It may be a little premature considering what haven't seen any price adjustments yet, but I'm curious how deep you all think the I5 bid war is going to hit.

A couple points to inform your decisions:

• Some of the biggest offenders from extended, Whisper, Redline, and Guri are absent.

• Other extended heavyweights remain, such as Boba and Luke

• Wave 2 brings us new I5 boogeymen and women in Kylo, Lu'lo, Tallissan, Ello, and Nien

• Wave 2 also pushes the initiative game at I6 with Poe, Midnight, and Quickdraw added to the mix, not to mention Null dancing around at I7

For my piece, I suspect people are either going to go deep to try to catch Kylo or they'll ditch the bid outright for ps6 or more ships for a bigger net. I expect bids to go as deep as 17 points, similar to extended, at least until people figure out how to handle Kylo going second.

Keep in mind you can bid without trying to outbid Kylo.

If an 8 point bid or whatever makes you move last against everybody but Kylo, that doesn't mean the right answer is reducing the bid to zero.

2 minutes ago, svelok said:

Keep in mind you can bid without trying to outbid Kylo.

If an 8 point bid or whatever makes you move last against everybody but Kylo, that doesn't mean the right answer is reducing the bid to zero.

Solid point. I feel like Kylo fills a similar space as Vader; people are expecting him to be the boogeyman, but in practice you don't see him have the impact you'd expect for those points.

I think there's a small (but non-zero) change FFG will change the bidding mechanism, also. Bidding is not good for the game. The arguments against it are several and varied, and the arguments for it basically just come down to "I think it's fine."

I like the suggestion I heard a while back that said bidded points counts as destroyed.

-if a list wanted to go first no matter what, starting the match with your opponent in the lead until you destroy something seems fair.

-it would also do away with the ridiculous bids where one could almost fit a tie or z-95 for their bid.

The bigger problem is that there are too many initiatives in 2.0 as it is initiative 2 and 3 are pointless, and 4 is in the same boat very often, either take initiative 1 cheap filler(who can block aces to death) or take an ace.

There should only be 4 initiative values in x-wing

I-1 should be cheap generics, every ship should have one except for maybe ships that struggle if they go first like starvipers or tie phantoms

I-2 Generic veteran and some named pilots. Every ship should have at least one I-2 generic pilot.

I-3 Aces, most named pilots go here, a few control pilots or pilots with abilities not requiring initiative to be strong might be I-2

I-4 this should be equivalent to our current initiative 6 pilots which are in my opinion the only thing about 2.0’s initiative they did right.have an initiative for the very few rare Aces that stand out as some of the best pilots in star wars, this category I hope stays small and expensive, these pilots should never be cheap enough to run multiple of or maybe only in a 2 ship list and thin on upgrades.

If they went to this system there would be no ships that pay points for pointless initiative increases as in the current system, initiative 1 is the same as initiative 2, but the ship that pays the points for initiative 2 is probably not worth it’s cost as you will go last anyway so why not save points.

Also will reduce pointless pilot bloat as the initiative 1 generic and the initiative 2 generic fight for the same spot and ties and x-wing both have 2 generics without an elite and 1 generic with an elite.

You'll be bidding just as hard at I6 as you will at I5.

@Jeff Wilder I sort of like bidding as a game mechanic. I think that it's actually an interesting way to keep aces in check. If I build a list that has an element that requires moving last in order to work properly, I can think of my bid as an upgrade that I'm using to achieve that. Meanwhile, if you build an efficiency-based squad that doesn't use its bid, then when you fly against me, my bid does nothing and I'm flying with less of a squad than you are. I'm intentionally trading efficiency/power for the ability to move last more often, which makes my list less likely to do well against your list unless I really can get the most out of that advantage of moving last.

I think the problems with points fortresses are more due to that in general, higher-initiative pilots are underpriced compared to lower-initiative pilots (partly unintentional, partly intentional to make main movie characters seen on the table). If the specific aces that are being used as points fortresses go up in points, I think that fixes a lot of the problem by making them less useful at fighting back, since you really can't points fortress indefinitely without taking some damage (a blessing of X-Wing using randomized dice rather than fixed tokens for defense). Half points on everything also has come a long way towards fixing this problem.

I personally vastly prefer the bidding system to the old system of having 11 levels of pilot skill and auto-including VI on everything.

Make initiative a die roll and remove the bid system.

No I think the bid should stay but either put a hard limit on max bid like you cant bid more than 10 or make bidded points count as destroyed points as you are ignoring the initiative roll off and taking rng of turn order away.

I enjoy this discussion as much as the last 5 threads, but the bid is the system we've got for the foreseeable future.

1 hour ago, SOTL said:

You'll be bidding just as hard at I6 as you will at I5.

I don't think we'll bid quite as hard as Soontir Whisper Redline but I do agree the I6 bid matters much more now

9 hours ago, MasterShake2 said:

Make initiative a die roll and remove the bid system.

Just make aces more expensive so generics are viable.

This fixes many problems, bidding being among them.

We should try alternating Initiative. At least try it.

13 hours ago, Jeff Wilder said:

I think there's a small (but non-zero) change FFG will change the bidding mechanism, also. Bidding is not good for the game. The arguments against it are several and varied, and the arguments for it basically just come down to "I think it's fine."

I dont like taking a bid, but I do because I have to. If they alternated first/second player each round, I think that would go a long way to stop stupid bids. One player having initiative the entire game is powerful.

