also disagree with you.

Its ok to not like variance.

Its also possible to be wrong.

Here's my hot sports opinion.

Variance isn't that bad unless you mindlessly joust because all you know is hyper modified dice on 360 no scope turrets.

10 minutes ago, Chumbalaya said:

Here's my hot sports opinion.

Variance isn't that bad unless you mindlessly joust because all you know is hyper modified dice on 360 no scope turrets.

We just have cognitive bias of that time Howlrunner took 2 crits after blanking out 5 dice on a range 3 obstructed shot that you didn't even think was in range and you had to burn Iden under the stupidest of circumstances. Not that I had that happen or anything.

35 minutes ago, viedit said:

We just have cognitive bias of that time Howlrunner took 2 crits after blanking out 5 dice on a range 3 obstructed shot that you didn't even think was in range and you had to burn Iden under the stupidest of circumstances. Not that I had that happen or anything.

3.0 when

Just now, Chumbalaya said:

3.0 when

Three charge Iden? IN.

2 hours ago, Kaptin Krunch said:

Time for a real Spicy Opinion.

Listbuilding should not be as important of a factor that it is, since it's not a true skill as other people can do it for you. Other people can't set your dials.

To add to this, I also just find listbuilding a little boring... like, when people talk about "how do I beat this list" and the answer is "build this list", it's not as fun as actually talking about how to outplay it with what you have

3 minutes ago, Kieransi said:

To add to this, I also just find listbuilding a little boring... like, when people talk about "how do I beat this list" and the answer is "build this list", it's not as fun as actually talking about how to outplay it with what you have

That's one (of many) amazing things about my Krayt Cup teammate Sara. She has been a "Norra" fantatic since...ever? And went 4-1 at Krayt Cup with Lando/Wedge and Norra Ywing. She picks a list, flies the crap out of it, and knows what it's weak to and strong against. Then plays to either of those extremes to maximize her chance of winning. There's definitely a utility to completely understanding all the ins and outs of your list and stress testing it against a pile of other lists.

6 minutes ago, Kieransi said:

To add to this, I also just find listbuilding a little boring... like, when people talk about "how do I beat this list" and the answer is "build this list", it's not as fun as actually talking about how to outplay it with what you have

List building in CCG games is indeed a skill, even if people are able to download and play other's lists.

Besides the initial building phase, you need to understand why each card is included in the list, what is the core part of the list and what can be swapped around based on expected meta.

And then do the needed swaps and optimizations before each tournament in the developing meta environment.

1.0 was quite a lot like this, and it allowed you to include "tech" or "counter" cards in your list in order to beat the expected meta.

Mainly because the card pool was huge and you had a large selection of counter cards which you could employ.

This was and is indeed a big strategy piece, which is mostly absent in 2.0.

People who like CCG game mechanics enjoyed this part of the game, and for them this was one of the aspects which were superior in 1.0.

2 hours ago, Boom Owl said:

X-Wing is fine Sunday:

"Common" complaints about Hyperspace X-Wing right now: This is probably the most wholesome list of problems X-Wing has ever had?

• 5 Ship i2 Rebels out joust me and thats unfair
• Princess Leia Crew is undercosted
• Dice

A wholesome list of problems seems like a good description to me. Like, this isn't Genius Launching Bombs, or unlimited regen, or Ghost/Fenn. If getting dice screwed is in the top 10 problems in a dice-based game, that game feels like it's probably in a good place overall.

I only have comments on a few of these:

• I think Y-Wings with VTG are a bit cheap. They went from 44* to 39* with The Adjustment, and that's a massive drop. They needed a lot of that drop, but would probably be best at 41* like an X-Wing. Putting VTG back up... I think folks have learned it's good and would play it on a lot of ships at 8 points, particularly with cheaper turrets post-adjustment. The sad thing is that 6 point VTG is probably still to expensive to fly on something with only a double-turret like a YT-1300 or VT-49. If I were in charge, I'd add a new Expert Turret Gunner at 4 points, who'd trigger from double-end attacks, and only provide a double-end bonus attack.
  • *Bah... I keep forgetting Hyperspace only has Ion and not Dorsal. Still, I think they're probably 2 points too cheap. It's awkward in that Rebels don't have any really cheap filler ships in Hyperspace, but still.
• Leia crew probably is a bit underpriced. 8 was a bit too high. 2 seems low. I'd settle on 4. Not huge, but that's the same 2 point bump 0-0-0 got. I mean, the fact that Leia is 2 points when Hera is 4 points just seems a bit off, in terms of what they provide for a list.

