40 minutes ago, HolySorcerer said:

The most important info is the initiative and the name! It makes the board infinitely more readable. Being able to look at the table and easily identify Wampa, Howlrunner, Iden, Mauler, and the Acadamy Pilot is critical.

Agreed. The time I'm generally looking back and forth across the board and need quick reference information is the planning phase.

Whilst I don't 'know' what upgrades you might have strapped to a given ship, I probably know from the pilot name what their ability is (if I listed three random unique pilots, would you know roughly what their ability is without looking it up?), and I know their initiative value.

Being able to see at-a-glance what order the ships are moving in without having to refer to your pilot cards is a huge time saver. If the ship's bases were nothing but a reference number, trying to hold the mental picture of movement order whilst planning dials would - at least for me - increase the time taken massively.

9 hours ago, JamesWG said:

I'm pretty sure the "by maneuver dials included" disclaimer was on that list on day one.

9 hours ago, Jeff Wilder said:

It was not. Nor was it ever made clear in any other promotional videos and such.

Yes it was. The first glimpse we got of the conversion kit contents was the FAQ on the 2.0 product page, and it included the line "The number of ships supported (by maneuver dials included) in each Conversion Kit are:" I remember because I specifically noticed that bit and that a lot of people were ignoring it, which I fully expected to lead to conversations like this.

6 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

(if I listed three random unique pilots, would you know roughly what their ability is without looking it up?)

Personally, I'd be happy if I could just remember what ships they flew. Most of the time, I have to look at my cards to remember roughly what my own pilots do, so not having pilot names printed on the bases wouldn't be a major loss to me.

It really wouldn't be any worse referencing the ships by number, so long as the numbers are sufficiently distinct.

16 hours ago, JamesWG said:

I'm pretty sure the "by maneuver dials included" disclaimer was on that list on day one. At the time I was not sure what it meant, but I knew it meant something. And I was pretty sure that the 'something' would not make people happy.

16 hours ago, Jeff Wilder said:

It was not. Nor was it ever made clear in any other promotional videos and such. The "(by maneuver dials included)" language was added after some people went, " ... Wait a second ... "

It's very disappointing that we're not getting actual full conversions (which would have great value when trading to try to fully convert 1.0 collections), and it's quite disappointing that FFG made such poor decisions -- apparently with zero research -- on the number of ships of each type in each Conversion Kit. But the most disappointing thing is that they were not forthright about it.

No, the more I think about the more I remember "by maneuver dials included" was there on day one. It was rarely, if ever, alluded to anywhere besides that FAQ list but it was not added later. While I don't think the disclaimer means FFG was totally forthright about this, they didn't spring this on the players out of the blue either.

From a business standpoint I can see the reasons NOT to put your idea of "Full conversions" in the kits. Sure it would be great for the players, but would reduce the number of kits sold by a large amount if trading were that easy. But I do think it was poor decision not to include full generics for every dial in the kit. One more sheet of cardboard probably would have been enough to have included the shorted generics. (But maybe I am underestimating).

Edit - I see someone reacted with confusion. Not sure why, but it may be related to not knowing what Jeff's idea of "Full Conversion" is. Basically he wanted the kits to have a full set of bases and cards, including uniques, for each dial in the kit. So for instance if the Rebel Kit includes two dials for the Falcon, he wants it to include two copies of the Han Solo ship base and ship card, two copies of Lando's base and card, etc. That way if someone buys the kit and only has one Falcon, he can give/sell/trade an entire set of dial, ship bases, ship cards for the falcon to someone else.

11 hours ago, Lace Jetstreamer said:

What information is included on the playing field?

• Ship Upgrades ---- no
• Ship Hull --- no
• Ship Shields ---- no
• Ship actions ----- no
• Ship's possible moves ---- no
• Ship's pilot ability ---- no
• Ship's title ability ---- no

You have to lookup ALL of that information. Adding a pilot NAME, pilot initiative, and colored firing arc doesn't speedup play. Assuming the FFG app allows you to load your opponents list, it will be trivial to lookup.

This is off topic of the original post but it's an interesting concept. X-Wing is a dog-fighting game and it's all originally based on WWII. When pilots in WWII engaged, they didn't know who the pilots they were fighting against were unless maybe they got a close-up look at some plane markings.

So, what if the base only had arcs and a Initiative number and everything else was secret? What if the pilot cards and upgrades across the table were face down? You go into a game and all you know is what type ships you're facing. This might be an interesting alternate format to play. This deserves a thread of it's own.

6 hours ago, Forgottenlore said:

Yes it was. The first glimpse we got of the conversion kit contents was the FAQ on the 2.0 product page, and it included the line "The number of ships supported (by maneuver dials included) in each Conversion Kit are:" I remember because I specifically noticed that bit and that a lot of people were ignoring it, which I fully expected to lead to conversations like this.

