"That thing is operational. It's a Trap"

As the title suggests, here I will continue (read the first part here) with another argument to the fact that moving thing point cost into the App, even with higher point-limit (giving us higher resolution) and also making the cost of upgrades dependent on the Pilot and other upgrades, and perhaps even ban certain combinations of upgrades is NOT enough to allow any type of thematic upgrade+pilot combos, just because it is how Han and Luke escapes the Death Star and flees to the Rebel base at Yavin. Fluff never overrules good game design.

Sure as in my first post any overpowered combination may just recieve a way to high cost but that does not make it good game design, and will just make the card unused, as a lot of my current old crew cards in 1'st edition. What is the problem? Well the problem is that the correct squad cost to balance the price of the card depends on YOUR opponents list and no in App pricing can deal with that.

Let me argue using an example, others can be made.

Let us assume we want to make a thematic Galactic Empire card, lets call it:

"Single Reactor Ignition" Price ?
(Galactic Empire Only) 1 charge.
Instead of attacking, spend one charge to select any enemy ship on the board, it immediately blows up. (You may make laser sounds or imitate the voice of Tarkin/Krennic)

Now, we are talking, this is what the Imperial players have been waiting for, something that represents the true might of the Empire, and what is more thematic and fluff wise than a Death Star death ray attack annihilating any ship of the board when you like it. Don't like Fat Han? Kill it. Don't like Dengar? Kill it. Dash? Don't make me laugh...
I already made the upgrade use a charge and only gave it a single charge so this super attack can only be done once in the game, and not f*cking every single round, like another potential bad combination of cards last seen fleeing the Death Star. But even with a single charge, this card is difficult to price...why?

Lets give it a high price in the App: Well, assuming the cheapest carrier pilot of the card costs 30pt, then in 2'nd edition, Single Reactor Ignition cannot cost more that 170pt, but at that price it would never see play. Why not? well, because going up against almost any other list with a more than one ships and that ship is better than your 30pt ship you will be at a disadvantage for the remainder of the game.

Lets give it a low price in the App: Ok, it is going to cost 24pt, that is TIE-fighter price, but that would be just as disastrous as going up against anything other that an TIE swarm it would be way to overpowered.

Lets give it a medium price in the App 70pt(+30pt for the carrier pilot = 100pt) that is 50%, that would be fine against balanced two ship builds, overpowered against super fat + small carrier lists, and again, terrible against a swarm and mini-swarm or another strong combination of 3 aces.

As you may have noticed by now, it is impossible to find the right squad cost of this upgrade card, because it depends on the opponents list way to much - this card is bad game design and will warp the meta. The problem is that the value of it effect depends on the opponents list AND it requires no skill to use - the only thing you could do wrong is to select the an enemy ship cheaper than the point cost of the card or forget to use it at all (although that last part would be impossible for any imperial player).
This upgrade card would lead to negative player experience as the opponent who has carefully crafted his squad and is looking forward to 30-75 minutes of fun play time, sees his list and synergies taken apart in round 1.
There is very little that can be done to make this upgrade card easy to price, it is simply bad game design.

(Again note this is in NOWAY meant as a negative post about 2'nd edition. I have pre-ordered 1 Core-Set and 2 of each of the 3 Conversion kits and I am SO psyked for this game and cannot wait until 13'th Spetember. Actually, the 2 hour unboxing was to me more intertaining and had be glue to the screen more that "The Last Jedi", I have have already watched it 3-4 times... well I lost track okay)

What IS your point then?

I'm honestly not sure. You've pointed out that it's possible to design cards that are impossible to balance and will either be OP or useless.

You're right.

So... what?

9 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

What IS your point then?

I'm honestly not sure. You've pointed out that it's possible to design cards that are impossible to balance and will either be OP or useless.

You're right.

So... what?

The point was that the price of an upgrade-card may depend on the opponents list, thus adjusting the price of a card based on your own list is insufficient. Among other points

Honestly, I am however interested in how one would go about changing such a card into something that would be more balanced and thus easier to price. I find that interesting and I do not have the solution.

Drugs are bad, mkay?

