13 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

To quickly sketch the others:

• Narrative relies on a story being told. Xwing is pretty bad in this regard, but some (few) enjoy this a lot and play around with story modes. Shuttle Tydirium did a cool event in this regard once, iirc.
• Challenge is huge and especially prominent among competitive players. We want to try ourselves in a battle of wits etc. Is strongly built into the game.
• Fellowship is another one of the important ones that is well supported by the game. There are so many people saying how meeting other players is their main enjoyment in Xwing.
• Discovery is one that's harder to describe. I'd say it only happens in Xwing in the wild west phase that we are in right now. This thread seems to dislike this phase in general, but I personally love it. That moment when nobody knows and the architects can try to shine before better players are given good lists again. Arguably much of the data crunching goes in here, too.
• Expression is one that I personally don't share. I see it as split between Johnnies who do this by list building, and people who customize their ships by painting and modding.
• Submission. This is another one that's very frequent in the competitive community: grinding out game after game. Some reject it based on the name, but I think this is a very widespread one.

So for me, Challenge, Discovery, Fellowship and Submission are the important ones, with Fantasy being crucial for the setting but not more. And I'd argue that challenge, fellowship and fantasy are the strengths of (competitive) Xwing.

Some really dislike discovery, so the half yearly points update plus the frequent wave releases are something they dislike, too. And then Xwing 2.0 is less fun.
Others focus really hard on challenge. But if the challenge is (percieved to be) unfair, then their fun type is not satisfied anymore and then Xwing 2.0 is less fun.
And then there is the problem of players quitting entirely, which diminishes the fellowship aspect for others. The transition into 2.0 was in a way that this, too, happened much more often and communities are still recovering. Ours is, too. And then Xwing 2.0 is less fun.
Finally, Fantasy is something that depends also a bit on the success of Star Wars as franchise. And there are so many loud voices constantly moaning about the new movies that I guess the fantasy aspect, too, got pulled down a bit. And then Xwing 2.0 is less fun.

@Green Dragon excellent breakdown of motivations for playing xwing. For me challenge, fellowship and discovery are the main three. I had a good friend quit because he was disappointed with the lack of fairness 1.0 created with op upgrades taking the fun away. Id say in general the game is rebuilding its player base to what it once was, slowly in some areas. My LGS supports monthly events and provides tables to play in between events for casual games. Id say the participation numbers are about 60% or 70% what they were when 1.0 was popular. Ive seen some new players appearing so thats a positive sign. I suspect there are a number of casual playrs about in every community that are happy to play casual games at home on their own small groups. These playets will not appear in any statistics.

https://listfortress.com/tournaments/843

first trial of the season on listfortress

43 players; 15 republic, 7 empire, 5 rebels, 5 CIS, 4 FO, 4 res, 3 scum

top 8 cut was:

• Jess Snap Bastian Tallie
• Sinker, 104th, 4x torrent (overall winner, flown by Travis Cooper, who also won the 67 person trial in Orlando with the same list)
• Sinker, 104th, 4x torrent
• Tavson Quickdraw Scorch Rivas
• Jonus + 4x Barrage Bombers
• Jess + 3x Reds
• TIE swarm
• Sinker, Ric, 4x torrent

top lists for factions that didn't make cut:

• Luke Arvel Jake Wedge, 12th place
• Wat + 5 vultures, 16th place
• Fenn Guri, 21st place

I was the Luke Wedge Jake and Arvel. There were ARCs all over the place. Also, 5 passive sensor, homing missile SFs were annoying to deal with.

4 hours ago, svelok said:

first trial of the season on listfortress

And they've already converged like crazy on archetypes? What are the chances that three different people all think the sinker swarm is the best list and are correct?

7 minutes ago, Ablazoned said:

And they've already converged like crazy on archetypes? What are the chances that three different people all think the sinker swarm is the best list and are correct?

It’s probably more that it won the Orlando trial in season one (pretty close-ish to Jacksonville?), he showed up again and had a local copycat or two. That makes a big splash in a 40 something person tournament. Is that the Florida Man guy?

