3 hours 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.

I do think its a general case of disagreeing over the effect that Player Order has on the game.

PO does have some positive effect on the game. It is a quick and simple to understand tool to establish Order of Operations for game rules, helping avoid the game grinding to a halt whenever there is a timing conflict. For that purpose, I like how PO works.

What is wrong about PO is how it can drastically swing a game that should be balanced to unbalanced. Considering two players of generally equal skill, both playing High Init Arc dodger mirror lists, both bid, say 10 points to try to win their choice of order, it comes down to a single die roll, and what should have been a very interesting and close game has almost certainly been determined by the result of that die roll. The game has become a disappointment. Alternating Player Order would allow the beneficial effect it has on the game (concise Order of Operations) while avoiding the game spoiler effect it has on some lists.

1 hour ago, JasonCole said:

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.

That's a fair statement, but similar to some earlier points list-building to "go to time and save a few MoV" is inferior to building "to wipe out the enemy and capture maximum MoV".

14 hours ago, Archangelspiv said:

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

Tracking who the first player is on a given turn is doable, but thinking 1, 2, or more turns ahead rapidly becomes a nightmare when considering alternating movement order and who will be trying to block who.

Alternating player order (even with a token) adds a good deal of complexity for very little gain, especially when you consider casual players (and there are many of them).

FFG has actually tried alternating player order and decided against it. They've certainly dont more testing on it than anyone here.

Also, all the complainers: bid higher or learn to block

9 hours ago, ObiWonka said:

That's a fair statement, but similar to some earlier points list-building to "go to time and save a few MoV" is inferior to building "to wipe out the enemy and capture maximum MoV".

Now we're back to arguing list building strategies, which DEPEND on factoring in bid. I'm the first to admit I love building to 100 points. Moar thingz to wrecks ur thingz! But in the 1.0 meta, going to time with a point sink small base regen ship was a viable win tactic that people literally built lists around. (Poe, Miranda, Fat Kylo, Thick Horn, etc) In a mirror match, my miranda is 1 less point than yours? I win.

Bids are real.

(spoiler alert, I think K wings are stupid, and sneer openly at people that fly them... those books / that book was garbage...)

9 hours ago, JasonCole said:

Now we're back to arguing list building strategies

And we could keep going around forever. I will point out, though, that regenerating point sinks that run around until time is called was one of the major NPE's that necessitated a second edition in the first place.

2 hours ago, ObiWonka said:

And we could keep going around forever. I will point out, though, that regenerating point sinks that run around until time is called was one of the major NPE's that necessitated a second edition in the first place.

The issues there were regeneration and super mobility, which allowed you to go past leveraging the advantage you worked for with your bid and into the realm of abusing that leverage. The bid wasn't the problem. That had been there from literally wave zero. It was what the ships were doing by wave 7 that started us down the dark path. And began the dark times.

34 minutes ago, ForceSensitive said:

The issues there were regeneration and super mobility, which allowed you to go past leveraging the advantage you worked for with your bid and into the realm of abusing that leverage. The bid wasn't the problem. That had been there from literally wave zero. It was what the ships were doing by wave 7 that started us down the dark path. And began the dark times.

Sure, but

12 hours ago, JasonCole said:

In a mirror match, my miranda is 1 less point than yours? I win.

wouldn't be possible without bidding.

Exactly. Which is good. If I know that I want a advantage in mirror matches, I spend a point into a bid, which buys me favor. Now I win the mirror, but I'm trading a card/ability/material advantage for it, which may cost me in other matches. This is a strategic choice that you the player have available to you. I still have to prove that I won't die with less stuff at my disposal to use. Bids, are a good thing.

The problem is it's such a massively disproportionate advantage compared to any other single point you could actually spend. And again, this isn't really saying bids don't do anything or have a purpose as they are so much as it's saying alternating initiative is simply a better system.

51 minutes ago, ObiWonka said:

The problem is it's such a massively disproportionate advantage compared to any other single point you could actually spend. And again, this isn't really saying bids don't do anything or have a purpose as they are so much as it's saying alternating initiative is simply a better system.

But only in a mirror match. Where no matter what you change it's going to have a massive impact. Your only thinking it's disproportionate because your seeing how important it was. But at that level of risk to reward nothing is disproportionate. Two equal things come to the table and a speck of dust is enough to tip scales. That speck of dust just happened to be a point someone spent in a critical spot. Which someone very wisely spent, and their opponent did not. That's not a fault with the game, that was a player choice. They took a risk: that for that one point which would help them with material advantage against most opponents, that they would have immaterial advantage against a select few opponents. They paid the price in literally every other game they play at an event where they wish they hadn't made that trade. Some players who make the trade don't make it because they never see the mirror and are just stuck with the lesser materiel.

Some mirrors used to come down to lone Wolf or predator. One point changed games.

Some came down FCS or Advanced Sensors. One point changed games.

It happens literally all the time.

At high level play one point is huge which is why so much effort is put into finding and extracting every last ounce of value out of every one. You just have to make that decision of what you as a player thinks is going to be more worth the point, then have the skills to back up the risk you take for the few points you spent in planning your bid. I call it the Underdog clause. Players should be rewarded for choosing to prove their ability to win or at least contend while operating from a position of weakness. If they prove able to do as much or more with less than an opponent had available to them, then they should absolutely be rewarded for it.

Nothing disproportionate about it. That one point they said would prove more valuable in bid than in upgrades is the measure of the skill they used to win.

That wasn't my point at all, but that's my fault for leaving out a key phrase. My point was spending another point in another match-up has nowhere near the impact on that match-up that a 1-point difference in bid does on the mirror-match.

I get were you guys are coming from, when you say this is a good idea. For me though, I'd need to hear someone suggest a different benefit to a bid, for me to get on board with this. The way both editions of the game are structured now, having first player switch each turn removes the only tangible benefit to building a squad under the allotted points. I like the idea, but executing it without making other changes, is going to hurt the game on the whole. We are, after all, talking about removing one of the tools that arc dodgers and other ace lists rely on, and that of course is the list of benefits afforded by being the first player. This is part of the fun of list building, picking and choosing the ships/pilots/upgrages you want, weighing their costs and strengths against the strategy your going for, and trying to make it all fit within the squad point limit along with a bid, if you want one. Since the entire game is balanced around those squad points we can't just remove them either. Without a benefit to a bid, squad building becomes an exercise in trying to min-max yourself to 200 pts, instead of looking at your squad and seriously asking yourself if you need that extra upgrade on ship X.

I don't want to seem like I'm super down on the idea. there are merits to it. for sure it would make certain match ups more interesting (int 6 v int 6, arc dodge v. arc dodge), but I wouldn't fully agree with it making the game more fair. the list that can't find a place to spend it's last point should get something that the list that ran up to 200 wont get.

Sorry if I said all this and someone already suggested an alternate use for the bid. If ones here I didn't see it. Like I said, I understand why you want this change, but just changing stuff without factoring in how it affects the game on the whole seems inadvisable.