3 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

Do you think the lack of VI/Adaptability contributed to the escalation of bidding, or is the compression enough to explain it?

Edit: I thought your numbers are 1.0 points. If they aren't: I agree with you.

I don't believe you Bids deeper than 3 points were rather rare according to my memory. /u/rixslayer used to post about tournament results on reddit and to include the deepest bid and the average bid. The Atlanta regional had e.g. the deepest bid at 6 points, and just 14 lists out of 139 with 3 or more points. That's 10%, so 3pt bids were not rare, but deep bids were.

Going for all of January 2018 , which he compiled in a single thread: Lowest was 95 pt. Scum had a high percentage of almost 16% with deep bids (3+), rebels and imperials less so, but the overall was again 10%.

So I think that you are correct that they were pretty typcial, but only 3-5 points or even just 3-4 points, not 5-8. That was extremely rare.

I was mixing the two, trying to communicate that I've seen bids of 5-8 points as common place (for those that take them) in second edition which is essentially the equivalent of a 3-4 point bid in first edition. To add, I feel like there were always lists that took some very strong "outlier" type bids like Dengaroo, Kylo lists, or Old Fenaroo at top levels of competition.

1 minute ago, AlexW said:

I was mixing the two, trying to communicate that I've seen bids of 5-8 points as common place (for those that take them) in second edition which is essentially the equivalent of a 3-4 point bid in first edition. To add, I feel like there were always lists that took some very strong "outlier" type bids like Dengaroo, Kylo lists, or Old Fenaroo at top levels of competition.

Got it. Yes, 3-4 points in 1.0 or 5-8 in 2.0 are common, meaning around 10% of the lists.

5 hours ago, SOTL said:

I never really understood why VI got the bad rep it had in 1.0. PS Wars would have happened with or without it (as we're seeing now) and at least VI allowed more pilots to get involved in them.

Soontir Fel - I never really played him because he could always get VI -ed - I think VI got a bad rap because it made other ept's useless. PS is too important, I think you are right though it should be adjusted with a points fix

2 minutes ago, freakyg3 said:

Soontir Fel - I never really played him because he could always get VI -ed - I think VI got a bad rap because it made other ept's useless. PS is too important, I think you are right though it should be adjusted with a points fix

I believe it is more about good alternatives. And not all problems pushing out PS9 aces were due to VI. I'd say most were not.

I just saw that Quickdraw for example was better with Expertise, compared to harpoons + VI. A ship that loses all benefit if arcdodged and shot at. The same argument can be made with Poe: PTL+BB8 was actually a sleeper hit that won some few large events, even though VI+R2D2 was the "correct" choice according to the community.

These two pilots had good alternatives and both loadouts were good. Soontir had other problems than VI. Well, no, it was also VI on Nym and all the passive mods and extreme guarantee of dice results against his 3 hull. But it's not just VI. Kylo was also doing well at PS9. Inq even saw a lot of play at PS8.

On 1/4/2019 at 6:11 PM, 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.

Kylo will not be the boogieman, the Mouse made it so...

On 1/4/2019 at 6:15 PM, hargleblarg said:

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.

Exactly, Kylo will not be the boogieman, the Mouse made it so...

On 1/4/2019 at 8:35 PM, SOTL said:

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

Harder actually, there will be no real bidding difficulties at I5 with the current Hyperspace list and Kylo will not be the boogieman, the Mouse made it so...

Somewhere there's a tinfoil hat shop that's doing roaring business.

1 hour ago, GreenDragoon said:

Do you think the lack of VI/Adaptability contributed to the escalation of bidding, or is the compression enough to explain it?

Oof, that is a loaded question.

Giving it thought, I ... don't know. But I think any boost to Init would end up with just every pilot that would be interested in bidding -- and with nothing else to do with a Talent slot -- stapling on the +Init upgrade. So, to a fair extent, it would just shift the problem upward, and introduce more pilots into the problem.

(There's a big exception: if the +Init were, in fact, a Talent: Kylo, Luke, Vader, and so on would be passed up very easily in Init. Regardless of how much I dislike Initiative Inflation (which includes the perceived need to fly I5+, as well as the perceived need to bid), I would not want to see that. Those pilots, if they are fallible, ought to fall to massed efficiency, not to some punk suddenly outflying them.)

Whatever else you take away from my wishy-washy answer, I'll say this: I don't miss the bumps to Initiative, and I really don't want them to ever come back.

I'd like a charge-based VI.

Either one that worked like Null if you spent a charge, or one like Cardinal that was turned on/off by something happening in the game.

Fundamentally I don't like locking in move order for a whole game because it's too much of an advantage, and tactically being able to change it seems good.

On 1/4/2019 at 4:43 PM, 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 like bidding and its part in the game. It is just another strategy consideration in list building. If you do not like deep bidding, then don't bid deep, it is as simple as that.

1 minute ago, Varyag said:

I like bidding and its part in the game. It is just another strategy consideration in list building. If you do not like deep bidding, then don't bid deep, it is as simple as that.

I like the concept of bidding down your force size for an advantage in initiative... I don't like it when the initiative can be used with ships/upgrades that are undercosted. Those points that are missing from those cards form your bid, giving you an advantage in choice despite having a similar sized force. Deep bids are often a symptom of this.

