49 minutes ago, JasonCole said:

Well, that's completely untrue. In the case of matching bids (i.e. both players bring a 196 point list), there is a roll off for initative, but it was bringing that bid that got them the chance to have initiative at all. The player that brings a 200 point list vs the 196 point list doesn't have a chance at initiative, and shouldn't be rewarded by alternating initiative. Holding back points is a viable strategy in planning to gain an upper hand, the entire point of list building to begin with.

Yes but in your example, if the first player rotated every turn there would be no need to bring a bid. Everyone would just always build to 200. The only reason to take less points would be to point bank those points and with half points on everything that isn’t even a strategy anymore.

The argument really is that for certain squads a bid is critical to ensuring their success and that should they meet another squad that is the same and they lose the bid war then effectively they have already lost the game. This isn’t actually true but I do see the complaint.

The bid war is currently baked into the game but I guarantee the designers did not foresee bids of 9+ happening and I’m pretty sure they are likely to be pretty normal for some squads.

There are pros and cons either way. The most obvious con is that you have to switch every turn and change the mindset of how you play and the order ships move and engage. It is definitely simpler to maintain a strict order throughout the game. The pro version of this is that it forces players to have to switch between styles of play and will create a true dogfight at I5&6 as those ships jockey for positional advantage against each other in different ways every turn.

I suspect that in testing it was a push as to the value of rotating vs non rotating first player and so the designers stuck with the status quo. It is simpler for gameplay, even if it does create a list building bidding war mini game. I think the biggest problem will come when one of these bid war lists is undercosted just enough that they will always win the bid war. This is a fixable problem though, but it does feel like balancing costs of ships and upgrades for 200pts as well as for 200pts and a bid is going to be quite difficult.

I’m looking forward to seeing how it shakes down in the early tournaments.

19 hours ago, Forgottenlore said:

No, most others want to shoot first. Also determined by first player.

I don't want first player to alternate, I would have much rather they had reduced its overall impact by expanding the initiative range instead of condensing it. Make fewer ships that have the same initiative value so there is less chance of 1st player being meaningful. The whole point of PS when the game was first developed was to do away with all the problems traditional round structures have. Now they’ve just made the game much more IGoUGo.

With Simultaneous Fire what does initiative matter when attacking?

1 minute ago, mazz0 said:

With Simultaneous Fire what does initiative matter when attacking?

True. I keep forgetting that they tweaked SF.

Just now, mazz0 said:

With Simultaneous Fire what does initiative matter when attacking?

It depends on the abilities and upgrades that trigger.

All things being equal its actually an advantage to shoot second (unless you get a crit that degrades your offence) but being able to spend focus tokens freely on offence because you have already defended is valuable.

Just now, mazz0 said:

With Simultaneous Fire what does initiative matter when attacking?

Attacking first allows criticals to apply and potentially cripple return fire. However, in swarm v swarm conflicts, it's actually moving first that's important, because denying modifiers via blocking is a crucial part of such matches.

Initiative that shifts back and forth smacks of the same logic as participation trophies, so no.

34 minutes ago, DodgingArcs said:

Yes but in your example, if the first player rotated every turn there would be no need to bring a bid.

Well of course. You're suggesting initiative being determined by bid be eliminated in favor of it simply shifting back and forth. In that instance, spending anything less than 200 points every single list would be stupid. Which is another reason (other than what I stated above) that I think it's a bad idea. Terrible. Worst idea ever. Everyone says so. Bigly.

1 hour ago, Managarmr said:

Rolling for initiative every turn is terrible. It is some kind of fun in pure "beer&pretzel" games like Man o War. But otherwise, here we really have the situation that loosing the initiative to a random roll in a critical round makes or breaks your game.

I don't see any issue with rolling for initiative every round, just as we roll for every attack and defense. If players have some control over their initiative roll and have to make decisions (during squadbuilding and/or at the table) that modify their chances of winning initiative, that could very well be a fun and interesting thing to add to the game.

I wouldn't want round-by-round X-Wing initiative rolls to be purely random like a coin flip, but I'd prefer that to a single coin flip at the start of the game.