I could have sworn it was there from day 1 too, for the same reason. Perhaps what people are remembering are the various comments from FFG staff at the time the game was announced? I'm pretty sure they didn't have any sort of disclaimer to the same effect. Not that I would expect them to, TBH.

Edited my post three back to clarify a point that may be leading to confusion.

7 hours ago, Forgottenlore said:

Yes it was.

No, it wasn't. I was careful to go over the contents announcement carefully. I've given FFG the benefit of the doubt more than I should, and I was trying to be diligent before cheerleading for them this time. It was not there when the list included only two Gunboats (but three Decimators).

There was a lot of cutting-and-pasting of the FAQ when it went up. If we can find one of those examples that's unedited, we'll know.

In any event, do you not find it very telling that the best you can argue for the way FFG handled this is that you think they wrote, in one place, "(by maneuver dials included)"? All the promo materials they did and released in the weeks following, and that's the only time you can even claim that it was mentioned?

46 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

No   , it wasn't. I was car  eful to go over the contents announcement car  efully. 

Well, you’re wrong and you missed something.

It’s pointless to argue about it though as neither one of us can prove anything.

59 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

In any event, do you not find it very telling that the best you can argue for the way FFG handled this is that you think they wrote, in one place, "(by maneuver dials included)"? All the promo materials they did and released in the weeks following, and that's the only time you can even claim that it was mentioned?

I haven't seen any of the videos or promo stuff, so I can't really speak to that. However, the caveat included (whether original or added later) sounds like a simple clarification rather than deception. There are multiple ways someone could count the ships converted, so they specify that they're doing it by counting the dials.

At that point, FFG is going to make some people upset regardless of what they do. Take Jumpmasters, for instance. They have three unique pilots and one generic, making a total of two inserts and two dials. What alternatives did they have? Cut one of the unique pilots? Give each unique pilot a generic back, resulting in three generics (one unflyable, with only two dials) and taking more printing space?

Personally, I would think the most obvious solution would be to just use completely generic templates, but even that route has its detractors, as removing a pilot's name from the base apparently breaks the game and renders it completely unplayable (never mind that this information is still in plain view, just a little farther up the table).

I'm not saying we shouldn't give feedback, or that we can't complain about what bugs us, but do we really need to pretend that every single little thing is proof that FFG are Sith Lords acting purely to upset fans? Can't we consider some mistakes to be simply honest mistakes?

1 hour ago, Jeff Wilder said:

There was a lot of cutting-and-pasting of the FAQ when it went up. If we can find one of those examples that's unedited, we'll know.

Three cut and pastes from May 1:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/274779-x-wing-20-they-got-everything-right/?tab=comments#comment-3305770

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/274737-x-wing-second-edition-gripe-checklist/?page=4&tab=comments#comment-3305859

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/274733-x-wing-2nd-edition-announced/?page=4&tab=comments#comment-3304862

So now we know. ?

7 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

At that point, FFG is going to make some people upset regardless of what they do. Take Jumpmasters, for instance. They have three unique pilots and one generic, making a total of two inserts and two dials. What alternatives did they have? Cut one of the unique pilots? Give each unique pilot a generic back, resulting in three generics (one unflyable, with only two dials) and taking more printing space?

Overall I agree with your sentiments, but I think the Jumpmaster is a prime example of where they could have done better. I think they only should have included 2 unique pilots for it in the kit. Then they could have done U1/G and U2/G for the bases. Save the third unique pilot for the future expansion.

As it is I guess they'll have U1/U2 and U3/G. Sure we get two dials but we can't fly G,G or U1,U2 or U3,G. So only certain two ship jumpmaster lists will be possible. If they simply cut one unique and added a second copy of the generic they could have allowed us to fly any two ship combo.

But I chalk this up more to poor planning than nefarious motivations.

I’m pretty sure things will settle with 4 Xs (probably with light upgrades) and 6 interceptors being legal

30 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

At that point, FFG is going to make some people upset regardless of what they do.

Of course that's true. Since that's true, the question should become, "What can be done so that the things people are upset about are the most easily and efficiently correctable?"

Quote

Take Jumpmasters, for instance. They have three unique pilots and one generic, making a total of two inserts and two dials. What alternatives did they have? Cut one of the unique pilots? Give each unique pilot a generic back, resulting in three generics (one unflyable, with only two dials) and taking more printing space?

What they should have done is give full conversions for each ship-conversion they promise. In other words, as JamesWG explained for me in an earlier post, each ship conversion should be a stand-alone conversion, much like buying an expansion is . For two JM5Ks, there's be full copies of the pilot cards, the ship tokens, and the dials, including two copies of each Unique.