I've got some oddball and probably bad dice thoughts.

• Thinking about dice specifically, I wonder if there's any way to work on lowering dice variance that isn't with dice modification upgrades. I don't know that much about it since I don't play, and only listen to the Warhammer 40k players at the FLGS, but each army has some number of command points. One of the uses of a Command Point is to spend it to reroll a die.
  • What if three times per game of X-Wing, you got to reroll a die? Just pick a die and reroll it. Any one die. Maybe three times per game, but only once per turn. Maybe it doesn't count as a reroll for other effects. XP But something like that. So it wouldn't bring back one of the worst aspects of 1e (for example, how 2 red dice ships really couldn't accomplish stuff against a great many ships), but it would help smooth a few things out.
  • I had a game recently. Twice, the Kihraxz player rolled 4 hits into a Range 1 full health TIE Striker, and the Striker blanked out. That's a pretty extreme example, but there's probably some way to make things a bit better, without bring back all the upgrades like Autothrusters, Lightweight Frame, or Expertise, to name a few.
• Another odd dice thought: what about a deck?
  • Settlers of Catan has an option to use a deck of cards representing the 36 dice combinations for 2d6. A deck of 32 cards could represent 4 dice worth of faces. Suppose instead of rolling dice, you'll draw cards off the deck. Rerolls would be new draws, but focus and other "change" effects could just be marked with... well... dice. After you've worked your way through a full deck of cards, you'd reshuffle everything. I'd probably burn off the top 4 cards after shuffling, so that players couldn't do perfect card counting.
  • But roughly speaking, everyone works their way through the same 32 cards. The only thing that'd matter is in which order they'll draw the cards. It'd eliminate one-sided luck, an opponent who can't stop rolling evades, since both players decks have the same 12 evades, 12 blanks, 8 focuses. Natty out one turn? In order to get back to your 12 evades, you'll have to roll your 12 blanks, too.
  • This one would be pretty easy to test in casual play, see how it feels.

Technically heroic is the "dice variance" mitigation. How much of a bump would strikers get if they got access to that card for a single point?

1 minute ago, viedit said:

Technically heroic is the "dice variance" mitigation. How much of a bump would strikers get if they got access to that card for a single point?

oh baby

22 minutes ago, baranidlo said:

List building in CCG games is indeed a skill, even if people are able to download and play other's lists.

Besides the initial building phase, you need to understand why each card is included in the list, what is the core part of the list and what can be swapped around based on expected meta.

And then do the needed swaps and optimizations before each tournament in the developing meta environment.

1.0 was quite a lot like this, and it allowed you to include "tech" or "counter" cards in your list in order to beat the expected meta.

Mainly because the card pool was huge and you had a large selection of counter cards which you could employ.

This was and is indeed a big strategy piece, which is mostly absent in 2.0.

People who like CCG game mechanics enjoyed this part of the game, and for them this was one of the aspects which were superior in 1.0.

The real problem is 1.0 was a horrible card game, because unlike a card game you got all your resources from turn 1 and you knew what the opponent had, so risk management and bluffing were largely absent because dials were the mechanism where those were dealt with and for a ton of lists dials barely mattered.

You know how awful and degenerate things were when double jamming Vermeil was consodered wholesome because it used an arc to completely bend people over a barrel.

3 minutes ago, powersink said:

oh baby

Right!

Awings and T70's don't need it. They got shields. Duchess and Sabacc on the other hand clench and hope for the best each attack with that lowly 2 agi and no shield to save them from ugly crits.