I'm most likely going to get a lot of concentrated fire aimed at me for this, but here goes.

Word on the street indicates that there is some sort of "Arms Race" of extreme low bidding and high activation count at tournies.

So to counter act the low bidding a "bit", so it dosn't become a to prevalent meta, I propose the following:

All games in the un-even numbered rounds at a tournament (Tourny round 1, 3, 5... etc) the lowest bidding player will decide who will be 1st or 2nd player in the game played.

All games in the even numbered rounds at a tournament (Tourny round 2, 4, 6... etc) the higest bidding player will decide who will be 1st or 2nd player in the game played.

This way no more than two thirds of the rounds in a tourny (3 round tournament) but no less than the half rounds (+4 round tournament) the low bidding player will be in control of who is 1st or 2nd player.

This will for sure create a whole new way of how people approach the question of what kind of bid they want to go for, as the sweet spot is suddenly narrowed down to inbetween 390pts -400pts and make it more risky to make extreme low bids.

Example:

Player A: has 395pt fleet and meets player B: 398pts fleet in the first tourny round, so player A gets to decide who will be 1st player.

Player A then meets player C: 394pts fleet in the second tourny round, so player A gets to decide again who will be 1st player.

Anyhow that's another Ewok Snowball from me

So please throw a comment or two (or some bad droid language) If you think this is good, bad or what kind of effect you think it might have on list building/bidding.

You're... A good 2 waves too late on that one.

The Bidding Arms Race was back when Demolisher was the be all and end all... Avenger BT kind of rides on the coattails, but really, you either Bid for first, or you don't.

There certainly gets to a point where you're bidding so much, it costs you a ship, and that ship is almost always going to be worth it intsead.

It's worth taking a quick glance at Biggs' article on the top 8 at nationals. There were only two that bid low 380s - the rest were either fairly near to 400, or low 390s.

From my limited survey, I just don't think this is a problem that needs solving any more. There will always be people who bid crazy low, but they're having to sacrifice something to do so, and that can be anything from squads or upgrades, right up to an entire ship. They'll more than likely secure first player, but at what cost?

This would effectively remove the entire bidding mechanic from the game. It removes any incentive to bid, meaning everyone just builds to 400 and flips a coin for initiative all day.

Sorry dude. This is another solution looking for a problem.

The arguably "best" fix for bidding is to revise and/or add objectives that provide a better benefit for second player.

As it is, there are certainly some objective combos that are so strong with certain lists that they act as an effective 'bid for first' to begin with (even though the deciding player may not technically know the enemy's objectives...often times they do, from just watching a previous round, and in any case you can usually guess by the list itself).

13 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

This would effectively remove the entire bidding mechanic from the game. It removes any incentive to bid, meaning everyone just builds to 400 and flips a coin for initiative all day.

Sorry dude. This is another solution looking for a problem.

40k effectively does that, never seemed like a problem(flip a coin, it's roll off but same thing)

12 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

This would effectively remove the entire bidding mechanic from the game. It removes any incentive to bid, meaning everyone just builds to 400 and flips a coin for initiative all day.

Sorry dude. This is another solution looking for a problem.

But that's the thing with human nature, you can't for sure predict that everybody makes a 400pts lists, there will always be some joker, who will make a 399pts list to see if he can get an advantage in some of his games

38 minutes ago, Kiwi Rat said:

I'm most likely going to get a lot of concentrated fire aimed at me for this, but here goes.

Word on the street indicates that there is some sort of "Arms Race" of extreme low bidding and high activation count at tournies.

So to counter act the low bidding a "bit", so it dosn't become a to prevalent meta, I propose the following:

All games in the un-even numbered rounds at a tournament (Tourny round 1, 3, 5... etc) the lowest bidding player will decide who will be 1st or 2nd player in the game played.

All games in the even numbered rounds at a tournament (Tourny round 2, 4, 6... etc) the higest bidding player will decide who will be 1st or 2nd player in the game played.

This way no more than two thirds of the rounds in a tourny (3 round tournament) but no less than the half rounds (+4 round tournament) the low bidding player will be in control of who is 1st or 2nd player.

This will for sure create a whole new way of how people approach the question of what kind of bid they want to go for, as the sweet spot is suddenly narrowed down to inbetween 390pts -400pts and make it more risky to make extreme low bids.

Example:

Player A: has 395pt fleet and meets player B: 398pts fleet in the first tourny round, so player A gets to decide who will be 1st player.

Player A then meets player C: 394pts fleet in the second tourny round, so player A gets to decide again who will be 1st player.

Anyhow that's another Ewok Snowball from me

So please throw a comment or two (or some bad droid language) If you think this is good, bad or what kind of effect you think it might have on list building/bidding.

I think activation are more of an issue than bid.

Just now, Kiwi Rat said:

But that's the thing with human nature, you can't for sure predict that everybody makes a 400pts lists, there will always be some joker, who will make a 399pts list to see if he can get an advantage in some of his games

imo if you play every game from 2nd player position you'll be in a better spot if you end up with first. relying on going first is just going to handicap you with that expectation.

