There have been a lot of negative design lessons identified over six years of X-wing. Which ones has FFG actually learned and applied in Second Edition?

Some lessons I can think of include:

1. Stay flexible on points and configurations as play test won’t get it 100% right. (Looks like they applied this with the new app.)

2. Don’t allow decision under perfect information (old Phantom, Palp, Genius/Trajectory Sim).

3. Don’t adjust Pilot Skill. (Looks learned.)

4. Don’t allow defensive token/ability stacking (Soontir, Fat Han, etc).

5. Combining more than two of these on a high skill single ship is dangerous: Regen, Missiles/Torps, Bombs, Turret.

6. Infinite range abilities can be abused ( Attanni, Palp, Sabine).

7. Multiple same ship attacks are dangerous, especially without trade offs (Gunner, Ghost TLT, etc).

8. Choices should be interesting, not obvious — if it is auto-include, build it in.

9. Keep ships relevant, especially core ones.

So far, looks encouraging but I think the jury is still out on a lot of these.

reasons to be hopeful, covered here

not including changes to made reinforce, evade, and the apparently inflated cost of high initiative pilots. FFG seems to be fairly on the ball, in theory

only concerning mechanic (thus far) is force acting as mini-focus, potentially creating a lot of action-independent modification

perhaps support stacking too on efficient ships (two-tubes comes to mind, esp with two-tubes), but given these ships aren't turrets and seem generally to be lower initiative, they can be outplayed

FFG did learn the thought process of internet trolls.

"We hates them, dirty filthy designeres. Their eyes always looking at our walletes. It's our monies and they can't have ites. It's my MONIES!"

Hopefully they’ve learned to reward more balance squad builds like Legion.

10. They learned that if they have a product that is very popular and sells really well, they can release expansions with almost no play test for a long period of time, let the people complain about combos and mechanics, that after a while, they can reset the all game, sell "upgrade kits" (that basically are paper and plastic bases, that cost them less than $5,00 to produce) for $50 each, and sell old material as new, just because they changed some pieces of paper included in the package.
The twicks made to the new version of the game just have to address the problems "the community" make noise about on the internet. They just have to make the new version the most blend possible so it seems fair and then, start releasing expansions in the same way they did before.
I believe this commercial tectonic was first implemented in games by Games Workshop in their N versions of Warhammer Fantasy (now Age of Sigmar) and Warhammer 40K.

PS.: Warhammer 40K had a new release (the 8th edition) last July. 7th edition was full of bugs and erratas and confusion. The new version sales sky rocketed. Games Workshop profits got 40% high on the 3rd and 4th quarter, last year. People got back to the game in droves.
1 weeks after the first major tournament with the new rules, the 1st faq came out. A tactic used by an army was nerfed. Since then, at competitive level, the game is insane. It has more crazy combos and OP lists than ever before. GW just releases faq and nerfs after nerfs to try to correct it.
I truly believe, same will happen with X-wing 2.0.
Even so 'cause I don't believe FFG released 2.0 motivated for the outcry of "the community", but because the GW model of business works and bothe companies are fighting for the same market share.

man your sense of scale is off if you believe even X-wing 1.0 was as bad as some of the **** GW pulled

like, even remotely

it's some high-tier hyperbole

besides, having played GW games and having seen x-wing 2.0, it's almost incomparable how much more effort when into 2.0 than GW updates

and that' just from what little we've seen

11) You don't want to allow the action economy to be dependent on the build, as it precludes many interesting upgrade possibilities.

20 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

man your sense of scale is off if you believe even X-wing 1.0 was as bad as some of the **** GW pulled

like, even remotely

it's some high-tier hyperbole

besides, having played GW games and having seen x-wing 2.0, it's almost incomparable how much more effort when into 2.0 than GW updates

and that' just from what little we've seen

In every GW product forum, en they present a new version, most people who want to continue play and are disenchanted with the state of the game at that moment, say that the new version has noting to do with the previews version and the way GW handled those previous releases.... 6 month after, everything is pretty much the same as it were before.

I look at the business model. The business model works. Releasing a new version always boosts the sales.
I can bet with any one here that in a 4 to 5 years tops, FFG will be releasing the version 3.0 and that ,during the version 2.0, you'll have a second core set being released.
All this has to do with market shares, growing profits demanded by investors and the fact that x-wing is an amazing cash cow.