Yes, this will still upset people. You'd have impulsive people going on half-cocked about "wasted cardboard and increased cost." But, and this is key, every ship conversion would then have value, whether for trade (ideally, IMO) or sale. So the downside is easily and efficiently correctable, unlike the way they settled on doing it, which is going to result in tremendous wastes of cardboard and increased cost ... which can't be easily and efficiently correctable.

Of course, there are always going to be apologists. Some people, guaranteed, will say, "Well, how is FFG supposed to make money off doing it the way you think they should have done it?" Which, of course, ignores three things: (1) They've already gotten my money for these ships. (2) That's supposed to be the whole point of the CKs: keeping goodwill from veteran players, which is all that makes 2.0 feasible anyway. (3) They're still selling CKs. And if people know the CKs actually have full value , people will buy with less reticence. (I.e., "Sure, I only need to convert eight ships out of an Imperial CK, but since I know I can trade or sell the other 26 ships, I'll buy one anyway.")

So the question becomes, "Would FFG rather see the CKs get full use, or would FFG rather see huge parts of CKs go into people's recycling bins?" The way they've done things ensures the latter. So ... why did they do it that way?

Is it just a mistake? Maybe. I can definitely believe that from FFG, although it sorta refutes the "how is FFG supposed to make money" people.

But there's a reason the concept of negligence exists: a mistake that should not have been made is still wrong , and still deserving of some form of censure.

1 hour ago, JamesWG said:

Overall I agree with your sentiments, but I think the Jumpmaster is a prime example of where they could have done better. I think they only should have included 2 unique pilots for it in the kit. Then they could have done U1/G and U2/G for the bases. Save the third unique pilot for the future expansion.

This would have made sense, too, though not having played them, I don't know how people would react to one of the pilots getting cut.

52 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

Of course that's true. Since that's true, the question should become, "What can be done so that the things people are upset about are the most easily and efficiently correctable?"

Of course, no thought whatsoever should be given to whether the complaints are sufficiently valid to warrant addressing in the first place.

52 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

What they should have done is give full conversions for each ship-conversion they promise. In other words, as JamesWG explained for me in an earlier post, each ship conversion should be a stand-alone conversion, much like buying an expansion is . For two JM5Ks, there's be full copies of the pilot cards, the ship tokens, and the dials, including two copies of each Unique.

So, since the ships all have two or more copies, should we double (at least) the cost as well? Essentially, you want to double or triple absolutely everything apart from the maneuver dials. Why not just buy two kits at that point?

52 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

Yes, this will still upset people. You'd have impulsive people going on half-cocked about "wasted cardboard and increased cost."

Good to see you're being so rational about this and not simply resorting to insulting and dismissing everyone who disagrees with you.

52 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

But, and this is key, every ship conversion would then have value, whether for trade (ideally, IMO) or sale. So the downside is easily and efficiently correctable, unlike the way they settled on doing it, which is going to result in tremendous wastes of cardboard and increased cost ... which can't be easily and efficiently correctable.

I must have missed where it was FFG's job to foster trade and second-hand sales. If people want to trade, then fine, but it's hardly reasonable to insist that it should be FFG's primary consideration when making a product.

Then again, you would also have folks who can't trade locally, and don't like dealing with selling stuff online, for whom twice the cardboard would mean twice the waste.

52 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

Of course, there are always going to be apologists. Some people, guaranteed, will say, "Well, how is FFG supposed to make money off doing it the way you think they should have done it?" Which, of course, ignores three things: (1) They've already gotten my money for these ships.

You've bought the 1e ships, sure. However, buying one FFG product does not entitle you to future products for free, or even reduced price. I own both the X-Wing and the U-Wing. Does that entitle me to a free copy of Saw's Rebels, or a discount on Arkham Horror?

52 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

(2) That's supposed to be the whole point of the CKs: keeping goodwill from veteran players, which is all that makes 2.0 feasible anyway.

Personally, they already have my good will for making the kits in the first place. Though I suspect it's more about simply retaining players, goodwilled or not.

52 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

(3) They're still selling CKs. And if people know the CKs actually have full value , people will buy with less reticence. (I.e., "Sure, I only need to convert eight ships out of an Imperial CK, but since I know I can trade or sell the other 26 ships, I'll buy one anyway.")

Honestly, 8 ships for that price still sounds like a good deal to me. No matter what they put in the kits, it could theoretically include more and be even better. Why not appreciate what's there, or else pass on it if you think it's a bad deal?

52 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

So the question becomes, "Would FFG rather see the CKs get full use, or would FFG rather see huge parts of CKs go into people's recycling bins?" The way they've done things ensures the latter. So ... why did they do it that way?