The Jess + 3 T-70 was on stream a lot. People love jousting (and losing)

It is a pretty good archetype. 14 final salvo dice, 38hp behind 1 or 2 greens, rerolls until Sinker dies and if his shot gets blocked, you lose a green for the swarm to shoot at you.

Howlrunner swarm without having to actually play fickle TIE fighters while also having 2 natural 3 reds

Sounds pretty good to me.

2 hours ago, Ablazoned said:

And they've already converged like crazy on archetypes? What are the chances that three different people all think the sinker swarm is the best list and are correct?

It is a super solid list that's been round since the faction released. None of it's tools have been touched in the adjustments.

Maybe it's the best list. Maybe people were already comfortable with it while others are still learning other lists.

1 hour ago, Octarine-08 said:

It is a super solid list that's been round since the faction released. None of it's tools have been touched in the adjustments.

Maybe it's the best list. Maybe people were already comfortable with it while others are still learning other lists.

I was more making a point about small metas. But yeah, it could be solid but we still have a tiny sample size.

Can confirm. I used to play in the Florida metas, definitely some snowflake syndrome and focus on "unique" homebrew combinations. And when people break down and start playing competitive lists after their snowflakes melt they usually switch over to whatever won locally. Much love though♥️.

That being said the sinker swarm seems decent, so much health.

Spamming ships was how we started S1. Remember all those Leia + rebel generics that showed up initially than dropped off once people found the right words? I expect similar things this season

So, for a theoretical online draft tool (I make no promises that it'll ever actually be done), which would you rather do?

Join a "game" with X other players, and draft out of a shared set of packs/card pool

or

Draft Hearthstone style - pick a faction, and be given options of 3-5 cards X times to build a list?

How many lists should you have to make? When we did physical drafts, you had to make 2 lists so players wouldn't just pick a faction and make decisions boring to make, but I'm not sure if the smaller factions are big enough for real choices if it's hearthstone style. Also, would you rather see pilots drafted first, then upgrades? I liked mixing them together, so you'd draft some upgrades in hopes of seeing places to put them, but again I'm not sure that works with hearthstone style arena drafts.

My thought is ultimately you'd be able to do a draft for a tournament and bring out your printed draft/options and list(s) for the event, but I need to figure out how to limit people to only one draft opportunity if it's online.

48 minutes ago, Brunas said:

So, for a theoretical online draft tool (I make no promises that it'll ever actually be done), which would you rather do?

Join a "game" with X other players, and draft out of a shared set of packs/card pool

or

Draft Hearthstone style - pick a faction, and be given options of 3-5 cards X times to build a list?

How many lists should you have to make? When we did physical drafts, you had to make 2 lists so players wouldn't just pick a faction and make decisions boring to make, but I'm not sure if the smaller factions are big enough for real choices if it's hearthstone style. Also, would you rather see pilots drafted first, then upgrades? I liked mixing them together, so you'd draft some upgrades in hopes of seeing places to put them, but again I'm not sure that works with hearthstone style arena drafts.

My thought is ultimately you'd be able to do a draft for a tournament and bring out your printed draft/options and list(s) for the event, but I need to figure out how to limit people to only one draft opportunity if it's online.

Draft the factions. Hit the RNG button on YASB 2.0 twice. Bring both lists. Profit????

The RNG 1.0 tournament was the best time I've had seeing ridiculously janky lists (and a few that raised eyebrows). Would recommend!

6 hours ago, FlyingAnchors said:

Draft the factions. Hit the RNG button on YASB 2.0 twice. Bring both lists. Profit????

I was playing around with this the other day. It's interesting that CIS gets what looks to be the worst rng list of the 7 about 75% of the time.

For example look at this:

https://raithos.github.io/?f=Separatist Alliance&d=v8ZsZ200Z309XW208WY307X223W108W229Y272XW10W134W218W53W68WW216WY309XWW108&sn=Random Squad&obs=

Compare it to any other faction's random list.