13 minutes ago, JasonCole said:

Drugs are bad, mkay?

WTF!?!

35 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

What IS your point then?

I'm honestly not sure. You've pointed out that it's possible to design cards that are impossible to balance and will either be OP or useless.

You're right.

So... what?

What is YOUR point?

It would work in epic, just make it work against huge ships only.

47 minutes ago, Sciencius said:

"That thing is operational. It's a Trap"

As the title suggests, here I will continue (read the first part here) with another argument to the fact that moving thing point cost into the App, even with higher point-limit (giving us higher resolution) and also making the cost of upgrades dependent on the Pilot and other upgrades, and perhaps even ban certain combinations of upgrades is NOT enough to allow any type of thematic upgrade+pilot combos, just because it is how Han and Luke escapes the Death Star and flees to the Rebel base at Yavin. Fluff never overrules good game design.

Sure as in my first post any overpowered combination may just recieve a way to high cost but that does not make it good game design, and will just make the card unused, as a lot of my current old crew cards in 1'st edition. What is the problem? Well the problem is that the correct squad cost to balance the price of the card depends on YOUR opponents list and no in App pricing can deal with that.

Let me argue using an example, others can be made.

...

I see your point. About the only example I can think of that would be more extreme than yours would be a card saying:

After set up, roll one attack die. On a hit or crit result, destroy all enemy ships. On a focus or blank result, destroy all friendly ships.

So this card would have as much upside as down side. It would be equally justified costing 0 or 150 points. It would simply be bad game design.

But I guess my follow up would be, is there a card/pilot that we know of in either 1st or 2nd edition that is impossible to get close to a fair price. Keep in mind that not only can you change a powerful card's price up, but you could in theory lower all other cards down as well. So lets say 2.0 Han with 2.0 Luke Gunner is an absolute monster. You could raise the prices so you are running no other ships/cards but you could also adjust prices down for everything else. Maybe Han/Luke is a hard counter for arc dodgers, but if I can run Vader with Fel, Carnor, and 3 Alphas in the same list, I think my chances are pretty good at taking out Han before he gets my last ship.

Bottom line is, yes, FFG should strive for better game design from the onset, but at least with on the fly pricing combined with being able to edit which upgrades can go on which pilots, we should have a more balanced game than before. Perfect, no of course not, but better than before and probably about the best we could have realistically hoped for.

FFG has made this mistake before - the TIE phantom was the best example. It didn't have a valid price that made it balanced against generics and PS 10 turrets.

Well, yeah. Duh.

Rick Priestley, formerly of GW and currently of Warlord Games, wrote about this problem in Wargames Soldiers and Strategy magazine a few years ago. He said all games where players get to pick their pieces have this problem. You can't price something accurately because its value is relative to both the player's and his opponent's lists.

The example he used was an antitank gun in a WWII scenario. It gets priced based on its effectiveness vs armor, but in a battle where the opponent fields infantry only the AT gun's value becomes much closer to zero. For that reason he suggested going away from points-based games of theoretically balanced forces to scenario-based play where balance can be achieved with adjustments to victory conditions, starting locations, or time limits etc.

So I think most of us understand that the game will not be perfectly balanced in 2.0 because that's impossible. Adjustable points will allow corrections for gross imbalances and make for more match ups that have odds that are in the 45-55 range instead of some of the 80-20 or 90-10 swings we have now.

Here's the mistake you're making: "balance" doesn't mean that every list has a 50/50 chance against every other list. It means that, ideally, any list has a 50% win rate across a large number of games against different lists. There has always been an element of rock/paper/scissors to X-Wing. That's good. It's perfectly fine for some upgrades or pilots to be overpriced in some matchups and underpriced in others.

6 minutes ago, Arschbombe said:

Well, yeah. Duh.

Rick Priestley, formerly of GW and currently of Warlord Games, wrote about this problem in Wargames Soldiers and Strategy magazine a few years ago. He said all games where players get to pick their pieces have this problem. You can't price something accurately because its value is relative to both the player's and his opponent's lists.

