This might sound kinda nuts but I'm looking for some guidance. I love X-Wing, I really do. I have tons and tons of ships and have been in the hobby for quite some time, but I left the tournament scene once it started getting crazy for me (too much stress, regen, bombs, turrets..etc) and it started getting unfun. I think the last tournament I went to had 6 players in the top 8 with Contracted Scouts with pedes.

Problem #1:

Whenever I get on YASB2.0 and start playing around with ships and builds (one of my favorite things to do), I feel that a lot of the options that we had before in 1.0 has been lost. Part of this is the power and while that might be a good thing, it reduces the interest I have in the game from a competitive standpoint. I feel like we took one step first in the sense that every ship got re-evaluated and level-set, but we took one step back in the sense that it feels like we have the same amount of choices as Wave 2, but with 4x the ships. Does that make any sense or am I taking crazy pills? In short, I'm not as excited because I feel like a ton of upgrades and thus, player options have been lost. Yes, I fully understand the counter argument that a lot of those choices have been streamlined and provided onto the ships itself, but a lot of it hasn't as well.

That brings me to my second point.

Problem #2:

We have a ton less pilots, upgrades, EPTs, and what I believe are player options in the game, does this mean that I have to go out there and buy future packs and upgrades just to gain access to some of the new Rebel/Imp/Scrum/FO/Resistance/Republic/CIS upgrades? What about generic upgrades? Basically, are there going to be upgrade packs that will just release more pilot cards, EPTs, upgrades..etc for the existing factions or are they only going to be available in new packs with new ships? Subsequently, does this pigeon-hold me into getting into those factions just so my Rebels/Imps/Scum can stay competitive if they come with generic cards that can be used by all?

This doesn't sit very well with me because it's just added cost to upgrades I feel should have been there in the first place.

Problem #3:

This might be too early to say and I have no play experience with 2.0 just yet. As you can tell, I'm not super eager to jump in, so I'm hoping those who have played it and have played it competitively (if that's even a thing on Vassal right now) can speak to this. Do you feel that the power level of the game right now offers a challenging and competitive experience? For this answer, I'm looking for some really old school players who have played through the game when it was still young (think when Fat Han first came out) to TLTs to pre-nerf Scouts Pedes to now 2.0. Do you think we're in the Goldilocks zone in terms of balance and power? There IS an equilibrium here where wins do not feel cheesy and the meta feels well-balanced and competitive. What say you?

1:

I think there are still plenty of options! Sure, less than 1.0 rn, but its a new game just opening its eyes to the world! And I think that the choices we have are now much more engaging choices to make.

2:

They have said that generic upgrades will be available through all factions, so you won't have to buy a CIS pack to get an upgrade you need if you don't fly CIS. They have also said that carry-over players from 1.0 will be able to aquire cards for/from reprints of existing ships without needing to purchase another model.

3.

Rn, with my limited experience of 2.0, it seems WAY more balanced than 1.0 has been for a while. It seems like there will be some sorta stars, but balance can be fixed easily with points/slots in the app!

4 minutes ago, HERO said:

Problem #2:

We have a ton less pilots, upgrades, EPTs, and what I believe are player options in the game, does this mean that I have to go out there and buy future packs and upgrades just to gain access to some of the new Rebel/Imp/Scrum/FO/Resistance/Republic/CIS upgrades? What about generic upgrades? Basically, are there going to be upgrade packs that will just release more pilot cards, EPTs, upgrades..etc for the existing factions or are they only going to be available in new packs with new ships? Subsequently, does this pigeon-hold me into getting into those factions just so my Rebels/Imps/Scum can stay competitive if they come with generic cards that can be used by all?

Basically yes with the ability that ffg has promised a shipless upgrade option. Anything past wave 1 will require further purchases to complete. As per your generic upgrade concern, valid and depending on your patience level might require you to go multi-faction. Ffg has stated everything generic will be available to all respective factions but they never promised how or when just that it’s possible.

Yeah, you're taking crazy pills. Play the game before trying to analyze it

My games so far have been the best I've had in Xwing since my Deathrain run to store championship victory just after the release of Omega Leader. Been here since the dawn of the horrid dark age that was wave 5.

Now obviously there's no meta yet, just locally most everyone's gravitated to ace + miniswarm be sure Howlie and co have proven monsterously effective

And yet? Counterplay abounds. just properly utilizing obstacles is the literal difference between failing to catch Soontir forever or getting swiss-cheesed by TIEs.

Also, game may feel more limited just at a glance at the cards...then you remember the scant percentage of first Ed that was actually viable ...yeah no, we're swimming in options here

Empire especially is AWASH in amazingly distinct ships with incredibly varied playstyles necessitated by their unique capabilities.