2 hours ago, JasonCole said:

Well, that's completely untrue. In the case of matching bids (i.e. both players bring a 196 point list), there is a roll off for initative, but it was bringing that bid that got them the chance to have initiative at all. The player that brings a 200 point list vs the 196 point list doesn't have a chance at initiative, and shouldn't be rewarded by alternating initiative. Holding back points is a viable strategy in planning to gain an upper hand, the entire point of list building to begin with.

Your point is completely wrong. And I will give you an example to better illustrate this - lets assume that some guy spent 100 000 dollars on lottery tickets and didn't win anything. By your logic he didn't waste those money because he actually bought chance to win millions of dollars. It is ridiculous assumption.

2 hours ago, Managarmr said:

Amazing how many game designers are in this thread, who know for absolute certainty better than FFG's designers who do designing for a living...

We are talking about FFG. You know - company that introduced such a marvellous "design wonders" as 360' turrets, TLT, Jumpmasters, Miranda Doni, Zuckuss card or Ghost & Fenn combo.

2 hours ago, Managarmr said:

Rolling for initiative every turn is terrible. It is some kind of fun in pure "beer&pretzel" games like Man o War. But otherwise, here we really have the situation that loosing the initiative to a random roll in a critical round makes or breaks your game.

Next time at least try to read a post that you are planning respond to. No one says about rolling dice from turn to turn. The only roll would be at the start of the game - exactly like in current rules. Only change is that initiative would switch between players from turn to turn.

1 hour ago, JasonCole said:

Well of course. You're suggesting initiative being determined by bid be eliminated in favor of it simply shifting back and forth. In that instance, spending anything less than 200 points every single list would be stupid. Which is another reason (other than what I stated above) that I think it's a bad idea. Terrible. Worst idea ever. Everyone says so. Bigly.

Oh, so you want games to be decided not by flying but at the list building step? In game about actual maneuvring and reading your opponent moves? It is nice to know that you want less X-Wing in X-Wing.

Woah, chill dude!

3 minutes ago, JasonCole said:

You are a crazy person, and not fit to speak with adults. Good luck in life.

I think your "ad hominem" attacks when someone countered your line of thinking are the best proof when it comes to your level of "maturity".

3 hours ago, JasonCole said:

The player that brings a 200 point list vs the 196 point list doesn't have a chance at initiative, and shouldn't be rewarded by alternating initiative. Holding back points is a viable strategy in planning to gain an upper hand, the entire point of list building to begin with.

The first sentence is addressed below. The second sentence is just ridiculous. The "entire point" of list building is not to hold back points. The "entire point" of list building is to build a good list.

2 hours ago, DodgingArcs said:

if the first player rotated every turn there would be no need to bring a bid. Everyone would just always build to 200.

This is another point in favor of alternating initiative. Play with all your toys. Don't skimp on the bells and whistles on any ship. Build each ship to be the best ship it can be. Use the full 200 points the rules give you.

11 minutes ago, ObiWonka said:

The first sentence is addressed below. The second sentence is just ridiculous. The "entire point" of list building is not to hold back points. The "entire point" of list building is to build a good list.

This is another point in favor of alternating initiative. Play with all your toys. Don't skimp on the bells and whistles on any ship. Build each ship to be the best ship it can be. Use the full 200 points the rules give you.

Reserving points for initiative bid is PART OF USING THE FULL 200 POINTS THEY GIVE YOU. Your lack of understanding this basic mechanic is disappointing. Not spending points on marginal upgrades in favor of spending those points on getting the upper hand so you can *eff your buddy* is higher tier play.

4 minutes ago, JasonCole said:

Reserving points for initiative bid is PART OF USING THE FULL 200 POINTS THEY GIVE YOU. Your lack of understanding this basic mechanic is disappointing. Not spending points on marginal upgrades in favor of spending those points on getting the upper hand so you can *eff your buddy* is higher tier play.

I should have more accurately stated "Spend the full 200 points the rules give you". Likewise, I find the lack of understanding of the alternating initiative system disappointing. I fully understand the purpose of bidding in the current system, however I also understand it is inferior to alternating initiative. One system tests all of both player's skills every single game, the other does not.

"Higher tier play" and "eff you buddy" should never be equated; that's how you get toxic environments.