The example he used was an antitank gun in a WWII scenario. It gets priced based on its effectiveness vs armor, but in a battle where the opponent fields infantry only the AT gun's value becomes much closer to zero. For that reason he suggested going away from points-based games of theoretically balanced forces to scenario-based play where balance can be achieved with adjustments to victory conditions, starting locations, or time limits etc.

So I think most of us understand that the game will not be perfectly balanced in 2.0 because that's impossible. Adjustable points will allow corrections for gross imbalances and make for more match ups that have odds that are in the 45-55 range instead of some of the 80-20 or 90-10 swings we have now.

Excellent point. My question at this point is: Does removing the upgrade slots and point costs from cards and moving them to the app improve the game over having upgrade slots and point costs on the cards?

They still can't adjust dials or the main stat line (Primary Attack, Agility, Hull, Initiative, etc...) and I can't see this working on another Jumpmaster scenario, since it took them about a year of tinkering and nerfing until that ship finally fell off the top meta slot. For the app approach to be more effective, they have to know what the **** they're doing in the first place, not throwing guesses out and seeing what works.

Remember the app not only controls point cost but also available slots. So if they discover certain upgrades in conjunction with certain ships are toxic they can also address it in slotting terms.

Actually, using the dynamic pricing, it would be possiple to balance such a card AGAINST THE META. In a toxic meta full of two ship lists you could use it to drive the meta into a different direction.

That would still be bad game design, but still. In a way, kylo ren crew WAS such a card. NPE, silver bullet to some lists... still not considered overly OP.

40 minutes ago, Arschbombe said:

Well, yeah. Duh.

Rick Priestley, formerly of GW and currently of Warlord Games, wrote about this problem in Wargames Soldiers and Strategy magazine a few years ago. He said all games where players get to pick their pieces have this problem. You can't price something accurately because its value is relative to both the player's and his opponent's lists.

The example he used was an antitank gun in a WWII scenario. It gets priced based on its effectiveness vs armor, but in a battle where the opponent fields infantry only the AT gun's value becomes much closer to zero. For that reason he suggested going away from points-based games of theoretically balanced forces to scenario-based play where balance can be achieved with adjustments to victory conditions, starting locations, or time limits etc.

So I think most of us understand that the game will not be perfectly balanced in 2.0 because that's impossible. Adjustable points will allow corrections for gross imbalances and make for more match ups that have odds that are in the 45-55 range instead of some of the 80-20 or 90-10 swings we have now.

Yet GW actually tried Ricks suggestion, in a way, and the general gaming community reflexively **** their ******* pants. I agree with Rick, points can not nor will they ever be fair 100% of the time and that scenario and other limitations are what can ACTUALLY balance a game. Problem is gamers have used points and been able to customize their pieces since Warhammer was created back in the 70s I believe. So gamers as a whole will NEVER like a system that doesnt use points. AoS needed some fixes yes but it could have worked as originally intended, but to few actually saw the benefits and most people just wanted their safety blanket of points back.

17 minutes ago, GamerGuy1984 said:

Problem is gamers have used points and been able to customize their pieces since Warhammer was created back in the 70s I believe. So gamers as a whole will NEVER like a system that doesnt use points.

Warhammer was created in the 80s. I had a 1st edition boxed set I got in 84 or 85.

Back to the main point. Points are a basic element of miniatures games because players buy and use the pieces independently of the core game. But they are not fundamental to the kinds of wargames I started with in 1980. Those hex map and cardboard counter games included everything you needed and the only way to play was to use the scenarios provided. I know those kinds of games never took off in the UK where wargaming is by definition minatures-based, but they are wargames and they still exist.

The whole balancing discussion is a bit mute.

X-Wing its a dice game at its core. Yes, you can influence the odds to your favor by making game decisions, but still its a dice game. The result variability of say a 3 attack roll vs a 3 defense roll is HUGE.

Unless the handicap/disadvantage introduced by wrong point costing is large, it would be largely negligible compared to dice variability.

If you want to really play test X-Wing for balance, you should either:

A) Eliminate the dice. Play just doing the math for hits and evades, not dice-rolling.

