Hello everyone, every time I search for this, I get threads at least a year old if not more.

What do you think is a required bid in the current meta with a PS9 and desperately wanting to move last?

At one point 99-98 was enough but it seems like the price keeps getting steeper and steeper with lists like Fengar running anywhere from 94-97 points.

what lists do you think are pushing that bid lower and lower?

Short analysis: if you desperately want to move last you need ps10 and a bid.

At least in my local meta. I've been disappointed by taking a 2-3 point bid only to get repeatedly matched against lists with ps10 pilots

Namely: Dengar, Nym, QD, Vader, or Fenn

List Juggler shows no one running PS 11's, but a lot of PS 10's.

Fair Ship Rebel has PS 3, 4, 5, & 5 and does great.

Jump into the PS war, or just ignore it and spend those points elsewhere.

Assuming you're not needing to deal with PS10, if you're PS9 and bidding less than 3 expect to lose/ roll of often

Bidding is for ********, spend every point!

It's true there are lots of PS10s out there right now. You're not bidding against them, however: you're bidding against other 9s. I think 2 points is normal and reasonable in most cases, 3 when you really want it, and 4 if you must have it.

There should be no bidding. Initiative should be determined at random before the first round, then passed back and forth between the players each round.

Suddenly you don't have to feel bad about spending points: use all 100 to pack your list with good stuff.
Suddenly aces have to play both reactively and proactively (alternate moving before/after enemy aces).

4 hours ago, ObiWonka said:

There should be no bidding. Initiative should be determined at random before the first round, then passed back and forth between the players each round.

Suddenly you don't have to feel bad about spending points: use all 100 to pack your list with good stuff.
Suddenly aces have to play both reactively and proactively (alternate moving before/after enemy aces).

I like this. And interestingly enough, they included an initiative token in the TFA core set...that just sits on one player's side of the table the whole time. Boring. I'd even be okay if the bid was just so you could choose who was first player in round 1. That provides tactical flexibility, but the game isn't locked into, "Well, you outbid me, so Soontir is getting arc dodged every round." Switching initiative would be a huge, and very welcome change.

5 hours ago, ObiWonka said:

There should be no bidding. Initiative should be determined at random before the first round, then passed back and forth between the players each round.

Worth play testing. I go last in Round 1, then first in Round 2. You go last in Round 2, then first in Round 3. Might feel like each player gets 2 turns at a time.

Random initiative per round could be silly fun!

17 hours ago, ObiWonka said:

There should be no bidding. Initiative should be determined at random before the first round, then passed back and forth between the players each round.

Suddenly you don't have to feel bad about spending points: use all 100 to pack your list with good stuff.
Suddenly aces have to play both reactively and proactively (alternate moving before/after enemy aces).

I have played with passing initiative quite a few times and I find it a lot more enjoyable. The whole initiative bidding process in FFG's games has always annoyed me as a general concept, even the way tied point costs results in a coin flip just feels like potentially assigning one person the advantage purely at random.

I would love to come up with something similar for armada as well but objectives make it pretty much impossible. Perhaps a pure coin toss works fine in that context since it would result in players simply building a balanced fleet for both 1st and 2nd player use, but idk exactly what affect it might have on build diversity.

Or perhaps you could give the initiative to your opponent... After re-rolling one dice.

38 minutes ago, Hexdot said:

Or perhaps you could give the initiative to your opponent... After re-rolling one dice.

Ooh, I like this. Pass initiative to reroll a die on offense. They can then immediately pass it back to reroll a die on defense, I guess?

I think this offers interesting strategy. The problem is some builds don't care because they have target locks raining down on them (because K4 is due for being blockable somehow). I suppose it allows defense rerolls though, which are much rarer.

11 hours ago, Hexdot said:

Or perhaps you could give the initiative to your opponent... After re-rolling one dice.

I prefer this more than the single casual roll.

Anyway, one thing that is lost for me is the skill to prevent enemy maneuvers by moving first. I'm not talking about bumping but predict the enemy position. Some players get lost themselves when they faced someone who will fly after theme. But anyone that fly a low ps list know what I'm talking about.

I like the initiative bid mechanics in X-Wing, I like that you can influence it during listbuilding, but for me the best thing to do is to learn how to predict enemy aces. Yep things becomes difficult when you're facing someone too agile (boost+broll) but if you push him to b+br avoiding you AND and the end you still out of his arc... still a win-win.

I like when i lost the initiative, the game is way more fun and stimulant.

....or you can fly Torkill Mux.