24 minutes ago, ObiWonka said:

I should have more accurately stated "Spend the full 200 points the rules give you". Likewise, I find the lack of understanding of the alternating initiative system disappointing. I fully understand the purpose of bidding in the current system, however I also understand it is inferior to alternating initiative. One system tests all of both player's skills every single game, the other does not.

"Higher tier play" and "eff you buddy" should never be equated; that's how you get toxic environments.

You don't seem to understand that *not spending the full 200 points to intentionally reserve for a bid is in fact spending the full 200 points*. If you aren't spending those 200 points on cards and have no use of a bid (i.e. all I-1 Academy Ties) then yeah, you're probably leaving points on the table. But if you're running 3 I-5/6 aces and have a bid instead of a shield upgrade on someone, then you're actively spending list points to get an advantage. Just because you think it's "toxic" doesn't mean it is.

No. Tried it a long time ago. Did not work at all for most things, then proceeded to be too obnoxious to track. Alternating init systems seem to work when there isn't already a an init system. Since X-wing had already had one, it ultimately turned out to be just too much work for no gain. FFG designer also seem to say the same thing and interviews and videos they released as others have mentioned. If anything had been done quote unquote satisfactorily I would say that it was actually using differentiation of dice like Armada and Imperial assault use. But again FFG deves said they had tried that too and they didn't find it to be much improvement for the uptick in complexity, which I could kind of see, since they were trying to stick to a target audience with the youngest age being like 12 or something. Despite I'm sure the game being more active among 30 something's haha. Despite how much I personally wanted those new dice in the game, simplistic elegance won this time. Any I'm glad to ultimately not have init changes or dice changes in the end.

10 hours ago, Forgottenlore said:

X-wing is much more a "beer&pretzel" game than man o war or any other GW game has ever been.

Have you ever played Man o War? A totally gross background with gross ships, totally different tech areas unlogically co-existing (antique like row-galleys against steam ironclads), powerful magic, translated into gross, incomplete, partially conflicting and unbalanced rules. One if the designers is on record saying "everything and the kitchen sink, what were we thinking" Skaven on rugtug boats on the wide open sea (Skaven hate water). Factions inbalanced, normal movement is by ruler and turning template. 2 Factions ignore this, these both even have 360turrets. One of these even has ships with indestructable weapons, and a ship where every attacker has to roll if he even gets to attack, with only 66% chance. Other points, Ships which are at least 16% of your lost, on firing every time have the chance of 1/216 to explode completely, contributing to your enemy victory points. Chaos magic according to rulesbook extremely difficult to dispel. Under benign circumstances a non-chaos mage can dispel the Caos mage's spell with50% chance, whereas the Chaos mage (1/8th of your list) has an extemely high chance of killing himself every time he tries to spell or dispel (if he even has the right cards to be able at all) etc etc.

And if course as said, initiative every round dice roll, so you just managed to maneuvre your whole fleet into a good strike position, but guess what, your opponent gets ini and destroys your key pieces before they can fire.

It is immense fun though, if you do not take it seriously (mistakes where made, I have some 350ships...). By comparison Xwing is a really serious game.

9 hours ago, Embir82 said:

Next time at least try to read a post that you are planning respond to. No one says about rolling dice from turn to turn. The only roll would be at the start of the game - exactly like in current rules. Only change is that initiative would switch between players from turn to turn.

Seriously, you need to

1) calm down. No need to scream all the time

2) demonstrate reading comprehension capability yourself before accusing others! Your thread, 14th answer to you, first page (CRCL).

On 9/11/2018 at 11:12 AM, gadwag said:

Tracking alternating player order would give me a headache. No Thanks.

How hard can it be if you use a Token like they supplied in the 1.0 Core set?

1 hour ago, Managarmr said:

Have you ever played Man o War? ... a bunch of stuff about how badly designed a game it was

Most of which goes into why it wasn't a beer and pretzel game. It took commitment to get into. A B&P activity is one you could conceivable pull out while sitting at the bar and play a few games to kill time. X-Wing comes closer to that than any other wargame I have seen. GW games, by contrast, require effort. You generally need more models to play, they are harder to transport, a bigger play area is required, there are a bunch of random rules to keep track of (not an activity geared toward noisy bars), actual game play was more fiddly, and because it wasn't particularly well designed it wasn't very intuitive.

