Towards the end of wave one, we witnessed squads at I5 in particular bringing bids of 16 points or more. This is to guarantee moving last and acquiring the lock to launch proton torps and/or for arc dodging. We are going to see these deep bids continuing, and possibly get much worse with supernatural Kylo.

This choice of sacrificing extra upgrades to nearly guarantee moving last has always been a key part of this game, and it's not something that I have a problem with. I do have a problem with it's unintended consequence in relation to game scoring though.

Games are scored based on how many squad points we destroy, and since unused points can't be destroyed (unless you kill everything), the end game ships often become an untouchable point fortress. We are going to see squads where Kylo is "worth" 2/3 or more of your squad points. It creates a win condition that actively encourages players to kill something, and run away. I know that this isn't something that the game developers intended. It is not fun. It is a negative play experience.

Half points on all ships was a step in the right direction and has made games more chaotic in the final few turns, but it hasn't done enough to solve the problem of intentional point fortresses.

I believe that a simple change to game scoring should be made. Any unused squad points should count as points destroyed. You can still choose to take a deep initiative bid to guarantee moving last, but you're now giving your opponent a game scoring advantage.

What are your thoughts about this idea? Do you have any other suggestions that better address the issue of intentional point fortresses from deep bids? Is this even a problem that needs to be addressed?

My group has often had an uneven number of players, so we played 3, 5, or even more of us with reduced squads on the same mat.

One of our rules was that unused points counted as destroyed. And this was specifically to counter Kylo winning on points too easily.

I think those points come at a sacrifice to the player and therefore should have to be earned by the opponent.

saying that I do also get that a big bulk of points added to the last ship on the table isn’t great either.

I would suggest a compromise where the bid points could be added when a ship is destroyed or 2 ships are at half points. This stops the points fortress but retains the aspect of the points being earned by the opponent.

There are advantages and disadvantages to building any list if someone wants to sacrifice better upgrades, chassis or pilot(s) to make sure they win the initiative bid then I believe that is a choice that shouldn’t have any extra consequences. When you do not completely use all 200 points you are usually allowing your opponents the advantage of better upgrades and ordinances.

What you are suggesting is forcing a player to forget about creativity of their list and making them use points otherwise, give them way. That’s not how this works nor should it.

Being penalized as you suggest for not using the points is laughable. If you’re so worried that you need your opponents unused points to win a match than that says more about how you play than your opponent. Their are many win conditions/factors in X-WING a bid for initiative is one. Either overcome the bid or find a way destroy more of there list than they do yours.

This suggestion is just bad.

I witnessed a tournament which had the ruling that the lowest points (highest bid) goes first. The end.

Before the inevitable feedback, it was an unofficial tournament with a lot of players and other rules and restrictions. Everyone was agreeable to the terms and had a great time. I am not saying it was correct or incorrect, just that it happened. Personally it seems like a good experiment.

New proposal: catch the point fortress. When I see a deep bid, I get excited by the fact that my list is more efficient (200 pt or nothing!) , will apply conditions first, and gets that sweet double efficiency on juke. Also, no fear of being blocked!

Use the rocks so as to block cheeky arc-dodges, forcing your opponent to move around and out. Set up kill boxes with big guns and make advantage of their lulled state of thinking that by moving last, they will be safe. And if you can't get a meaningful shot with a ship, send it to block. Even SNR can be limited by blocking just right. And always remember that somebody will outbid you to wreck your day.

Heck, if Tom Forstner's victory at Coruscant says anything about not following the mode of deep bidding in a world of I6, I'm sure that it means that bids are not everything.

17 minutes ago, Cgriffith said:

Being penalized as you suggest for not using the points is laughable. If you’re so worried that you need your opponents unused points to win a match than that says more about how you play than your opponent.

Let me tell you about who I am as a player. I'm the player that will use this to my advantage to win tournaments. I will bring the biggest bid, and I will run to time after killing enough.

I did exactly this at worlds last year, with Kylo and a 9 point bid. The biggest point fortress at the time was fat Miranda. So I brought a Kylo that was worth more in the end game. All 6 of my wins went to time, and most of them involved me running for more than 30 minutes. This was my only strategy. None of my opponents had fun after they realized what was happening. I was incentivized to do this. I was incentivized to not play the game.