1 minute ago, dominosfleet said:

imo if you play every game from 2nd player position you'll be in a better spot if you end up with first. relying on going first is just going to handicap you with that expectation.

And would the above suggestion, not incourage people to go even more in that direction?

2 minutes ago, dominosfleet said:

40k effectively does that, never seemed like a problem(flip a coin, it's roll off but same thing)

I've never played 40k, but I'm pretty sure (correct me if I'm wrong here) that it's not balanced around the P1/P2/objective balance of Armada. In fact, from what I'm heard, it's not balanced around anything, with the possible exception of what will make GW the most money. So, not exactly the best standard for comparison.

Again, I've never played 40k and could not care less about it, so I may be factually inaccurate here.

5 minutes ago, Kiwi Rat said:

But that's the thing with human nature, you can't for sure predict that everybody makes a 400pts lists, there will always be some joker, who will make a 399pts list to see if he can get an advantage in some of his games

Is it an advantage to guarantee you'll have a disadvantage in half of your games? Particularly when you're sacrificing points to do it?

It's just not a balanced idea man. There's no real incentive to bid under such a system...

4 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

I've never played 40k, but I'm pretty sure (correct me if I'm wrong here) that it's not balanced around the P1/P2/objective balance of Armada. In fact, from what I'm heard, it's not balanced around anything, with the possible exception of what will make GW the most money. So, not exactly the best standard for comparison.

Again, I've never played 40k and could not care less about it, so I may be factually inaccurate here.

I played it for 13 years so I went through a lot of "balance" issues. 3-5 editions all had "issues" but overall "most" of the stuff worked fine. 6 is where things started to break horribly. having said all of that who went first / second was never the end all be all of the game(though alpha strike was still potentially important).

a game of 40k plays more like baseball also. Top of the round player 1 does ALL of their stuff, bottom of the round player does ALL of their stuff. Melee was the only exception(both players sides fight in the assault phases).

there are objectives in 40k, but they're very different from Armada's. I like how armada does its turns more, but i don't think bid should be the determining factor for first / last. I'm also not a person that bids more than a point ever so i don't care that much from either perspective, I argue that if you build your fleet under the assumption you're going first you'll have a bad day at some point when a person out bids you by a point.

11 minutes ago, dominosfleet said:

I argue that if you build your fleet under the assumption you're going first you'll have a bad day at some point when a person out bids you by a point.

We can definitely agree on this point. There's a reason you always see this advice from experienced players: it's because we've all at one point been the guy that was going to sneak into the tournament with a 384 bid, only to run into that other guy with the 382 in round 1...

11 hours ago, Drasnighta said:

There certainly gets to a point where you're bidding so much, it costs you a ship, and that ship is almost always going to be worth it intsead.

My 2 cents on the issue:

Bidding for first entails two distinct disadvantages. (i) as quoted above, you are sacrificing upgrades or even ships when bidding aggressively for first player and (ii) you are at the mercy of the selection of objectives that benefit your opponent.

The less points you spend on a bid, the more points you can invest to optimise your own fleet. Moreover, the selection of objectives should undergo close scrutiny so that you build your fleet around the objectives (in contrast to building a fleet and then choosing whatever objectives seem to fit the bill).

My suggestion is that if you are experiencing aggressive bidding and experiencing that as an issue, then have a fleet whose objectives will not only grant a marginal benefit to yourself but in fact disadvantage the opponent to a considerable degree. Make your opponent play YOUR game - not the other way around. What I propose is also a change of mindset. Instead of trying to change game mechanics, adapt the approach to list-building and the approach to the game according to the tools we are given in terms of objectives, ships and upgrades.

An extreme example is the Gencon winner, who played a Snackbar list capable of harvesting objective points and win the game by simply stalling.

Another argument is that:

11 hours ago, dominosfleet said:

I think activation are more of an issue than bid.

And yet some individuals are pulling off a twin ISD list. To what extent the 2nd place list at the Gencon is an anomaly is difficult to ascertain because people do not invest equal measures of time into the game. If you approach the game with zeal and dedication, then that will certainly play a significant role in the outcome of your matches.

Finally, and this sentiment has been echoed before, changing a single mechanic may have implications beyond that mechanic itself. It may have a profound effect on other aspects of the game - or it may have very marginal ones. We do not know because we did not design the game.

Should we then not voice our discontent with aspects of the game that we do not find satisfying?

My subjective opinion is that everyone should voice their discontent with game mechanics if they are skewing the game in favour of one specific type of list in general. The reason why is that the game developers hear and react to the opinions of the game - so let them fix things that are actually problematic.

You should go to the root of the problem. The fact that there is people crazy bidding under 380 is because there are actual mechanics that provides a 90% of success if you go first. Kill this mechanics, kill the stupid low bidding.

39 minutes ago, Hawkwing said:

My 2 cents on the issue:

Bidding for first entails two distinct disadvantages. (i) as quoted above, you are sacrificing upgrades or even ships when bidding aggressively for first player and (ii) you are at the mercy of the selection of objectives that benefit your opponent.

