Our local group all thought that v2 games would be a lot faster than v1, considering reduced shield values and increased danger of crits immediately impacting.

However since September, we’ve noticed that many more games are going to time. Has anyone else noticed this?

My own thoughts are that reductions in turrets and passive mods on both attack and defence mean that ships spend less time shooting and are less willing to joust. Secondly a slightly higher average ship count.

Any other ideas?

I feel like a decent number of games go to time, but with a pretty clear winner by the 60 minute mark.

Perhaps also without as much token stacking people are evaluating maneuvers and actions more carefully? Also with the new game I’m still trying to make sense of a lot of the new abilities and interactions. But yeah I’d say limited arcs keep some ships from firing every turn which could be one of the top reasons.

I’ve noticed more games going to time as well. We use to have whole rounds in a tournament end 10-15 minutes early, but now most all have a game or two go to time.

That depends; how long is "time"?

I think that more of my games run longer, yeah. I wonder how much of this relates to players that were used to turrets actually learning how to fly effectively? Perhaps it’ll drop down as we get further into second edition?

I dont know if games take more or less time.

I doubt most players perception of game time has ever been accurate since people think time takes longer when they arent winning.

That said the following are new things people spend time on.

• Small Base Half Points leads to people trying to add and subtract good time.
• Action Failure Anxiety leads to having to decide good time.
• Movement & Action Decisions occasionally actually mattering adds trying not to be bad time.
• Pre-Movement Repositions adds definitely overthink and end up just dialing in slow bank moves anyway all game time.
• Bombs requiring real time think rather than instant replay think adds system phase think time.
• Turrets having to do decide slightly more about where they are pointing adds some diet turret think time.
• Most ships taking damage adds contemplation of consequences time.

But again on net i dont think the game times are terribly different than before.

There is at least some amount of time saved on the new boost/barrel roll placement mechanics and things generally take damage now?

Used to be that I would play a ton of games to time in 1.0 because either me or my opponent took essentially no damage at all intentionally or unintentionally the entire game.

Much more frequently my personal win condition in 1.0 was to run time because I out right couldnt do enough damage to whatever hyper defense turret or ace was on the table, so i just played their game to.

Boba, Phantoms, Defenders, and Kylo are the only ships so far that have brought back those kind of experiences for me.

Timewalk Assaj, Biggs/Lowhrick nonsense, Small Base Pt Fortress Focus/Evaders, etc.

So glad Defense is "mostly" bad now. 1.0 was the worst.

29 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

That depends; how long is "time"?

Tourney wise a match's time limit is 75 min iirc.

I've had very few games not go to time. I tend to play a lot more cagey in 2.0 because of half points and less defensive buffs and will dance around a lot more picking my engagements more carefully. I also have higher ship count lists than before and that adds to the decision tree a bit.

16 hours ago, Dreadai said:

My own thoughts are that reductions in turrets and passive mods on both attack and defence mean that ships spend less time shooting and are less willing to joust. Secondly a slightly higher average ship count.

I'd agree with this. Our games are longer with less offensive mods overall because of the turret change. So less damage meaning more ships on the table not just at the outset but for more of the game. More ships means more bumping and fewer actions so less die modification.

We've been playing new lists as well that we're not as familiar with from either end. I didn't really fly four generic pilots at the same PS lists in 1st.

We've also been in the busy season for not being able to get as many games in. So we've got less games in when we play and less days when we play. We've still got some new rules muddles and "No, trajectory simulator does not work with proximity mines" issues.

I'm learning a whole new game when it comes down to it. I feel it should be faster but it is quite reasonable it is slower. How fast were games in month four when 1st Ed came out in the first place?

I'm new to xwing as I jumped in at the 2ed release. I find that the majority of games I've played have gone the full 75 mins.

Ships die off quickly in the beginning, but as the number of ships on each side drops in the end game, I've noticed that the game turns into a tickle fight where both sides struggle to put significant damage into the other and are just flying around plinking away for half points.

And of course when two bad players play against each other this is made worse by the fact that they can only line up a shot on each other every 3rd turn. You didn't have this problem in 1st ed because at least one player would usually have a turret.