B) Play enough games so that you can achieve statistical significance that account for variability. This is probably impractical, given the number of variables at play, as the number of games (data points) would have to be unreasonably large.

My point: arguing for balance in a game heavily influenced by chance makes little sense. Yes we need to have balance, but a general balance is probably sufficient.

1 hour ago, Arschbombe said:

Warhammer was created in the 80s. I had a 1st edition boxed set I got in 84 or 85.

Back to the main point. Points are a basic element of miniatures games because players buy and use the pieces independently of the core game. But they are not fundamental to the kinds of wargames I started with in 1980. Those hex map and cardboard counter games included everything you needed and the only way to play was to use the scenarios provided. I know those kinds of games never took off in the UK where wargaming is by definition minatures-based, but they are wargames and they still exist.

Thats what I meant as gamers as a whole would never like a non points based system. They have and do exist. But show it to a group of 20 gamers and Id bet 14+ of them will balk at the idea of not using points. Its so ingrained in so many players minds that they see it as the ONLY system possible. Also I didnt know the exact year for Warhammer was just spitballing.

Well it does help out with the point bid but keep in mind that stat altering is still locked in. So high bid low bid will be harder to manage.

Low Bid cards like VI raised the stat by 2 for 1 point when most ships would pay 2 points for 2 increase

High Bids like Shield Upgrade cost 4 points when not every ship with an extra shield cost 4 points more.

WH40K didn’t have data analysis (no app). X Wing 2.0 has the potential to adjust points costs of an ‘item’ (ship, upgrade etc) relative to its success in the current meta. Simply the App could record that data.

So if “single reactor ignition” sees a lot of play and features in a lot of high performing lists it’s price can creep up until it become unviable. Conversely if the ‘anti tank gun’ sees no play (almost everyone fields infantry) it’s price can drop.

Basic market forces.

The outliers will be binary positions (a card is worth playing at 11points, instantly useless at 12 points) due to certain card combinations (i.e it really only ‘works’ in a very particular list).

Some cards may also be popular for reasons outside the mechanics of the game (lots of people play Han because the Solo film just released).

This means cards are priced against the overall meta (but not in relation to your specific opponent for that specific match). Pricing is approximate and generalised but can be disputed in detail (a single game).

1 hour ago, OoALEJOoO said:

The whole balancing discussion is a bit mute.

X-Wing its a dice game at its core. Yes, you can influence the odds to your favor by making game decisions, but still its a dice game. The result variability of say a 3 attack roll vs a 3 defense roll is HUGE.

Unless the handicap/disadvantage introduced by wrong point costing is large, it would be largely negligible compared to dice variability.

If you want to really play test X-Wing for balance, you should either:

A) Eliminate the dice. Play just doing the math for hits and evades, not dice-rolling.

B) Play enough games so that you can achieve statistical significance that account for variability. This is probably impractical, given the number of variables at play, as the number of games (data points) would have to be unreasonably large.

My point: arguing for balance in a game heavily influenced by chance makes little sense. Yes we need to have balance, but a general balance is probably sufficient.

At the high levels, X-wing is largely a game of skill.* Paul Heaver won worlds 3 times in a row and has continued to make the cut in most of the Worlds tournaments since then. There are numerous other examples but I'll just stop at that one example, for what I hope are obvious reasons.

You're correct that luck is a factor in games, and this is critically important to making the game fun. However, the notion that the game can't be balanced around the mean, because there is too much variance, is an ill-informed position. I could write about 5 more pages on that thought from a game design / balance standpoint, but instead I'll pivot and say that from a player's perspective it is ultimately a very good thing that luck averages out even over the medium term and the better players consistently perform well!

* and list building, which is basically what the OP is talking about.

45 minutes ago, OoALEJOoO said:

The whole balancing discussion is a bit mute.

X-Wing its a dice game at its core. Yes, you can influence the odds to your favor by making game decisions, but still its a dice game. The result variability of say a 3 attack roll vs a 3 defense roll is HUGE.

Unless the handicap/disadvantage introduced by wrong point costing is large, it would be largely negligible compared to dice variability.