Because it still ends up being cheaper to produce than doubling all the contents, would be my guess. What people choose to do with the product once purchasing isn't really the company's concern, so long as they play fair in organized events.

55 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

Is it just a mistake? Maybe. I can definitely believe that from FFG, although it sorta refutes the "how is FFG supposed to make money" people.

But there's a reason the concept of negligence exists: a mistake that should not have been made is still wrong , and still deserving of some form of censure.

When I spoke of mistakes, I was referring to inconsistent or (unintentionally, I'm sure) misleading wordings. The kits themselves I don't view as mistakes, and certainly not in the objectively negligent sense.

It's probably intentional that the kits are hard to part out. I'm sure they'd prefer to sell 4 kits to two grumpy players than 3 kits to two happy players.

The X-Wing player base accepted fix cards being packaged with $100 epic ships; there's no reason to think they're particularly sensitive to price or waste.

1 hour ago, JamesWG said:

As it is I guess they'll have U1/U2 and U3/G. Sure we get two dials but we can't fly G,G or U1,U2 or U3,G. So only certain two ship jumpmaster lists will be possible. If they simply cut one unique and added a second copy of the generic they could have allowed us to fly any two ship combo.

20 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

This would have made sense, too, though not having played them, I don't know how people would react to one of the pilots getting cut.

Some people would have complained about their favorite pilot being MIA, just like some have complained that their favorite A-Wing or B-Wing pilot isn't in the Rebel Kit.

But the answer to those complaints is to wait for the ship to be released in a future wave. Then buy the ship if you want another ship or buy the card-only pack if all you need are the cards.

The way they've done it people will complain they want to fly two G or U1 with U2. The answer is to buy a whole other conversion kit, or the ship when it is released in the future. Or rely on the secondary market. But FFG's card-only pack won't help since the pack won't include any of the pilots in the kit.

So I guess it comes down to which is better. "Wait but can solve with card-only pack" or "Can solve now, but only with a whole other kit or secondary market". I'd prefer the former, personally.

39 minutes ago, JamesWG said:

So I guess it comes down to which is better. "Wait but can solve with card-only pack" or "Can solve now, but only with a whole other kit or secondary market". I'd prefer the former, personally.

Just better hope that (1) the "cord-only pack" actually happens, and (2) it is what it's been claimed to be.

I wouldn't bet on both of those being true, personally.

42 minutes ago, JamesWG said:

Some people would have complained about their favorite pilot being MIA, just like some have complained that their favorite A-Wing or B-Wing pilot isn't in the Rebel Kit.

But the answer to those complaints is to wait for the ship to be released in a future wave. Then buy the ship if you want another ship or buy the card-only pack if all you need are the cards.

The way they've done it people will complain they want to fly two G or U1 with U2. The answer is to buy a whole other conversion kit, or the ship when it is released in the future. Or rely on the secondary market. But FFG's card-only pack won't help since the pack won't include any of the pilots in the kit.

So I guess it comes down to which is better. "Wait but can solve with card-only pack" or "Can solve now, but only with a whole other kit or secondary market". I'd prefer the former, personally.

I personally prefer having more pilot options, but that's because I tend towards unique pilots, and don't often fly generics (much less multiples).

I do understand how it would be frustrating for people who want multiple generics, though, and hopefully the burden won't be too heavy waiting for the future waves!

As one of the Bandit pilots said, " Let's hope these [card-only packs] work as advertised, or this will be one short [miniatures game]! "

26 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

Just better hope that (1) the "cord-only pack" actually happens, and (2) it is what it's been claimed to be.

I wouldn't bet on both of those being true, personally.

We've seen an example of the card only pack- the Wave 1 card packs were a separate baggy included with the conversion kits, but not on the kit's content list.

1 minute ago, Rakaydos said:

We've seen an example of the card only pack- the Wave 1 card packs were a separate baggy included with the conversion kits, but not on the kit's content list.

So ... does the Scum and Villainy one include everything from, say, the Fang fighter?

4 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

So ... does the Scum and Villainy one include everything from, say, the Fang fighter?

Video set to start when they talk about the baggy.

So, just the stuff unique to the packs. in this case Joy, Frost and Marauder, which would not have otherwise been in the conversion kit.

1 hour ago, kraedin said:

It's probably intentional that the kits are hard to part out.

Exactly this.

9 minutes ago, Rakaydos said:

12 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

So ... does the Scum and Villainy one include everything from, say, the Fang fighter?

So, just the stuff unique to the packs.

So ... no. (Thanks for the cued link.)

10 minutes ago, drathbun said:

2 hours ago, kraedin said:

It's probably intentional that the kits are hard to part out.

Exactly this.

It's weird that this would get likes, since it's pretty much the worst possibility, in terms of reflecting on FFG's decisions.