The less points you spend on a bid, the more points you can invest to optimise your own fleet. Moreover, the selection of objectives should undergo close scrutiny so that you build your fleet around the objectives (in contrast to building a fleet and then choosing whatever objectives seem to fit the bill).

My suggestion is that if you are experiencing aggressive bidding and experiencing that as an issue, then have a fleet whose objectives will not only grant a marginal benefit to yourself but in fact disadvantage the opponent to a considerable degree. Make your opponent play YOUR game - not the other way around. What I propose is also a change of mindset. Instead of trying to change game mechanics, adapt the approach to list-building and the approach to the game according to the tools we are given in terms of objectives, ships and upgrades.

An extreme example is the Gencon winner, who played a Snackbar list capable of harvesting objective points and win the game by simply stalling.

Another argument is that:

And yet some individuals are pulling off a twin ISD list. To what extent the 2nd place list at the Gencon is an anomaly is difficult to ascertain because people do not invest equal measures of time into the game. If you approach the game with zeal and dedication, then that will certainly play a significant role in the outcome of your matches.

Finally, and this sentiment has been echoed before, changing a single mechanic may have implications beyond that mechanic itself. It may have a profound effect on other aspects of the game - or it may have very marginal ones. We do not know because we did not design the game.

Should we then not voice our discontent with aspects of the game that we do not find satisfying?

My subjective opinion is that everyone should voice their discontent with game mechanics if they are skewing the game in favour of one specific type of list in general. The reason why is that the game developers hear and react to the opinions of the game - so let them fix things that are actually problematic.

Activation spam, combined with last/first activation can be a HUGE benefit for the 1st player.

FFG seems to consider it a feature of the game.

Personally I don't dig it, but who cares what I think.

At any rate it's something you HAVE to account for when designing a list.

Your example above, the dual ISD that placed second, tried to limit this with a massive bid.

It also had a strong, rogue-based squadron complement that could not readily be alpha striked.

Just some food for thought.

Edit: not sure how many rogues... there were some brace escorts...****, can't find that post!

Kinda off topic to a degree as this does not include tournament play, but a while back we did a couple of big games in Corellian Conflict and without Corellian Conflict, and we used variable turns.

Just the roll of the dice....wow was it fun. Tides of the battle turned dramatically and seemed a bit more realistic that way (ebb and flow of a battle)

But obviously this is without objectives and so cant really be considered for tournament play. Just wanted to share that for casual play this is a great way to have fun in large scale battles.

But on topic all the above are valid points......1st player is a big boost but if you are going 2nd then take objectives that will make it very hard for the opponent to benefit from.

You either HAVE to go first with your list....then you bid for that as stupidly as you wish.....but if you don't, then build and practice for going 2nd....and if you get 1st player its just a bonus.

Talking about mad bids, one of my mates went to a local tournament with a 378 point fleet needing to go first.....was outbid in his 1st game with a 276 build fleet......didn't turn out so well having pretty much relied on 1st player. Its a chance you take

1 hour ago, SmurfWedge said:

Talking about mad bids, one of my mates went to a local tournament with a 378 point fleet needing to go first.....was outbid in his 1st game with a 276 build fleet......didn't turn out so well having pretty much relied on 1st player. Its a chance you take

That's one h*** of a bid.

An interdictor is great for embarrassing high bid fleets

1 hour ago, SmurfWedge said:

Talking about mad bids, one of my mates went to a local tournament with a 378 point fleet needing to go first.....was outbid in his 1st game with a 276 build fleet......didn't turn out so well having pretty much relied on 1st player. Its a chance you take

Yeah. 270's is my typical bid when I feel that I must have 1st/2nd player with my fleet.

For this reason I've been working hard on making fleets that don't depend on player order so much.

10 minutes ago, Ophion said:

An interdictor is great for embarrassing high bid fleets

It's also a great way to build a non-competitive fleet. My opinion oc, but still.

1 hour ago, Green Knight said:

At any rate it's something you HAVE to account for when designing a list.

Which was my main point. Consider all variables when building fleets.

1 hour ago, xerpo said:

You should go to the root of the problem. The fact that there is people crazy bidding under 380 is because there are actual mechanics that provides a 90% of success if you go first. Kill this mechanics, kill the stupid low bidding.

I agree with the sentiment that there is a reason for why people are bidding absurdly low, which is due to the tactical advantage that such bid may grant to fleets solely built for going first.

The other thing though, are you implying that 90% of lists to go first, win? If so, where did you get that data?

16 minutes ago, Green Knight said:

It's also a great way to build a non-competitive fleet. My opinion oc, but still.

I really wish the Interdictor were better, I love the idea and the model. I think it would be a lot more useful if it cost about 15 points less.

Isn't the OP complaining about two things that typically oppose each other?

He doesn't want point bidding, but he also doesn't want activation padding. If you take away point bidding, won't a considerable amount of people in the 375-380 range just drop another flotilla into their list?

Is point bidding an important part of the game? Absolutely. But I've also seen games where the low bidder lost the match and that could have been easily avoided with 20 points of upgrades/squadrons that would have tipped the scales in their favor.