From everything I've seen so far 2e could be what the game always wanted to be. Or at least what I want it to be.

My favourite ship is the Defender. Thanks to Disney Canon (spoilers for Rebels coming), I know that it was very expensive to produce, was extremely effective, and needed an entire Rebel cell, plus Jedi, to specifically take it out or the Rebellion would have been stuffed.. The new version has all of that and I'll happily pay a lot of squad points to use it.

See I never stopped flying real fighters, I'm eager to fly the new defender which is of course more like the tie fighter version.

1 hour ago, Hobojebus said:

See I never stopped flying real fighters, I'm eager to fly the new defender which is of course more like the tie fighter version.

Indeed. The extra shield and boost, plus baked in TIE/x7 (and we don't know if it might not still have the cannon slot too) pushes it well clear of the 'it's a TIE fighter but a bit better" territory into "what the heck was that and where did my squadron go?", which is what the TIE Defender should be. The fact that it doesn't compete in squad-building with the First Order stuff like the Silencer is nice, too.

Let's be clear - I don't mind if a gunned-up TIE Defender Ace is essentially a one-per-squad proposition provided it's scary enough to justify that.

It seems to me that there will be more difficult decisions which is different than the rules being more difficult.

If by more difficult you mean "harder to delete the threatening ship turn1" then yes.

The only things changing that would make the game "harder" is medium bases throwing people off for how far they move and its incredibly difficult to get a fully modded high dice attack without the entire list being involved.
One could argue the turret change is "harder" but i more consider that curbing the easymode. In a game of maneuvers, full 360 should never have existed....

It might be harder just because I think (hope?) that you won't be able to show with the latest net list that "just wins". I'm pretty new and don't get to play a whole lot, but in 1.0 I always felt like a great player with an average list would lose against an average player with a great list. Maybe I've just drank the 2.0 kool-aid, but I think now the great player with the average list will beat the average player with the great list. Surely, there will still be best and worst lists, but I think there will be less "space" between them and victory will depend more on how your ships are flown and not on which playing cards you showed up with.

I hope I'm right...

I think all the new symbols and such make it easier to understand. All the upgrade cards that were used by certain ships are printed on the cards now. All the rules should be easier to get used to.

Flying well has gotten harder. Talents only working in Bullseye arcs will require better flying. PTL is gone and so is easy mode. Meta flyers will have to learn how to play the game.