A friend at the game store was reviewing my list and asked why I didn't upgrade a certain card to another. "It doesn't fit into my personal code," was what I blurted out. "Hmmf," he replied and raised his eyebrows. I could tell what he was thinking: "You'd win more if you didn't have that 'personal code'." And he'd be right, but it made me think about why I play. (This post isn't about personal codes or who thinks they're a "better person" than anyone else, etc. etc. so please don't go down that road.)

I don't get praise for my flying or tactical decisions (nor should I). Earning alt cards or acrylic tokens/templates doesn't motivate me. The only thing I'm decent at is painting my ships and consistently losing.

So what's in it for me?

I think a lot of it is for the social aspect. We're wired for tribalism and this is probably part of that.
Another part is I enjoy the challenge of proving my skills against my peers.
And yeah, I like showing off my ships.

And I like Star Wars!

Why do you play? What's in it for you?

3-8 hours of pew pew pew even if losing beats 3-8 hours of honey do list anyday

• I enjoy playing the game. The more I can play, the better
• I enjoy seeing how other people are playing the game - what ships/builds they're running, how they fly them
• I like finding out what I'm doing wrong/could do differently
• I like talking to other players about the game
• I like the challenge of playing and testing myself in a competitive environment

So yeah, mostly social but there's a competitive aspect to it as well. Above all, it's fun.

I started writing up something (the context was netlisting, and I stopped after 4 pages). The fun was an important part of it. Please ignore references to netlisting as they are now out of context, and I don't want to derail the thread.

"X-Wing has no payout except some cards and pieces of plastic that are only valuable for players already playing. From that I conclude that most if not all play primarily for fun. But what does that mean, “fun”?

There are two concepts I want draw from here. The first is the famous Timmy, Johnny and Spike, coined by WotC for MagicTG. The second is the maybe less famous but even more relevant 8 kinds of fun.
First to Timmy, Johnny and Spike. See this article by WotC, where they explain the three psychographic profiles of Magic players. There are hybrids, too, but I will just give a quick overview for the main types. Important to emphasize that this explains WHY they play, not what they prefer:
Timmy’s fun is the journey, the fun he has while playing. He understands that winning is fun, too, but he just wants to have a good time.
Johnny wants to express something. He is the opposite of a netlister – list building is probably his main fun. He plays Combo Wing. He plays thematic lists, whatever the theme. He maybe wants to prove that a certain type of pilot, ship or list can perform well.
Spike plays to show how good he is. For him it’s primarily a challenge and he wants to deliver his best performance possible.

Second are the 8 kinds of fun. I believe that X-Wing is not a great game for all of them but has some clear strong points:

• Sensation means you get your enjoyment out of the things you can touch. Cool ships, beautiful tokens, maybe 3D asteroids.
• Fantasy is important for those that like to play being a starfighter pilot/commander for some hours.
• Narrative describes the story that can be experienced by the game.
• Challenge provide a thrill in competition.
• Fellowship describes the enjoyment from socialising.
• Discovery means to find out more about the world you’re playing in.
• Expression is pretty self-explanatory, and very similar to the profile of Johnny.
• Submission is meant more as enjoying the necessity to grind or even just showing up regularly for game night.

I believe that X-Wing is strongest in Challenge, Sensation, and Fellowship. Or to paraphrase them: X-Wing is a fast-paced game with nicely painted toy ships where you can test your skills against a friend.

And I believe that Expression (building thematic or clever combo wing lists) and Fantasy & Narrative (Missions! HotAC! Narrative events) are more frequently correlating with non-netlisters. The other group is for people enjoying the submission, to grind out game after game to improve their approach, their ability to estimate distance, and so on. [...] As an aside, I fail to see how Discovery can be satisfied with X-Wing.

To say that clearly now: If challenge is not a fun type of yours, then X-Wing might be the wrong game. You can ignore the fellowship, and you can ignore the ships and play with the cardboard only. The game will always be you versus someone else, even in HotAC and missions, so with a challenge type. But how you want to have that challenge is completely open.

For example, many people have their own restrictions. One might to include an A-wing, or start with a certain EPT, and that part is non-negotiable."

8 minutes ago, smccaughan said:

3-8 hours of pew pew pew even if losing beats 3-8 hours of honey do list anyday

Depends on the list.

Why I play?

It's fun. Filtered down to it's most concentrated level; should be regulated by the feds FUN.

And collectible.

And organizable (i love you Plano).

Why do I only play Empire, and nothing but the Empire so help me God?

Artificial restrictions are fun and add another level of challenge (and immersion, if I'm feeling LARPy) Therefore I will not purchase a ship from another faction (even if it's upgrade cards would help me).

And yes, I never liked any of the differing foods on my plate to touch as a kid. Totally unrelated.