Basically, yeah even this prerelease state matches and sometimes exceeds the absolute golden Pinnacle of first Ed for me. Flying matters more than upgrades and turrets for ******* once, and there's tons of combos to explore

All good thoughts and rationale, I hear you. But on the other hand, Clone Wars factions.

Regarding #1: Listbuilding for 2.0 is way more fun, with way more real options, than 1.0. The larger number of upgrades in 1.0 didn't lead to more options - in fact, it narrowed the options to powerful ships and powerful upgrades. 1.0 list-building was thus severely restriced even before choosing upgrades.

For example, every ship in 1.0 which had boost always took autothrusters. Similarly, green turns meant always taking PtL. Less than two green dice on a TIE? LWF is your only option (unless you're a named phantom, in which case you need VI+ACD). Almost every powerful ships has a "fixed" build with little to no variation in upgrades. While you could choose to deviate from this, doing so would be unwise.

For my second example, look at Z-95s, TIE Fighters, Punishers, and every other ship that was almost never flown in 1.0. Right out of the gate, the power level of 1.0 stopped you from choosing these ships if you wanted an effective list. Now, the reduced power level of 2.0 makes almost every ship a viable option. This is particularly true early on before everyone works out what's good.

11 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

Yeah, you're taking crazy pills. Play the game before trying to analyze it

My games so far have been the best I've had in Xwing since my Deathrain run to store championship victory just after the release of Omega Leader. Been here since the dawn of the horrid dark age that was wave 5.

Now obviously there's no meta yet, just locally most everyone's gravitated to ace + miniswarm be sure Howlie and co have proven monsterously effective

And yet? Counterplay abounds. just properly utilizing obstacles is the literal difference between failing to catch Soontir forever or getting swiss-cheesed by TIEs.

Also, game may feel more limited just at a glance at the cards...then you remember the scant percentage of first Ed that was actually viable ...yeah no, we're swimming in options here

Empire especially is AWASH in amazingly distinct ships with incredibly varied playstyles necessitated by their unique capabilities.

Basically, yeah even this prerelease state matches and sometimes exceeds the absolute golden Pinnacle of first Ed for me. Flying matters more than upgrades and turrets for ******* once, and there's tons of combos to explore

Except, this analysis is needed because there's a financial commitment needed to upgrade my existing collection (which is quite extensive).

Also, last time I spoke to you you had <500 posts. What have you been doing with your life?!

Second Edition is making the game more about skill, where winning is determined on the table, not on paper. First edition was 80% winning at the list you bring. Almost anybody could bring fenn ghost and go 4-2. Or back when you played, just bring triple deadeye boats and have auto wins against 3/4 of the top lists in the game.

Its also trying to make listbuilding, actual building, where pilots arent glued to PTL or VI. They built a soft PTL into ships like Fang Fighter and now you can make the ship how you want with upgrades and mods. Its quite refreshing to have something like LW on Fenn Rau while still being able to have two actions. Or give him predator, or elusiveness, or just crackshot. Building is wide open.

The less amount of pilots is a blessing. The ones in the game have been streamlined. Graz The Hunter is actually useful. Useless generics that nobody used are gone. It feels like less pilots, but there are probably better percentage of balanced playable ships now in 2.0 than currently in 1.0. Really, punisher doesnt need two generics. Bwings dont need two generics, etc. Every two red dice offensive ships were all but out of the game unless they had an insane ability or upgrade. Thats a lot of pilots that are unplayable.

1) There has been a toning down for sure of how ships and upgrades feel. For a fresh start, I feel it's better to ease into things slowly at first when it comes to upgrades, then get more as times goes on. Still, there ware some options that feel like they have umpf to them. The main stuff I've been looking at is Scum. What faction(s) are you interested in?

2) Brand new releases (like Lando's Falcon and the upcoming RZ-2 A-Wing for the Resistance) will require purchase if you want what's in them. Converted ships (like the TIE Defender and E-Wing) will have some new stuff in them outside of what comes in the conversion packs, but FFG has said there will be a way to get that stuff without buying the models over again. You shouldn't have to go into a faction you don't want for upgrades, though there is no guarantee how fast an upgrade that debuted in say a Rebel expansion will appear in an Imperial one, for example.

3) I can't speak too much as to the feel of the game as I've only gotten in a couple of games. What I have noticed is that the change from a 360 Turret to making them mobile arcs has given stuff like TIEs more of a chance to do their thing, making positioning much more focus than more recent metas. Still need more personal experience to tell if we've hit the Goldilocks zone, but initial experiences have me hopeful.

