Listen... I hear ya. But it is getting pretty tiresome.

I understand that X-Wing used to be this real simple game, with a few upgrades or even naked ships. I get it. However, times have passed, and not everything can remain the same. You cannot have THIS many different types of units, have them all relatively useful, without some complicated mechanics... The designspace is incredibly tight if we are only allowed to work with the basic stats, actions and dials.

It is just not feasible to have a large number of ships, and a simple game at the same time. If you did, the units would be too similar to each other.

Now, I hope I don't have to explain why FFG won't roll back the new mechanics introduced by several ships over the years. And ships with new mechanics tend to be stronger... Not even due to the flaws of bad design... It's simply more mechanics.

Now, here we are at an interesting point. The desires of wanting more ships and the desire for a simple game are mutually exclusive. Therefore, your complaints about ever more mechanics and cards are somewhat misplaced.

By wanting more ships, you also necessitate more mechanics and more complex rules.

If you are bothered by this, stop buying new ships, and play with wave 1-6 products. Or whichever you like...

But if you are like me, constantly whining about fixes and new ships... Then please shut up... You are impossible to please. You want to have the cake, and eat it too. That's not how it works. I understand being frustrated, believe me I do... but setting unrealistic expectations towards FFG just creates more salt... and it's not like we are in a shortage or anything...

Cheers.

Look, I just want all the add-on cards I specifically use printed on a single card right out of the box... is that so much to ask for?!

I also want the ships to move by themselves. In 3D space. In space.

And be life sized.

and let me be inside them.

Give me a real X-Wing FFG! IT'S NOT THAT HARD!

15 minutes ago, Kehl_Aecea said:

Look, I just want all the add-on cards I specifically use printed on a single card right out of the box... is that so much to ask for?!

I also want the ships to move by themselves. In 3D space. In space.

And be life sized.

and let me be inside them.

Give me a real X-Wing FFG! IT'S NOT THAT HARD!

With Lazor beams attached to their frigging heads!

This thread is text bloat

2 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

This thread is text bloat

you are the text bloat

I dunno, I’ve been feeling bloated lately, probably need to lay off the junk foods and excercise more, and play more x-wing.

Give me an Oompa Loompa FFG! IT’S NOT THAT HARD!

1 hour ago, Commander Kaine said:

You cannot have THIS many different types of units, have them all relatively useful, without some complicated mechanics...

With respect I disagree; there are very enjoyable games with plenty of replay value, lots of units with a wide variety of differences without this level of complication.

9 minutes ago, Ken at Sunrise said:

With respect I disagree; there are very enjoyable games with plenty of replay value, lots of units with a wide variety of differences without this level of complication.

Which games are you referring to?

To me card bloat is less of an issue of game complexity and more just a clutter and organization hassle. If FFG would move it all to a digital solution I'd be far less annoyed with it.

7 minutes ago, LunarSol said:

To me card bloat is less of an issue of game complexity and more just a clutter and organization hassle. If FFG would move it all to a digital solution I'd be far less annoyed with it.

I believe that is what the future holds.

16 minutes ago, LunarSol said:

To me card bloat is less of an issue of game complexity and more just a clutter and organization hassle. If FFG would move it all to a digital solution I'd be far less annoyed with it.

For sure. Also, it will solve the "Autothrusters expansion pack" issue. Require players to have the ships and the cardboard, ok, but make the card open access, that will not completely break the business model... And if it does, it means that the business model is overly exploitative!

2 hours ago, piznit said:

With Lazor beams attached to their frigging heads!

No, not on the X-Wing. it's the E-Wing and Gunboat that have lazor beams attached to their frekkin heads.

And sharks.

3 hours ago, Commander Kaine said:

It is just not feasible to have a large number of ships, and a simple game at the same time. If you did, the units would be too similar to each other.

Convince me. I contend that there's loads of design space with simple, elegant rules. By the time your rules are spilling onto a whole extra card, you've got more rules than you need. I think the game would have been just fine without conditions and excessive wording on cards. If you're going to have a small deck of tiny print cards ... what do they bring to the game? The game hasn't run out of simple but cool mechanics (the crew/pilots for the partisan box are proof of that).

12 minutes ago, The Inquisitor said:

Convince me. I contend that there's loads of design space with simple, elegant rules. By the time your rules are spilling onto a whole extra card, you've got more rules than you need. I think the game would have been just fine without conditions and excessive wording on cards. If you're going to have a small deck of tiny print cards ... what do they bring to the game? The game hasn't run out of simple but cool mechanics (the crew/pilots for the partisan box are proof of that).