8 minutes ago, That Blasted Samophlange said:

Depends on the list.

touche

I love competition in any form. When I discovered that I could compete in STAR WARS DOGFIGHTING my heart nearly exploded. Now I just play for fun.

Also I love to take an obscure card and explore how to make it a broken (or fun) combo. A good example being Ruthless Vessery. He's not exactly top tier, but he is so much fun to fly!

Cool ships. Cool people. I get to be a Jedi. I get to be a pilot.

I get to be a tactition and a general. If I order a pilot to fly into a minefield to save the rest of the squad, he obeys without question, everytime. I don't get that kind of unquestioning loyalty with the lady and kids.

To crush your enemies. See them driven before you. And to hear the lamentations of their women.

It's always primarily been about fun for me.

My life was in a bit of a dark place when I decided I wanted to try wargaming after 18 years of not painting/playing. I picked up a core set and loved the game so kept playing and buying more ships because it was fun.

I started going to tournaments to meet other folk who enjoyed the game and get some more variety in my games because that sounded fun. It was and I've kept doing so because it's fun.

I bought paints and started repainting ships because I used to have fun doing so when I were a lad. It was still fun and I kept doing so.

I started playing HotAC because it looked fun and it was.

I come to the forums primarily for a giggle and some mild trolling because it's fun. Mathwing doesn't interest me but I appreciate it's a useful analytical tool.

So yeah, I think every step of my X-Wing journey has been about having fun.

I love trying to come up with the jankiest, most out-there lists possible... Which is why nearly every list I fly seems to posses 1-3 HWK-290s...

1 - I don't find it easy to make conversation, and X-Wing has a friendly (in my experience) community that I have something in common with to talk about.

2 - List-building and the evolving metagame fascinates me (even if it frustrates me in play sometimes) so I have that to engage with and read about, even away from the game table.

3 - Learning and improving my skills (and seeing objective results in terms of wins vs losses) is extremely rewarding.

4 - I'm not getting any younger (I'm in my 40s) and I'm well aware that mental activity is important to keep the brain healthy. X-Wing is a great brain workout - especially in those 6 or 7 round big tournament days.

Probably the FUN aspect and meeting new people. Even got reacquainted with some old friends through the game.

Don't mind losing that much except when I beat myself through dumb decisions. Or the dice decide they are going to ruin my game.

1 hour ago, smccaughan said:

3-8 hours of pew pew pew even if losing beats 3-8 hours of honey do list anyday

This is, of course, true. But LOTS of things beat 3-8 hours of the Honey-Dew list, and as my enjoyment of X-Wing has continued steadily waning since Wave 8 I've found myself spending less 'hobby time' doing X-Wing events and more of it doing other games or activities with friends. And I can't say I regret it, since 3-8 hours of boardgames or canoeing often beats 3-8 hours of X-Wing which beats 3-8 hours of Honey-Do list.

If we're being honest, X-Wing's competitive game has always had it's growing pains and it's issues, but the core nugget of a fun game was there and with good-decisions, there was some freedom for 'off-meta' lists to pull out some wins. But Wave 8 marked a fundamental change, with Triple Scouts (and later Dengaroo) joining the ranks of the freshly released Palpatine and his Aces and the soon-thereafter X7s. The meta-defining power lists were more potent and powerful than ever, the Rock-Paper-Scissors nature of the game had been so thoroughly exaggerated with sharper scissors, harder rocks, and thicker paper that there was very little room for creativity or freedom in list-building. Front-Arc Jousters, especially small ships, have been utter garbage for years unless they can break the mechanics of the game (e.g. double-repositioning after they move, like Fel or Inq, or effectively being invincible to red dice, a la Palp Aces or X7s, or through double-attack as do Corran, Dengar, Quickdraw -- though only Corran is a true front arc jouster, or by forcing enemy attacks eg Biggs). The X-Wing meta game is sick, and it took a big and surprising turn or the worst around the point of Wave 8, and I'm not seeing anything recently that leads me to believe its new designers are interested in or capable of addressing some of its serious flaws.

I think you guys are playing the honey do list game wrong if X-Wing beats it ;-)

Anyway, X-Wing is an interesting game. And that's it. Community? It's a great community, but so are many others. Social aspects? I am not sure if X-Wing is really healthy to any social life ;-)
What X-Wing is is cheap and entertaining. X-Wing comes with the bonus that I am bad enough to enjoy winning and losing equally.

Since it's a game with little payout beyond swag, mainly for fun. What fun means for me:

- Challenge. I love player vs. player games, as it allows me to try my skills against another human being and see who comes out on top.

-Learning. I'm far from a world level player so for me the game is still about discovering stuff, learning and getting better. I greatly enjoy that.

-Star Wars. I love Star Wars, and the EU ships in this game have pushed me to discover new parts of the universe (for example, before playing X-wing I had no clue who Dash Rendar, Xizor or Nym were).