1 hour ago, HERO said:

I feel like we took one step first in the sense that every ship got re-evaluated and level-set, but we took one step back in the sense that it feels like we have the same amount of choices as Wave 2, but with 4x the ships. Does that make any sense or am I taking crazy pills?

No crazy pills, because that's pretty much exactly the situation we find ourselves in.

The conversion kits were a courtesy provided by FFG so we don't have dozens of ships gathering dust on a shelf while they wait for their 2nd edition re-release. They never intended to actually release fourteen waves worth of content at once (ie. ships, pilots, upgrades), because there's no way they'd ever get that right. That's why a lot of ships are down on pilots, and why we have a relatively limited number of upgrades. Things were always going to feel a little bit samey for the first couple of waves until the rest of the game starts to catch up with the amount of ships.

That's part of the reason I hope the competitive events are limited to only ships that have been re-released, so Second Edition's "meta" has a chance to evolve more naturally than it will if we just dump 50 different ships together at once.

1 hour ago, gadwag said:

Almost  every powerful ships has a "fixed"  build with little to no variation in upgrades  . While you could choose t  o deviate from this, doing so would be unwise. 

1 hour ago, wurms said:

Building   is wide open.    

I agree with them, repeating for emphasis

But less broken upgrades or fewer solved builds also mean that more ships are again more important.

So depends on what you like.

There is no problem in being not exited in V2, this is your felling, but I think with some time, you may change your point of view.

If I had to convince you ( and I don't, so no offence) I would say this to you. I are not that hyped by the competitive play, but now, in V2, with the game balance, there is possibility for ( almost) all ships to be winner. Imagine you favourite ship was B-wing. You can build your squad and try to be the best B-wing player, and if so, you have a chance to be best player of the game. This is what I like. The possibility to play fun game with all my ships ( I hown a punisher for a year and never played it!)

I hope you will find something to enjoy in the game.

May the force token be with you

Problem 1 - you're correct, it's a new game with far fewer options than a mature old game

Problem 2 - yes that's right, you're likely to be pushed to buy the new factions and upgrades to be competitive going forwards

Problem 3 - too early to say, but I would be amazed if the game is anywhere close to balanced at a competitive level and there will be fewer options available to combat what the top squads emerge to be

57 minutes ago, player2422845 said:

If I had to convince you ( and I don't, so no offence) I would say this to you. I are not that hyped by the competitive play, but now, in V2, with the game balance, there is possibility for ( almost) all ships to be winner.

I want to believe. But I don't.

5 hours ago, HERO said:

1) Contracted Scouts with pedes.

2) I feel that a lot of the options that we had before in 1.0 has been lost.

3) does this pigeon-hold

1) I think you're looking for "torps". 'pedes are small, multi-multi-legged insects.

2) There are a lot fewer upgrades, yes. There's nothing to "feel" here: it's fact.

3) "Pigeon-hole".

Fewer upgrades, but more viable ones. More ships per list and more choice for ships. I honestly feel that X-Wing is at its best at 4-7 ships per side, anything below that makes maneuvering a bit too easy since you don't really have a lot to consider concerning your own ships taking away options from each other. 1.0 only has 2-3 viable kinds of lists which are all boring as sin, if 2.0 only has 3 viable lists, they will at least not be this boring to play.

5 hours ago, HERO said:

This might sound kinda nuts but I'm looking for some guidance.

Hello, I know what you are talking about, but I think you are seeing it wrong. To give some perspective, I started playing competitively in Wave 1 and was pretty good for my local scene (no huge events locally back then).

Back in the early days there were only so many ships and that meant so many options. The power levels were much better balanced, but it meant that there wasn't really a few things overshadowing the rest. That meant that ANYTHING was good, as long as you flew it. It was actually really fun to go to an event and see what type of a list someone took. How did it fly? What was the angle of the list? To me you saw a lot of variety and in those days as everything was viable.

You got used to the power days when no matter what wave it was, there was always 3-5 lists that dominated everything. Yeah, there might be a slight variance in those lists, but it was those 3-5 general lists that EVERYONE was playing. To me, this is where the game got boring. I got tired of playing the same stuff game after game. I didn't want to have to practice and practice with the same limited pool of stuff to win big at events. It just lost its fun. That and the OP nature of things made the game more about winning in the build phase. It became about finding what was the secret combo of cards that let you win the game. If your list was the superior list, you only had to fly good when it was against another list of the same power level. So, the conceptual part of the game became the Build List phase and flying was only secondary. What I see you saying is that the List Building phase is not as much fun as it used to be for you. That should be considered a good sign.