If you really think players have any counter play to Kylo running away, you're mistaken. This isn't about players being bad and needing to be given points. It's about disincentivizing a negative play experience. Just like they've done with fortressing!

1 hour ago, Cgriffith said:

What you are suggesting is forcing a player to forget about creativity of their list and making them use points otherwise, give them way. That’s not how this works nor should it.

Being penalized as you suggest for not using the points is laughable.

*SNIP*

OP's suggestion aside, points reserved in an attempt to secure an initiative bid is NOT points "not used". You're literally using them to gain advantage, in the same manner as if you'd spent them on upgrades. The points are used for a purpose. The only way they could ever be considered "not used" is if initiative was determined by random roll, regardless of list point value.

16 minutes ago, Crit Happens said:

If you really think players have any counter play to Kylo running away, you're mistaken. This isn't about players being bad and needing to be given points. It's about disincentivizing a negative play experience. Just like they've done with fortressing!

Here's a hard counter. Target Kylo. Chase him down trap him and remove the 82-100 point fortress off the table (same goes for “insert pilot” that your opponent plays) then you effectively no longer have to worry about your initiative bid that hand strung you at the beginning of the match.

2 minutes ago, Cgriffith said:

Here's a hard counter. Target Kylo. Chase him down trap him and remove the 82-100 point fortress off the table (same goes for “insert pilot” that your opponent plays) then you effectively no longer have to worry about your initiative bid that hand strung you at the beginning of the match.

More like 130ish, but the specifics don't matter.

Yes, of course there is a way to win against it. I never claimed otherwise. Kylo will die if you get multiple arcs on him a few times, but that's far easier said than done. You NEED at least one of the following to realistically pull it off:

- 5+ships (almost no one does this)

- a larger bid with I5 (this is probably Kylo as well, and we now have the same problem)

- I6

- Kylo player is bad

I get where OP is coming from, but with no 1.0 autothrusters in the game and half points, it will be harder for Kylo to implement this strategy.

3 hours ago, Crit Happens said:

Any unused squad points should count as points destroyed.

I'm happy to see that the idea starts getting traction. As you mentioned, even "unused" points are actively used.

One small change could be to not give these points until a certain condition is met, for example until some points are scored to keep the possibility of a 200-0.

But other than that - the incentive to spend all points on upgrades/ships, OR to get the ini bid, improve the worth of the remaining ships and also pay for this advantages seems very reasonable to me. Think of it this way: if that was the actual rule, how would you argue against it and for implementing the one we have now? And which game would be more fun?

2 hours ago, Storgar said:

I would suggest a compromise where the bid points could be added when a ship is destroyed or 2 ships are at half points. This stops the points fortress but retains the aspect of the points being earned by the opponent.

8 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

One small change could be to not give these points until a certain condition is met, for example until some points are scored to keep the possibility of a 200-0.

These are great ideas! Even if you have to completely destroy one ship in order to get the bid points as well. That seems reasonable to me.

Bidding is not a problem, it is just another part of the game and another strategy consideration.

Edit

56 minutes ago, Varyag said:

Bidding is not a problem, it is just another part of the game and another strategy consideration.

Yup, if someone wants to leave 10% of their points off the table, that's their choice in deciding how strategically important initiative-control is for their squad.

Now, if lists can handily win while leaving 15 or more points unspent... that's probably an issue with FFG severely undervaluing and undercosting aces like Whisper and Kylo, and clearly those sorts of pilots should have their point costs ratcheted way up.

I don't get why like the difference between I4 Echo and I5 Whisper is only 1% (2pts) of your squad? Like, if FFG wanted to make mid-range I-values more relevant and wanted to alleviate the I5/I6 + Giant Bid arms race of 2.0, they should exponentially raise the cost of pilots across the Initiative range.


Like,
I1 = X
I2 = X+2
I3 = X+3
I4 = X+6
I5 = X+8
I6 = X+12


Like, maybe then , it wouldn't be a no-brainer to take the highest Iniative pilot in a ship.

Well if they get cleared off of the table all unused squadron points count against them.

What you only played 175 points? Well now that you have just lost your last ship that is a 200 point loss for you, next time spend those 25 points on a extra TIE Fighter

6 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

I1 = X
I2 = X+2
I3 = X+3
I4 = X+6
I5 = X+8
I6 = X+12

This looks exactly how they do it now, give or take a point here and there.