If you want to really play test X-Wing for balance, you should either:

A) Eliminate the dice. Play just doing the math for hits and evades, not dice-rolling.

B) Play enough games so that you can achieve statistical significance that account for variability. This is probably impractical, given the number of variables at play, as the number of games (data points) would have to be unreasonably large.

My point: arguing for balance in a game heavily influenced by chance makes little sense. Yes we need to have balance, but a general balance is probably sufficient.

I think dice / luck / probability are very important to the game.

1) It helps two games with the same ships and players become new experiences.

2) It allows actions to alter probabilites

3) It allows upgrades to alter probabilities.

Dice can be unfair, but that's the nature of dice.

Fully agree with you guys Major Juggler and Scum4Life. Luck is only one factor, player skill is more important for sure.

Having said that, my point was that there is no point arguing for a "mathematically" correct balance since at the end of the day the dice variance has more weight than a point cost or two.

Just now, OoALEJOoO said:

Fully agree with you guys Major Juggler and Scum4Life. Luck is only one factor, player skill is more important for sure.

Having said that, my point was that there is no point arguing for a "mathematically" correct balance since at the end of the day the dice variance has more weight than a point cost or two.

In a single instance you are right,

but over hundreds and thousands of games those dice variances start leveling out and minor costing balance does mean something even a single point.

We can also look at that single point on the effect of the total list, it may allow you to fit something else in the list that increases the overall power of the list by more then the 1pt that something is under-costed.

1 hour ago, OoALEJOoO said:

Having said that, my point was that there is no point arguing for a "mathematically" correct balance since at the end of the day the dice variance has more weight than a point cost or two.

This is not true though -- over the course of even one game list quality (i.e. cost) and player skill are going to have a dramatically larger impact than luck.

Getting costs right is a really big deal during design, it essentially establishes what the meta will be. With the exception of control lists, every top tier list in the history of X-wing has always been very cost efficient. Even the control lists become relatively efficient by crippling the opponent. You can't get away from cost efficiency, and second edition will be no different. If anything, second edition will be even more about cost efficiency, based on mechanical and action stacking changes.

To paint a broad picture:

• Ships costing about 5% less than it's ideal cost in the overall meta: oops. You just created power creep. If you're always aiming for the 0% mark then it's inevitable that eventually something will land here. Do this enough and you have to nuke the system from orbit and make a new edition. It's great for sales in the short-term though as all the powergamers rush to fly the New Best Thing.
• Ships costing within 0% of it's "ideal" cost: this is the goal, but can only be approximately achieved even with perfect information because points are quantized. 200 points allows for some pretty good granularity, but there's still some significant limitations for really cheap pilots. For example, there's not much design pricing control to go from an IN1 TIE to IN2 TIE: it's constrained to basically have to be 24 points to 26 points, but that might not quite be the "correct" answer. That said, if most every ship's price was this close, then you would go into a tournament having literally no idea what you would be likely to see. That = "meta diversity" = fun = the ultimate design goal.
• Ships that cost about 5% more than their ideal cost: will see plenty of play and generally do fine, but you will still start to see players optimize away from these ships / pilots at the highest levels. From a design standpoint it is very difficult to consistently get your initial costs within 5% of ideal unless you really know what you're doing and you have some solid tools.
• Ships costing about 10% more than their ideal cost: generally feels "not quite as good" on initial playthroughs, and becomes apparent after a few tournaments that it's not top tier. You should be able to get point costs at least this close if you have a solid understanding of the fundamentals and have some models / tools on the order of MathWing 1.0.
• Ships costing about 15% more than their ideal cost: Dead on arrival. Indicates that the designer does not understand the fundamentals of what drives pricing.
• Ships costing about 20% more than their ideal cost: Relegated to the Hall of Shame with the First Edition wave 1 TIE Advanced.

Bottom line, as a player I don't want to pick up a ship and have to worry if it's going to be top tier or "Hall of Shame". This was the original motivation behind Community-Mod. And to your original point, figuring out how to price ships within about 5% of the target value is already a solved problem despite dice roll variance (or rather including, when you really get into it).