I mean... Just try to design a ship that is balanced (more or less), sufficiently different from other ships, and is built only from the basic building blocks of the game

That is, the base 20 something maneuvers, (all normal ones, red stop and K-turns), the basic 5 actions (Focus, Target lock, Boost, Barrel roll, Evade), and the basic firing arcs. (Normal, Front-Rear, PWT).

Upgrades a possible, but to a limited fashion. Titles are exlcusively like the ones from the first few waves. Unique, and not at all a "mechanic title"like the SF, ARC or the Gunboat.


Now, you can make a few ships (and they have)... but if you were to design one now to fit in the next wave, you'd be hard pressed to make something viable that is different from the others.

Let's try it. Let's say I want to make the ship (that already exists) with this restrictions.

Gunboat:

Well... the stats are alright I guess, but let's talk about missiles.

I could give it missiles and torps (and even cannons) but without reload and Slam (or the titles to differentiate the Gunboat and Missileboat) it would be a crappy ship.

Missiles and torps (if you recall) weren't great back then, so the ship would have to rely on cannons completely. Missiles and torps don't really work without extra cards to give you action economy, and we want as few cards as possible. And fair enough, the ship would be fairly unique even without the titles and special actions, but it wouldn't be great.

But let's play the devil's advocate, let's say that missiles and torps are great by themselves...

Then it is just a bomber with shields and a random cannon slot instead of a bomb.

In which game would you need the same ship to carry cannons and missiles? It's not very tanky, so it probably won't live long enough to use both.

So you either have a slightly different bomber, or a 2 agility cannon carrier. I don't see that ship owning Palpaces or TIE Swarms or fat turrets.


But you know... All these ships with special rules... ARC, SF, or the fixed ships like the Vaksai... Without these elements, they are frankly boring.

Making the SF in a conservative design basically turns it into a small Slave 1. The ARC... gets boring as well. Without upgrades like BB8, it moves like a brick, and the two ships are very similar. More agility vs more hull... yet again.

The TIE Aggressor is what happens when people design ships conservatively. It is a boring, uninspired design, with no significant presence in the game. Whatever presence it has, is due to being the only imperial turret. All the other "vanilla" options are pretty much exhausted.

Even with a drastic rebalance of the core mechanics, dials and stats, if you only use the basic ingredients, you can't really do justice to the more interesting ships, or they will become very similar.

The striker is a good example of a fun ship without card bloat and it uses the basic building blocks of the game.

Regular manoeuvres, Standard Arc, Decent pricing.

its that pre-move that is really interesting. But would that be considered card bloat as it adds mechanics, even if the mechanics are basic?

1 hour ago, Quadjumper King said:

But would that be considered card bloat as it adds mechanics, even if the mechanics are basic?

2 hours ago, The Inquisitor said:

By the time your rules are spilling onto a whole extra card, you've got more rules than you need.

According to this, yes.

I do not agree with this, but that's precisely the point of my post.

Badly written, cumbersome cards (looking at you harpoons) are one thing, complaining about the game evolving past naked ships is another.

3 hours ago, NilsTillander said:

Require players to have the ships and the cardboard, ok, but make the card open access,

Welcome to casual play with online list builders.

1 hour ago, Commander Kaine said:

I mean... Just try to design a ship that is balanced (more or less), sufficiently different from other ships, and is built only from the basic building blocks of the game

I think it did that twice. TIE Vanguard and Mk VI Interceptor.

The problem is, that without making the game 2.0, you need cardboard bloat to bring old ships back into the fold.

1 hour ago, Quadjumper King said:

The striker is a good example of a fun ship without card bloat and it uses the basic building blocks of the game.

Regular manoeuvres, Standard Arc, Decent pricing.

its that pre-move that is really interesting. But would that be considered card bloat as it adds mechanics, even if the mechanics are basic?

Is it? It’s got two auto-include upgrades; LWF and Ailerons are just extra rules text. Not as bad as some stuff, but still card bloat.

14 minutes ago, Ailowynn said:

Is it? It’s got two auto-include upgrades; LWF and Ailerons are just extra rules text. Not as bad as some stuff, but still card bloat.