I don't know, I think I'm with @SOTL in that I'd like to see what happens when the points come in. If it looks like FFG is serious and can handle things, we should be ok in the bidding scene. If they're not... maybe it is time they try the random initiative each turn. I've played other games with it, and while I'm reluctant to tinker with XMG, I have to admit it seems an interesting idea at the very least.

35 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

Oof, that is a loaded question.

I didn't intend any "gotcha" moment or anything like that, it was an honest question I hadn't thought about myself.

39 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

Giving it thought, I ... don't know. But I think any boost to Init would end up with just every pilot that would be interested in bidding -- and with nothing else to do with a Talent slot -- stapling on the +Init upgrade. So, to a fair extent, it would just shift the problem upward, and introduce more pilots into the problem.

(There's a big exception: if the +Init were, in fact, a Talent: Kylo, Luke, Vader, and so on would be passed up very easily in Init. Regardless of how much I dislike Initiative Inflation (which includes the perceived need to fly I5+, as well as the perceived need to bid), I would not want to see that. Those pilots, if they are fallible, ought to fall to massed efficiency, not to some punk suddenly outflying them.)

Whatever else you take away from my wishy-washy answer, I'll say this: I don't miss the bumps to Initiative, and I really don't want them to ever come back. 

Do you think there is a way to implement a VI that would not be as negative?

I share the sentiment of "and with nothing else to do with a Talent slot " as being a problem. But the talent based +Init is something I see as feature, maybe as a counter pole to supernatural reflexes.
And I also share the sentiment that inititative bumps for I1-4 could be interesting, but independent of bid wars. The suggestion of a scaling cost got my attention.

On 1/6/2019 at 9:03 PM, Koing907 said:

Haven't seen much of Guri locally or heard about her on the webs lately. How aggressive should her bid be? Being thweek against non-I6 is nice, but it means you get fewer of the many neat little toys Scum has access to. But fatten the list too much, and you just end up with a pricey Xizor that can't damage-spread annoyingly.

Modification: High Power Scanner Burst (1 charge, recurring)

Action: spend 1 charge to acquire a lock, ignoring range.

At the end of the engagement phase, if your charge is inactive, break all of your locks.

Would something like this ameliorate initiative advantage? Basically, a "channeled" version of long range sensors, allowing locks beyond R3 but without every ship getting the free turn 1 double mod setup, which I'm sure actual game designers could envision better but I think gets the idea across.

1 hour ago, GreenDragoon said:

Do you think there is a way to implement a VI that would not be as negative?

Not really. All I can really think of is an upgrade with charges ... 1, maybe 2.

"At the beginning of the Planning Phase, you may spend 1 charge. If you do, treat your Initiative value as (2 higher||3 higher||7||whatever) until the end of the End Phase."

No matter what you pick as a number of charges or as an Init value change, for the upgrade, it would still need to be very expensive. There are really only one to three pivotal moments in most games, so charges on this upgrades would not be much of a balancing factor.

In addition to that, now FFG has to balance pilots, ships, and upgrades for a huge swatch of additional ships that now have the ability to equip the upgrade and hit hyper-Init.

I realize that FFG does not design like it -- and that's the problem! -- but Initiative is a huge determinant of what is, or even arguably can be, balanced in the game. It's obviously already bad enough when it's fixed -- barring a few exceptions like Null -- throught a game ... they seriously should not introduce widespread effects that can change it. +Init stuff is bad business. Leave it out of the game. +EngagementInit stuff is mostly fine, and even that has already been ingeniously twisted.

23 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

I believe it is more about good alternatives. And not all problems pushing out PS9 aces were due to VI. I'd say most were not.

I just saw that Quickdraw for example was better with Expertise, compared to harpoons + VI. A ship that loses all benefit if arcdodged and shot at. The same argument can be made with Poe: PTL+BB8 was actually a sleeper hit that won some few large events, even though VI+R2D2 was the "correct" choice according to the community.

These two pilots had good alternatives and both loadouts were good. Soontir had other problems than VI. Well, no, it was also VI on Nym and all the passive mods and extreme guarantee of dice results against his 3 hull. But it's not just VI. Kylo was also doing well at PS9. Inq even saw a lot of play at PS8.

I hate it when other people are right

On an unrelated topic but relevant to the post's origin, was looking at the I5 bids for Outryder in Dion's spreadsheet. The deepest bid was a rebel list at 17. Easily most bids were single digits. Either the US midwest expects a lot of hyper efficient lists like boba palob tugs, low init bulk like 3 upsilons or swarms, or having an I5 outplayed by skillful Poesh the Limit.

Making 5 ship lists where at least one of those ships can carry a game in the endgame viable will do an awful lot to curb the initiative problem.

On 1/10/2019 at 10:59 AM, player3010587 said:

On an unrelated topic but relevant to the post's origin, was looking at the I5 bids for Outryder in Dion's spreadsheet. The deepest bid was a rebel list at 17. Easily most bids were single digits. Either the US midwest expects a lot of hyper efficient lists like boba palob tugs, low init bulk like 3 upsilons or swarms, or having an I5 outplayed by skillful Poesh the Limit.

Well, it looks like the tournament your referencing is extended, which I think will be an important distinction.