At this point, we have 6 years of game....15 waves....that is all balanced. That's a lot of ships out there that should be all evened out. If you are used to looking for the OP stuff in the Build Phase to fly, you might be daunted. What I suggest is.....fly what you like. What is the most fun type of a list to you? Think at a pure level of what you enjoy flying. Fly that. If that doesn't work, start tweaking it. Find something to make it work At this point, almost anything is viable. It should be about playing the game you like to play. I read that people on the forums were upset because those on Vassal and GenCon will play 2.0 so much that they will already develop the "meta" before the game comes out. I think this is silly. There are so many options out there that the few people who are playing 2.0 now will not have plumed the depths the game in a few months. You might have some early tournaments that people with with similar lists, but that's just because others haven't tried out all the other combos out there.

The game is so wide open now and with so few upgrades that the game is pretty well balanced. This should be a good thing as you should look to fly what you want, even Jank! When new waves come out, there will be more upgrade cards, like Turrets and Cannons and such that will make the older ships more interesting. I think you should look at flying it and see how it is. I think you will be surprised.

As for the funding of it all, you don't have to buy it all now. Just buy one conversion and the Core set for one faction. Then, as you save money, you can buy another. Or....when the prices drop on the conversion kits, buy them on sale. After a year, there will be a lot of kits still out there that will go on sale. Don't think that you have to convert all of everything you have now.

You're right about upgrades and pilots but for me that's not necessarily a bad thing. So many upgrades were attempts to correct problems in the game (Guidance Chips and Autothrusters being probably the most obvious) that the quantity of them is perhaps not the best way to evaluate the old game vs the new. It seems as though FFG is moving towards this as a goal of the new edition so if you're not too happy with that direction you may be disappointed overall.

As far as the fewer number of pilots go, that's a good thing IMO. One of the reasons we have so many pilots is, again, due to fixes released over the years. The TIE Advanced fix in the Raider came with a bunch of new pilots, the various Aces packs introduced fixes plus new pilots, etc. If you actually look at which pilots you tended to see the numbers will probably not look too dissimilar between 1st and 2nd edition. I'd rather have a smaller pool of pilots where most are useful than a huge pool of pilots that are mostly ignored. We'll have to wait and see whether this actually happens, of course.

A couple of points about "fewer options." Part of that is because they don't need a lot of upgrades that were balancing options in first edition I'm not saying things are perfectly balanced, but that cards like autothrusters just aren't needed. Another reason for that is that some things just got baked onto the card or within the rules (linked actions, ship standard abilities). The last point is that fewer combinations hopefully means that -- at least for now -- the game is less about choices you make in list building combo-wing (though it's still significant) and more about choices you make on the table.

Honestly, I feel like I have more options because there are far more things I can try without feeling like I'm wasting my time. I can't tell you how excited I am to put something other than Push the Limit next to Soontir when I play a game.

You my friend are describing things as problems. They are in fact features.

I admit, list building is a bit of a trick if you’re an experienced 1.0 player - you start to build an old archetype and then realize it’s not happening because the cards are all different. That’s ok! Learn to roll with it and accept the new normal.

One thing I’ve noticed about my list building is that I tend to have more ships in my lists as opposed to big combo powerhouses. Which is awesome - having more things on the mat at once is great!

You have to realize that many "upgrades" are now baked into base ships. Phantom, Fang, Tie Advanced, Interceptor, Awings, Linked actions, YT-2400, Slave 1 title, ect all are much more functional as a base ship now than they were in 1.0. They have upgrades built into them. Others like the K-fighter and X-wing had some of their upgrades baked in via additional hull or multiple modification slot availability.

Prices on many ships went down (particularly on Empire ships) and emphasis on playing a smart and well flown game went up.

2 hours ago, ObiWonka said:

1) I think you're looking for "torps". 'pedes are small, multi-multi-legged insects.

The ones I've seen are anything but small...

3 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

The ones I've seen are anything but small...

I mean, relative to my own body size they're small... and if I ever ran into one that wasn't small by comparison, I'd be going the other way real quick.

So far, in 2.0, what the ship does by itself and how you fly it means a lot more. What specific set of broken combo upgrades you put on the ship (or more accurately, which you must put on that ship if you don't want to get tabled) means a lot less. This is (by far) my favourite thing about 2.0.

I hope they can resist the urge to fill up the game with piles of upgrade cards that do nothing but goose the power curve and render 90% of the last wave of upgrade cards immediately obsolete.

I'm loving 2.0 list building. I'm sure that the OP isn't the only person who really liked the old approach to upgrades but I for one am glad it's dead and I hope it stays dead.