A new version does nothing for the player engaged on a competitive level. They'll play whatever version. They will spend what is necessary to continue playing.
The new version does the world for those players who start playing, that like the game but, at some point, got frustrated with the game. The reasons for that vary.
Some of them start playing competitively and at some point get some burnout, others can cope with the frustration of being on the "salt mines" every single tournament while some of his friend are on the top tables, playing and talking to the hotshots of the game, others play a build for a while and have some success with it a then, when there's a change in the meta and that build is no longer viable, simply start to lose interest in the game... there are a myriad of diferente reasons why people stop playing (ergo buying) the game.
A new version bring all those players back. The promise that all those changes will make them feel the same enchantment they felt the first times they played the game.
That enchantment vanishes quickly. When you fully understand the new rules and you're back at the same level you were when you stop playing the game.

This business model works this war. It's like that with GW, with privateer Press, with the old TSR... and FFG isn't different.
GW finished the year with amazing numbers. With a huge market share. FFG had to do some thing. The release of Legion wasn't enough. They had to turn to their cash cow and milk it a bit more to guarantee the 3rd and 4th quarter numbers, since the 1st and 2nd are guarantee with Legion.

Sorry about the long text but it's has been 25 years of miniatures, card and board games and just lived this "new releases" too many times to know how thing really work.

apparently not very worthwhile experience if you believe the extent of changes in GW games was anywhere near as extensive or worthwhile as 2.0 is shaping out to be

versioning exists, this is obvious. But for games like Privateer Press' warmachine, with its components already in place due to a solid basis, the transition to 3.0 was far cheaper with only model cards needing to be re-issued.

By contrast, the pieces in 1.0 are far too limiting to allow for any meaningful game-play expansion. As such, they had to be redone

And by contrast to that, we are not paying $90 for some books and the privilege of having to screw around with our army compositions that had inevitably been changed to render old models obsolete and push new models for you to purchase

noticing generalized patterns are all well and good, but without further context they're at best meaningless and, at worst, misleading

2 minutes ago, pflrocha said:

In every GW product forum, en they present a new version, most people who want to continue play and are disenchanted with the state of the game at that moment, say that the new version has noting to do with the previews version and the way GW handled those previous releases.... 6 month after, everything is pretty much the same as it were before.

I look at the business model. The business model works. Releasing a new version always boosts the sales.
I can bet with any one here that in a 4 to 5 years tops, FFG will be releasing the version 3.0 and that ,during the version 2.0, you'll have a second core set being released.
All this has to do with market shares, growing profits demanded by investors and the fact that x-wing is an amazing cash cow.

A new version does nothing for the player engaged on a competitive level. They'll play whatever version. They will spend what is necessary to continue playing.
The new version does the world for those players who start playing, that like the game but, at some point, got frustrated with the game. The reasons for that vary.
Some of them start playing competitively and at some point get some burnout, others can cope with the frustration of being on the "salt mines" every single tournament while some of his friend are on the top tables, playing and talking to the hotshots of the game, others play a build for a while and have some success with it a then, when there's a change in the meta and that build is no longer viable, simply start to lose interest in the game... there are a myriad of diferente reasons why people stop playing (ergo buying) the game.
A new version bring all those players back. The promise that all those changes will make them feel the same enchantment they felt the first times they played the game.
That enchantment vanishes quickly. When you fully understand the new rules and you're back at the same level you were when you stop playing the game.

This business model works this war. It's like that with GW, with privateer Press, with the old TSR... and FFG isn't different.
GW finished the year with amazing numbers. With a huge market share. FFG had to do some thing. The release of Legion wasn't enough. They had to turn to their cash cow and milk it a bit more to guarantee the 3rd and 4th quarter numbers, since the 1st and 2nd are guarantee with Legion.

Sorry about the long text but it's has been 25 years of miniatures, card and board games and just lived this "new releases" too many times to know how thing really work.

Embrace it! And rejoice! The change is coming and no amount of salt will change that!

(On a more serious note, but of course a game company have to make money and make a healthy profit to build good games! Of course 2nd edition is most likely going to be broken from the get go, if they have trouble balancing a few ships in a new wave, how on earth are they going to balance 3 entire new factions !! But here is the catch, this time around the squad cost is built into the App and can be modified continuously to balance everything .)

7 minutes ago, Sciencius said:

Embrace it! And rejoice! The change is coming and no amount of salt will change that!

(On a more serious note, but of course a game company have to make money and make a healthy profit to build good games! Of course 2nd edition is most likely going to be broken from the get go, if they have trouble balancing a few ships in a new wave, how on earth are they going to balance 3 entire new factions !! But here is the catch, this time around the squad cost is built into the App and can be modified continuously to balance everything .)

The APP solves the communication of the new costs but doesn't solve the problem of poorly calculated ship and upgrade costs.
Once you start changing the cost numbers, the won't stop. But from a business perspective, you can always please the masses adjusting the costs accordingly with the majority of the outcriers.