Your not wrong, but if even a ship as simple as that counts as card bloat, with its title and all, then perhaps we are being a bit picky about how we define our bloat. I thought we meant crazy combos and combo stacking, but if titles count then the bloat is considerably worse

In practical terms, auto include stuff like ailerons, alliance overhaul, and spec ops training are often necessary to differentiate ships beyond the basic statline (which varies ineffectiveness WILDLY with just a +1 to the right star, creating massive I'm balances like ye ole xwing v tie)

Only deviation are epic only actions

Of course, they don't NEED to be four cards like the X...

23 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

In practical terms, auto include stuff like ailerons, alliance overhaul, and spec ops training are often necessary to differentiate ships beyond the basic statline (which varies ineffectiveness WILDLY with just a +1 to the right star, creating massive I'm balances like ye ole xwing v tie)

Only deviation are epic only actions

Of course, they don't NEED to be four cards like the X...

It's what I am saying. We are mostly out of the "variations on the core set mechanics" a while ago. Maybe a few more ships can be squeezed out, but most likely they either make something obsolete, or they won't be used.

8 hours ago, Commander Kaine said:

Listen... I hear ya. But it is getting pretty tiresome.

I understand that X-Wing used to be this real simple game, with a few upgrades or even naked ships. I get it. However, times have passed, and not everything can remain the same. You cannot have THIS many different types of units, have them all relatively useful, without some complicated mechanics... The designspace is incredibly tight if we are only allowed to work with the basic stats, actions and dials.

It is just not feasible to have a large number of ships, and a simple game at the same time. If you did, the units would be too similar to each other.

Now, I hope I don't have to explain why FFG won't roll back the new mechanics introduced by several ships over the years. And ships with new mechanics tend to be stronger... Not even due to the flaws of bad design... It's simply more mechanics.

Now, here we are at an interesting point. The desires of wanting more ships and the desire for a simple game are mutually exclusive. Therefore, your complaints about ever more mechanics and cards are somewhat misplaced.

By wanting more ships, you also necessitate more mechanics and more complex rules.

If you are bothered by this, stop buying new ships, and play with wave 1-6 products. Or whichever you like...

But if you are like me, constantly whining about fixes and new ships... Then please shut up... You are impossible to please. You want to have the cake, and eat it too. That's not how it works. I understand being frustrated, believe me I do... but setting unrealistic expectations towards FFG just creates more salt... and it's not like we are in a shortage or anything...

Cheers.

I gotta disagree with your basic premise. We CAN have a game with 50 or 100 unique ships which are reasonably distinct without card bloat.

many games have hundreds of units which only have access to a few upgrades each. many games dont allow you to upgrade units at all.

if each ship had 1 title which changed the way the ship played(some unique) and 2 upgrade slots, just making every reasonable combination of stats and upgrade possibilities would render thousands of possibilities before variations in pilot skill and pilot abilities.

there is no reason whatsoever why an average ships upgrades should look like a turn 3 game of Magic the Gathering

1 hour ago, Vontoothskie said:

I gotta disagree with your basic premise. We CAN have a game with 50 or 100 unique ships which are reasonably distinct without card bloat.

many games have hundreds of units which only have access to a few upgrades each. many games dont allow you to upgrade units at all.

if each ship had 1 title which changed the way the ship played(some unique) and 2 upgrade slots, just making every reasonable combination of stats and upgrade possibilities would render thousands of possibilities before variations in pilot skill and pilot abilities.

there is no reason whatsoever why an average ships upgrades should look like a turn 3 game of Magic the Gathering

It is possible, but not without restarting the whole game. That ship sailed a long time ago.

It is not possible in the way X-wing is designed. The core mechanics don't allow for that much variety between ships, and they rely on upgrade cards to do that, since ships don't have external rules references.

Even in the games where customization is limited or impossible, each unit has rules, or keywords or whatever that are not present at the game. X-wing has a different design philosophy. Aside from the reference cards, every information about a ship is by the table. The dial, the stats and every special rule affecting it (cards). [Now this is completely pointless because of FAQ and errata, but that is irrelevant now]

Since ships have no external source of power (like Spacemarines do, which have several keywords and abilities that can be changed and tweaked), you can't really create difference between ships without adding stuff to them.

So you know... rules like: All Imperial Fists can re-roll their bolter attacks. All Space Marines have the "They shall know no fear" rule. X-Wing doesn't have this, so it is different.

in fishing communities this is known as whinging and jumping the shark.