7 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

I think you guys are playing the honey do list game wrong if X-Wing beats it ;-)

Are you trying to Tom-Sawyer people to come whitewash your fence for you?!?

I guess it was to hard to resurrect the original thread with the exact same title wasn't it?

X-Wing is most fun for me when I pick One Ship I find really cool/interesting and then try to sort out the best/most fun possible list(s) to support it.

That sometimes means lifting and modifying things from the tournament scene, it often means reading cards, and it definitely involves a hunger for practice against the lists that completely destroy the things I enjoy.

This usually works out to trying to balance some combination of the following variables:

• Highest or Most Appropriate possible pilot skill + best possible upgrade combos within the lowest possible point cost
• Ideal balance of defense & offense
• Access to Control Mitigation (i.e. Stress or Ion relief )
• Access to Control Mechanics (i.e. Stress, Ion, ISTDs, Tractor )
• Changing the color of maneuvers on the dial from Red to White or Green
• Pre-maneuver movement or actions ( Advanced Sensors, BB8, Pattern Analyzer, Decloak, etc. )
• Action-less Actions ( i.e. Expertise, Predator, FCS, Targeting Synch, etc. )
• Logical Synergy ( i.e. Palp + Kylo or Hotshot + Gunner etc. )
• Maximize the opportunity to do a Barrel Roll or Boost
• Minimize the chance of losing to an Alpha Strike Early
• Minimize the effect of "dice" on the game via action choices unless that's part of the strategy
• Minimize the effect of not being able to dodge Turrets through traditional movement

Balancing all of those things is hard but a fun challenge and typically helps make the ships I enjoy that much more enjoyable.

This is as true for the U-Wing, Hwk-290, and Imperial Boba Fett as it is for Whisper, RAC, & Dash.

I like seeing if a goofy list can actually do good (usually not).

The ladies.

Short version: It's a fun puzzle and my sons love it.

Long version: I got into X-wing to have another type of boardgame to expand my sons' horizons with. A few months later, I went to a tournament to get the alt art C3P-0, which was cheaper than buying a transport, and to face ships we didn't have yet (I learned not to joust B-wings that day). I brought my then barely 6 year old with me so he could watch. I went 1-3, second to last, being distracted during the last game by a text message from my wife telling me our youngest (then 1) split his scalp open falling off the couch (he was fine, just a bit of glue at the ER, which is 2 blocks from the FLGS, so we walked to meet them there).

It was a lot of fun, people weren't quite the basement gamers I was expecting so I kept going once or twice a month, trying to improve my standings. By that summer, my son played in his first tournament, going 3-1 and nabbing a #2 spot while I reached my personal best of #3 (his defenders kept MoV much better than my Bossk). Since then, we've gone to tournaments once a month, and he settled back to a mid-tier level, slowly improving. X-wing taught him to be humble and to accept defeat gracefully, a win in itself. Seeing his face when he realizes that he can actually beat grown-ups somewhat reliably (though rarely myself) is great. We went to the PTL open for him to try a bigger tournament since his jealousy at not going to regionals (I had 9 games straight that day, it would have been beyond unreasonable to have dragged him along) and Naboo was palpable. He had a blast, and was shocked to end middle of the pack with a 3-3 record. He probably would have gone 4-2 had he not faced me in the 5th round.

At this point, I still enjoy the game, but it's back to being a fun casual puzzle as far as I'm concerned. I play with my son a few times a week, TO a monthly tournament at one of the FLGS. What I'm looking forward now is just playing more with him, maybe taking him to a regional if there's a 2 day one within a reasonable distance, keeping an eye out for the PTL Open 2018. That, and son #2 now talks of going to tournaments too, so there's that to look forward too as well!

It's mix bag for me. I started because some of my friends were getting in and it was a good way to spend time with them. And while that is still a major component for me, there are other motivations.

It's Star Wars. I get to play with some of my favorite ships and characters from that universe and learn about some ships and characters I missed.

There is also the gameplay. Going toe to toe with someone in this game can be great fun. The best games I have played and witnessed have a mix of gut tightening suspense as both players try to overcome the other and also laughter as those players poke fun at each other and themselves.

I've also been able to meet new people I probably won't have otherwise. There are guys I met up with at tournaments that are a blast to hang with. There is also outlets like this forum where I can find people all over the world that I share a hobby with.

I'll admit, I don't mind winning me some prices. Even if it's the bad end of the alt art spectrum, it's still fun to go for them. Now, getting them is something I never want to be the primary focus. Getting tokens or alt art is the icing on the cake made of the other reasons I've stated.

2 hours ago, Boba Rick said:

The ladies.

At my flgs there is just the one lady. One man spoke of another, but its probably just my sister.