4 hours ago, SOTL said:

We should try alternating Initiative. At least try it.

Agreed. I don't know that I like it, but seems worth a try.

[strains not to make a Yoda joke]

17 hours ago, Jeff Wilder said:

I think there's a small (but non-zero) change FFG will change the bidding mechanism, also. Bidding is not good for the game. The arguments against it are several and varied, and the arguments for it basically just come down to "I think it's fine."

I disliked how SW: Destiny didn't start out with a way to do anything with unspent points. Some combinations of characters won't fully fill the 30 points, and then the rest just goes to waste. They eventually added plots, which provide some minor benefit at the cost of character points.

In X-Wing, I feel like there ought to be *something* to do with points, other than just buy upgrades. I don't really like buying upgrades I don't intend to use, just to fill up points. I have a triple Fang ace list, everyone has the talents they want, and it's 190 points. The only other upgrade to add is a Torpedo, but I don't want one.

It also has disincentives, given that the game is scored by points-destroyed. More expensive ships means more points can be obtained from killing them.

But some of it is that I don't necessarily think bidding is itself a problem, except that it's too powerful. If bidding didn't have as much of an impact on the game, it'd be fine. For example, in Destiny, the choice of first player is done by rolling all the character dice, and adding up the total value of their symbols (usually ranging from 0-3). If bid allowed you to reroll one die per unspent point, that's at least some effect, but it'd still be a random thing of a fairly small benefit.

15 hours ago, DakkaDakka12 said:

I like the suggestion I heard a while back that said bidded points counts as destroyed.

So the score would be determined by points-alive, rather than points-destroyed, and bid points aren't points-alive.

Maybe.

I kind of like some sort of middle ground. Destroy one ship fully, and you'll claim half (or all!) the bid.

So here was a rough concept I was mulling over.

Suppose First Player is determined by each player rolling 3 attack dice, counting the number of hits/crits, and the player with the most hits/crits can choose first player. Ties get rerolled.

Bid doesn't directly influence who determines first player, but adds dice to the roll. The cost of each die scales geometrically, so it quickly gets a lot more expensive.

1. One extra die (4 total) for 2 points of bid
2. Two extra dice (5 total) for 6 points of bid
3. Three extra dice (6 total) for 14 points of bid
4. Four extra dice (7 total) for 30 points of bid
5. Five extra dice (8 total) for 62 points of bid
6. Six extra dice (9 total) for 126 points of bid... but remember the 2-ship minimum (depending on how folks read the Tournament Regs document)
7. Seven extra dice cannot be purchased

So there's an advantage to higher bid totals, but not an absolute one. The old Final Salvo math comes into play. I don't feel like digging it up, but IIRC something like a 14 point bid only has something like a 75% chance to determine first player against zero bid, or a baby 2-point bid. A 4-dice bid of 30 points probably has only like a 60/40 chance to best a 3-dice bid... pretty small gains for those extra 16 points.

Personally, in such a system, I'd probably never bother with a bid higher than 6 points (and wouldn't feel bad about 2 or 0 points). Enough of a chance against higher bids, but it doesn't really dent my list much.

I seem to remember this thread from two weeks ago

You'd think we could continue this discussion.

17 hours ago, SOTL said:

You'll be bidding just as hard at I6 as you will at I5.

I still call the I6 & 6 as a rule for competitive list building.

Initiative 6, and no less than a 6 point bid.

It depends how much you need them going first, but with so many I5/6 trying to reposition or target lock opponents it's a perfect storm.

And there's a feedback loop element to it. When 10% of ships are I5/6 you can play what you want, when 50% are you start getting forced into doing the same, so 50% becomes 60%, 70%, 80%... the more people switch the more pressure there is on the next guy to switch too.

What about doing away with simultaneous fire? It would put some value back into shooting first.

On 1/4/2019 at 5:07 PM, hargleblarg said:

Wave 2 brings us new I5 boogeymen and women in Kylo, Lu'lo, Tallissan, Ello, and Nien

I think Nien will be the most relevant (except maybe Kylo whom I'm quite uncertain about) and he somewhat doesn't care about moving first, since sometimes it can be advantageous to trigger his ability.

I feel like trip T70 aces w/ little or no bid will be a player in the Hyperspace meta.

Simply do away with bidding. 195-200 points, First Player is random. Under 195, lowest point total is First Player. This would instantly give some value parity between Initiatives.

I think anything that locks Initiative for a whole game is poor. It's too decisive, and completely un-fluffy

24 minutes ago, SOTL said:

I think anything that locks Initiative for a whole game is poor. It's too decisive, and completely un-fluffy

You're not thinking things through well.

Ask yourself why First Player is so decisive (as things are now). Then ask yourself if the behavior from players that makes it so decisive would continue if it were random.

I think i5 will still be a bidding war with Kylos, Blackouts, and resistance I5s. Boba and Luke are still out there too.

My fix for initiative: Just make underdog have initiative. Bidding is still valuable, as you will move second, first. But if you take the lead in points aka half/destroy a ship, then the other player now takes initiative. Now you can still bid to start with an advantage, just not the entire game.

The higher bids is a logical consequence of reducing available PS options from 1-11 to 1-6. Removing close to half the PS options means that your initiative bid will be way more important. If you think that a PS bid is bad game design, they should not have gone with only 6 options for pilot skill.

I do think removing VI was the best course of action, but reducing all available PS options might not have been the greatest idea if you did not want to unleash a bidding war.