2.0 removed some (but not all) of the red dice power creep, which increases the number of shots it takes to kill things. this is good but makes games longer.

the 60 and 75 minute limits have slways been short though. in my 1.0 play group we banned most of the red dice creep or token abuse combos so people could actually play the game, and we found average games were 1.5 to 2 hours. it seems the arbitrary time limit in tournaments only makes sense if you are in a one sided match or if no one has swarms.

I think the reason most games go to time is that things are more balanced. Games not going to time in V1 was often because one list just dominated the other.

14 hours ago, Tvboy said:

Ships die off quickly in the beginning, but as the number of ships on each side drops in the end game, I've noticed that the game turns into a tickle fight where both sides struggle to put significant damage into the other and are just flying around plinking away for half points.

And of course when two bad players play against each other this is made worse by the fact that they can only line up a shot on each other every 3rd turn. You didn't have this problem in 1st ed because at least one player would usually have a turret.

This is just a weird idea but what if half points were based off of hull instead of total hit points (shields + hull)?

Most of my games go to 75 minutes or beyond... mostly because I'm a casual player, I fly different lists every week mostly to keep things fresh while the others I play take lists to tournaments and I don't mind playing longer so they have more time to familiarize themselves with their new lists AND because I just love playing the game.

Then there are times where I'll pull a list out the play and get absolutely SLAMMED in under 15 minutes because 2 ships, no matter what ships, cannot compete against a TIE F/O Fighter swarm >_>

My family and I have a serious problem when it comes to time. It takes forever.

My little Brother and I might play for about an hour, hour and a half tops. We reach agreements about rules we don't quite understand and mostly just play the game.

My dad on the other hand takes five frakkin' years to plan ANY MOVE. Frankly, because he severely overthinks it. A lot of them are good moves, but half the time I've predicted them in a way that makes all the planning kind of pointless. Not because I'm great either, but because I just say, "Screw it, this maneuver will work. I'll decide on the action once it's that ship's turn to do stuff."

I also feel like games take longer. But that may be me playing mostly 2-ship lists in edition one and now more like 4 or 5-ship lists now.

2 hours ago, flooze said:

I also feel like games take longer. But that may be me playing mostly 2-ship lists in edition one and now more like 4 or 5-ship lists now.

I think that's the main reason too. 2-ship lists are all but dead locally. Most players bring 3, but 4-5 certainly aren't uncommon.

The relevant question is:

Do we play a different amount of turns on average, or does it take more turns to table a list?

Thanks to @Musical Xeno we have a baseline with 11 turns for 1.0

Anecdotally I play as many turns, but less happens in them.

On 1/3/2019 at 5:12 PM, Dreadai said:

Our local group all thought that v2 games would be a lot faster than v1, considering reduced shield values and increased danger of crits immediately impacting.

However since September, we’ve noticed that many more games are going to time. Has anyone else noticed this?

Games of 2.0 are much longer, almost all of the games at our local X-Wing nights go to time.

It's because attacks are generally less potent and less well-modded than they used to be in 1.0, meaning that even with the reduction in defense damage is dished out more slowly. Some ships also have more HP, and people are generally also flying more ships in a list.

Takes a lot longer to resolve rounds when there are 8-12 ships on the board than it does when there are 4.

On ‎1‎/‎4‎/‎2019 at 11:59 AM, Vontoothskie said:

the arbitrary time limit in tournaments only makes sense if you are in a one sided match or if no one has swarms.

Well, the "arbitrary" time limit is to move the day along.

**** or get off the pot, as they say.

A ton of games go to time now. That’s why generics shouldn’t get cheaper. We’d only see more ships and game times increase.

Me and a buddy got 2 full games in about 3.5 hours of relaxed play. That beat our v1 time by at least a half hour and the time keeps going down every game we play.

The ship count increasing definitely extends the game. And while I definitely see a reduction in jousting, I also see better synergy and attacks being more important making the collapse of some squads come quickly once key pieces are lost.

This was all fairly true before, but I think the changes let the game flow better, and once people get their practice with the new system in the games will go faster overall.