On 8/13/2017 at 2:31 AM, ObiWonka said:

There should be no bidding. Initiative should be determined at random before the first round, then passed back and forth between the players each round.

Suddenly you don't have to feel bad about spending points: use all 100 to pack your list with good stuff.
Suddenly aces have to play both reactively and proactively (alternate moving before/after enemy aces).

I disagree - bidding is equivalent to spending x points on saying "I really want to go first/second because I can win with 100-x points if I get to go first/second" so is more strategy than randomness. Maybe if points are tied then you get switching initiative.

On 13/08/2017 at 11:31 AM, ObiWonka said:

There should be no bidding. Initiative should be determined at random before the first round, then passed back and forth between the players each round.

Suddenly you don't have to feel bad about spending points: use all 100 to pack your list with good stuff.
Suddenly aces have to play both reactively and proactively (alternate moving before/after enemy aces).

Initiative is the thing I hate most about the game, primarily as it can give one player a huge advantage when taking the exact same build. my last store champs I played I was matched against Vader, QD and backdraft, all PS 9. I had Dengar and Fenn. He concentrated on Dengar and Dengar was killed, but in the same turn 9 I killed Vader. Because I had Initiative I was able to Solo QD and Backdraft with Fenn as I predicted where they were going and then was able to boost/barrel roll out of arc, giving at most my opponent one shot. Had we been forced to swap initiative each round, I doubt I would have been able to do that.

Do away with the bid, have initiative random some how so first/last moves cant be set up and BAM, I think that would be great. Do away with 2 ship lists too.

Depends on your list and how important it is to win the bid, and against what opponents in particular.

37 minutes ago, Archangelspiv said:

Do away with the bid, have initiative random some how so first/last moves cant be set up and BAM, I think that would be great. Do away with 2 ship lists too.

There's no reason at all why Initiative shouldn't flip between players from one turn to the next.

On 13.08.2017 at 3:31 AM, ObiWonka said:

There should be no bidding. Initiative should be determined at random before the first round, then passed back and forth between the players each round.

Suddenly you don't have to feel bad about spending points: use all 100 to pack your list with good stuff.
Suddenly aces have to play both reactively and proactively (alternate moving before/after enemy aces).

This. This would be so cool I upvoted it and now I'm quoting it.

5 hours ago, ThalanirIII said:

I disagree - bidding is equivalent to spending x points on saying "I really want to go first/second because I can win with 100-x points if I get to go first/second" so is more strategy than randomness. Maybe if points are tied then you get switching initiative.

Switching during ties would be an improvement, but only in a subset of games (you build to 98 points and face someone else at 98, you switch, but against 97 and 99, one player still gets to claim the advantage). The problem is such an insanely massive advantage can be gained by a single point of difference in squad construction. I think we can agree that squad construction is at best half the battle (the other half being, you know, actually flying the ships and playing the game), meaning that 0.25% of the play experience (1 point out of 200 spent between players) has somehow determined the entire outcome of a game.

Additionally, with switching initiative round-to-round tactics become far more important. Can you properly take advantage of which side of initiative you fall on this turn instead of having the same position from start to finish? Can you out-think and out-fly your opponent to set up your attack runs when initiative falls on your side - or theirs - as needed?

6 minutes ago, ObiWonka said:

Switching during ties would be an improvement, but only in a subset of games (you build to 98 points and face someone else at 98, you switch, but against 97 and 99, one player still gets to claim the advantage). The problem is such an insanely massive advantage can be gained by a single point of difference in squad construction. I think we can agree that squad construction is at best half the battle (the other half being, you know, actually flying the ships and playing the game), meaning that 0.25% of the play experience (1 point out of 200 spent between players) has somehow determined the entire outcome of a game. (1)

Additionally, with switching initiative round-to-round tactics become far more important. Can you properly take advantage of which side of initiative you fall on this turn instead of having the same position from start to finish? Can you out-think and out-fly your opponent to set up your attack runs when initiative falls on your side - or theirs - as needed? (2)

(1) You can't really define it that way because the points invested in your squad/playing the game don't divide equally. For example, the 3pts of Soontir getting a 97 bid are probably going to save more games than a 3pt stealth device on him, before player skill is considered. I don't think initiative is often a game changer though - unless you run specific ships. I was going to give you some statistics on how often as a % you'll face someone of the same pilot skill but I have a short attention span so...

(2) Sure, it makes it interesting, but already a good pilot can elect not to take the bid in order to get use out of the extra points if he can rely on his good flying to overcome losing initiative.