Warhmachine/hordes already uses and APP at it works well but, then again it's easier for Warmachine/hordes 'cause the game was very well built from the get go and was built to be competitive what makes things easier... you don't have to please the star wars fanboyism and the flavor and nonsenses like that.

16 hours ago, pflrocha said:

The APP solves the communication of the new costs but doesn't solve the problem of poorly calculated ship and upgrade costs.

..but it does precisely that? If a ship/upgrade was poorly calculated and once released into the "wild" appears to be OP or UP (=underpowered) adjust the price 1-10 squad points up or down

16 hours ago, pflrocha said:

Once you start changing the cost numbers, the won't stop. But from a business perspective, you can always please the masses adjusting the costs accordingly with the majority of the outcriers.

Oh, but ofcourse the new "hotness" is intended to be just slightly OP - such that you will buy it - this is a business But the point is everything can be adjusted later so there is no longer a continous increase in power-level during the life time of the game, ie. I fully expect the newest wave of ships to be slightly OP, just to be nerfed to standard level once the next wave appears with slightly OP ships.

2 hours ago, Sciencius said:

Oh, but ofcourse the new "hotness" is intended to be just slightly OP - such that you will buy it - this is a business But the point is everything can be adjusted later so there is no longer a continous increase in power-level during the life time of the game, ie. I fully expect the newest wave of ships to be slightly OP, just to be nerfed to standard level once the next wave appears with slightly OP ships.

Yeah, I remember the OP nonsense that was the TIE Punisher on it's initial release.

And who can forget the Scky meta? I can't believe how hard FFG nerfed them after sales slowed.

Surprised no one stated this one yet:

13. Not allowing double repositioning, unless it's in a very limited situation.

I say it is only allowed in limited because you can buy After Burners to get a free Boost action, but only twice and only after a high speed maneuver.

I really think this is a big deal as it prevents crazy repositioning and prevents you from fixing too many mistakes after picking your dial. It brings the game back to picking your dials right being an important aspect of the game.

2 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

Surprised no one stated this one yet:

13. Not allowing double repositioning, unless it's in a very limited situation.

I say it is only allowed in limited because you can buy After Burners to get a free Boost action, but only twice and only after a high speed maneuver.

I really think this is a big deal as it prevents crazy repositioning and prevents you from fixing too many mistakes after picking your dial. It brings the game back to picking your dials right being an important aspect of the game.

some ships still got it, though

not sure if you'd count ailerons (pre-positioning?) but both the interceptor and apparently the A-wing can double boost/roll (well, the A can only push for boosts now, apparently)

it is far more limited and, far more importantly , no longer available to turrets

falcon has a red boost, jm5k has a red b-roll

9 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

some ships still got it, though

not sure if you'd count ailerons (pre-positioning?) but both the interceptor and apparently the A-wing can double boost/roll (well, the A can only push for boosts now, apparently)

it is far more limited and, far more importantly , no longer available to turrets

falcon has a red boost, jm5k has a red b-roll

I thought A-wings could do a linked Focus/TL to Boost, or a Boost, or a BR? Am I wrong? How can they do both?

I don't count ailerons as it happens before you move. I think move of the PTL stuff that you move and then get somewhere crazy to fix your bad dial pick.

Yes, you can't have a turret, Boost, and also change your turret facing. Very nice!

23 hours ago, pflrocha said:

A new version does nothing for the player engaged on a competitive level. They'll play whatever version. They will spend what is necessary to continue playing

I don’t think that’s true at all. It does a lot for the competitive player by making the game they’re going to play anyway more fun, more varied, opening their options in squad building. That’s great for them!

On 5/6/2018 at 11:53 AM, Hawkstrike said:

5. Combining more than two of these on a high skill single ship is dangerous: Regen, Missiles/Torps, Bombs, Turret.

Well my old go-to Miranda build (pre advanced SLAM nerf) had all 4 haha

TLT, Homing Missile (Harpoons weren't a thing yet either), Conner Net, Extra Munitions, C-3P0, Advanced SLAM

She was a 52 point beast that couldn't give away half points, was almost impossible to kill, and a nasty offensive threat as well.

When Imperial Aces were all the rage I combined her with a VI Wes Jansen equipped with Flechette torpedoes. "That's a nice Inquisitor you have there with a Focus, Evade, and Stress. Have another Stress from my torpedoes that rolled 3 blanks and also discard that focus while you're at it. Now eat a 5 dice missile with reroll and you aren't allowed to spend that evade."