Or did you mean more like this?

I2=I1+2

I3=I2+3

I4=I3+6

I5=I4+8

I6=I5+12

13 minutes ago, Crit Happens said:

This looks exactly how they do it now, give or take a point here and there.

Or did you mean more like this?

I2=I1+2

I3=I2+3

I4=I3+6

I5=I4+8

I6=I5+12

Ah, yes, thanks for the correction. Basically, I mean scaling up the points-increase between I-values at each step along the I chain from I1 to I6.

1 hour ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Yup, if someone wants to leave 10% of their points off the table, that's their choice in deciding how strategically important initiative-control is for their squad.

Now, if lists can handily win while leaving 15 or more points unspent... that's probably an issue with FFG severely undervaluing and undercosting aces like Whisper and Kylo, and clearly those sorts of pilots should have their point costs ratcheted way up.

I don't get why like the difference between I4 Echo and I5 Whisper is only 1% (2pts) of your squad? Like, if FFG wanted to make mid-range I-values more relevant and wanted to alleviate the I5/I6 + Giant Bid arms race of 2.0, they should exponentially raise the cost of pilots across the Initiative range.


Like,
I1 = X
I2 = X+2
I3 = X+3
I4 = X+6
I5 = X+8
I6 = X+12


Like, maybe then , it wouldn't be a no-brainer to take the highest Iniative pilot in a ship.

Heck if I was trying to make all the pilots deviation on the power curve even through all Initiative values I would put I3 and I4 at the same cost because just like Pilot skill the most powerful Initiatives are the ones at the end of the spectrum. Heck "Null" is a very exceptional ship because it start at the 7 which is a non natural number and then goes to a natural 0. The difficult thing is in finding a build that can switch rolls from a High PS Ace to a low PS Blocker.

3 minutes ago, Marinealver said:

Heck "Null" is a very exceptional ship because it start at the 7 which is a non natural number and then goes to a natural 0. The difficult thing is in finding a build that can switch rolls from a High PS Ace to a low PS Blocker.

Either Swarm tactics chaining for hammering (will drop to the second highest init after Null looses 2 hp, though with some squad builds starting the chain with a damaged Null opens up some token shenanigans if I'm recalling correctly) or Squad Leader for extreme end of the init ladder coordinates. Perfect info when Null is at init 7, great preemptive coordinates when she is at init 0.

I play maybe 3-4 tournaments a year, so I really don’t know all the tournament rules very well.

What happens if I destroy all your ships but you have destroyed more points than me?

1 minute ago, Ccwebb said:

What happens if I destroy all your ships but you have destroyed more points than me?

You would win and score the full 200 vs whatever I have taken from you.

8 hours ago, Marinealver said:

Well if they get cleared off of the table all unused squadron points count against them.

What you only played 175 points? Well now that you have just lost your last ship that is a 200 point loss for you, next time spend those 25 points on a extra TIE Fighter

This is usually a really, really bad idea. If you buy the TIE fighter, you cost yourself MoV over the course of the day, by giving your opponent 23 points of a ship they can trivially kill.

I really support some method of penalising bidding. As it stands one of the best upgrades you can buy on an I5 or I6 double repositioning ace is... 10+ points of nothing.

That's super dumb.

Personally my preferred course would simply be to make initiative a coin toss, as in Keyforge. Whoever wins the toss moves and shoots first. Instantly removing all incentive to bid and giving those point fortress lists a 50 50 chance of not being able to arc dodge.

13 hours ago, player3010587 said:

New proposal: catch the point fortress. When I see a deep bid, I get excited by the fact that my list is more efficient (200 pt or nothing!) , will apply conditions first, and gets that sweet double efficiency on juke. Also, no fear of being blocked!

Use the rocks so as to block cheeky arc-dodges, forcing your opponent to move around and out. Set up kill boxes with big guns and make advantage of their lulled state of thinking that by moving last, they will be safe. And if you can't get a meaningful shot with a ship, send it to block. Even SNR can be limited by blocking just right. And always remember that somebody will outbid you to wreck your day.

Heck, if Tom Forstner's victory at Coruscant says anything about not following the mode of deep bidding in a world of I6, I'm sure that it means that bids are not everything.

So what you’re saying is “git gud!”?