X-Wing, by contrast, is super straight forward. Someone who has never played a wargame before can be playing after 5 minutes of instruction, and the core concepts don't get any more complicated than that, the additional complexity comes solely from card interactions, and those are right in front of you. the mechanics of game play are incredibly intuitive, making it a perfect game to play with lots of distractions around. The fact that it CAN be taken more seriously is just a testament to good game design.

9 hours ago, JasonCole said:

You don't seem to understand that *not spending the full 200 points to intentionally reserve for a bid is in fact spending the full 200 points*.

You can keep saying that, but that doesn't make it true. I do understand the current system. I also think alternating initiative is a better system. The whole point of bringing an ace is to move last, arc-dodge, and shoot without getting shot, right? In the current system, you can "spend" some of your points on your ace(s) in the form of a bid, and still not get to do that because someone else "spent" a single point less. With alternating initiative, you and your opponent both get to do ace stuff every single game, and still get to actually spend all your points.

Then we simply disagree. I think that listbuilding strategy should include factoring in a points reserve for a bid based on what I'm flying, should i want one. Personally, I think thats part of what evens the field when theres something like a 200 point I-1 swarm vs a 190 point 3-Ace I5 list. In that example, do the bids matter? No. Does rotating Ini matter? No.

They could just change it in the rules reference. But I hope they don’t. People will lose track and it’ll add unnecessary complication.

1 hour ago, JasonCole said:

Then we simply disagree. I think that listbuilding strategy should include factoring in a points reserve for a bid based on what I'm flying, should i want one. Personally, I think thats part of what evens the field when theres something like a 200 point I-1 swarm vs a 190 point 3-Ace I5 list. In that example, do the bids matter? No. Does rotating Ini matter? No.

Right, so in this example if 10 points are spent on a bid that doesn't even matter, were they really spent (like a tree falling in a forest, lol)? Personally, I think it's kinda silly to essentially have an arbitrary and sometimes pointless (ha) amount of invisible points tacked onto certain ships. I wouldn't be here if I honestly didn't think alternating initiative made the game even better (and having played that way, have seen it in practice).

17 hours ago, Vontoothskie said:

Same Devs created every issue in 1.0.

I think they mean well but they arent infallable.

They certainly aren't infallible and created their own share of problems, but they weren't responsible for everything in 1.0 as the first one on the scene was during the Imperial Aces pack. Wave 4 was their first without the original designer. Max came on later. Anyway, the point was that some of the issues that plagued the game for its life were baked in before they got there. So, I'm sure they will make mistakes (no game design is perfect) but I think they've already cleaned up a couple of the bigger issues and they certainly left themselves with a much more flexible fix for things that do get out of whack.

I'm going to just say it. @JasonCole is right. Points that are actively spent in a bid are still spent. You can try and say "but your not using all of them" but you would be plain wrong. Any player worth his salt in any game where bid is a core role of the game, knows that the whole flipping reason it's a rule is so that it can be used to leverage advantage, and adjust for imbalance by spending points into real game advantage. In games that measure equity of forces allowance by some numeric, if the game also references a remainder of points not allocated to material that can be utilized for another purpose such as initiative or who wins ties, you use them for that other purpose. It's the equations heat sink. Funnily enough, the fact is that the rules of the game don't give you a choice of the matter in a way. The rules flat say, leftover points (after paying for all the cards) become your bid. Too bad. They're spent now.

It is an additional dimension of strategy to be able to spend resources on the intangible to gain advantage over the tangible.

1 hour ago, ObiWonka said:

Right, so in this example if 10 points are spent on a bid that doesn't even matter, were they really spent (like a tree falling in a forest, lol)? Personally, I think it's kinda silly to essentially have an arbitrary and sometimes pointless (ha) amount of invisible points tacked onto certain ships. I wouldn't be here if I honestly didn't think alternating initiative made the game even better (and having played that way, have seen it in practice).

They were absolutely spent. The only way an opponent can capture those points is to destroy the entire list. In 1.0, 8x Academy Ties costs 96 points, with a 4 point bid. At the end of the time, if there's one TIE remaining, the academy swarm player has lost 84 points. Those extra 4 points can make a huge difference in MOV when it comes time to evaluate the cut.