Kinda shows how cis as a faction are more reliant on list building archetypes. Unlike Republic where any old count-to-200-list with random jigsaw pieces is probably fine.

8 hours ago, Brunas said:

So, for a theoretical online draft tool (I make no promises that it'll ever actually be done), which would you rather do?

Join a "game" with X other players, and draft out of a shared set of packs/card pool

or

Draft Hearthstone style - pick a faction, and be given options of 3-5 cards X times to build a list?

How many lists should you have to make? When we did physical drafts, you had to make 2 lists so players wouldn't just pick a faction and make decisions boring to make, but I'm not sure if the smaller factions are big enough for real choices if it's hearthstone style. Also, would you rather see pilots drafted first, then upgrades? I liked mixing them together, so you'd draft some upgrades in hopes of seeing places to put them, but again I'm not sure that works with hearthstone style arena drafts.

My thought is ultimately you'd be able to do a draft for a tournament and bring out your printed draft/options and list(s) for the event, but I need to figure out how to limit people to only one draft opportunity if it's online.

I'm not sure how draft would fit a classic 200 points dogfight xwing game, but usually what makes me like draft game is the players interaction, so everything but hearthstone arena style.

Drafting whole lists seems pretty boring thought, going after pilots/upgrades sounds way more interesting and probably at that point you should remove factions limit and let everyone play everything they draft

11 hours ago, Brunas said:

Also, would you rather see pilots drafted first, then upgrades?

Draft Quickbuilds? Might be able to mix factions a bit, with QB drafts. Maybe a Hearthstone style draft 10 choices from all factions, with relaxed (but not totally anything-goes) faction restrictions. Each faction could have a list of 2 or 3 "allied factions" and you can bring one ship from that. Like, one Scum in almost anything, but no Empire and Rebels together.

But then again, I have a "I Own Everything" perspective, and I know that doesn't work for all players.

Our hyperspace trial just ended. 45 players.

Top 8 cut after swiss was:

8th place: 4 fangs (top8)

7th: 2 belbasaur and 5 vulture swarm (runner-up)

6th: Vader soonts x2 Bombers (top8)

5th: vulture swarm (top8)

4th: lando thane norra (eventual winner)

3rd: vader dutchess vermeil (top4)

2nd: resistance 5s(top8)

1st: Tie swarm (undefeated in swiss, top4).

We had 4 vulture swarms, and 2 made the cut, one was top 16. Other one could have been top 16 but player conceded last match so other player could get his dice since neither was gonna be top 8.

There were two 2 ship jedi with r2 astros. One made top 16. Other one was 3-0. Was losing to a vulture 95-35 then regened a shield on both jedi last round to win 35-0, lol. Player could have made top 8 but loss against another vulture swarm, and then conceded and dropped to a friend who was battling for his worlds ticket.

One rebel beef variant made top 16.

Only one first order list, and it was 10th in swiss. Quickdraw and 3 SFs with title and clusters.

Only two resistance lists and both made top 16 (resistance 5s and a Bomber,transport,bastian,tali that was 4-0 then loss last two matches).

27 minutes ago, wurms said:

4th: lando thane norra (eventual winner)

OR

22 minutes ago, wurms said:

7th: 2 belbasaur and 5 vulture swarm (runner-up)

Please sir, may I have some details?

4 minutes ago, Polda said:

Listforess looks hungry today

Just now, Brunas said:

Listforess looks hungry today

So... when are you recording another episode to tell me what's good so I can focus on painting instead of listbuilding?

1 hour ago, theBitterFig said:

Draft Quickbuilds? Might be able to mix factions a bit, with QB drafts. Maybe a Hearthstone style draft 10 choices from all factions, with relaxed (but not totally anything-goes) faction restrictions.

I don’t actually know how Hearthstone does drafts. So maybe you’re already saying this...

Let players draft X amount of quickbuild cards. Players can pull from every faction during the draft, then they have to build 200pt tournament legal lists using only the upgrades (in identical quantities) listed on the quickbuild cards.