@Darth Meanie - I often agree with you, and share a fair number of concerns about the game.

That said, I’m not worried about the app and point adjustments. If anything, I feel better after today having seen adjustments made that transcend Hyperspace into extended mode, meaning that ffg is willing to balance it all.

That gives me hope they’ll give love to other formats since they bothered to do more than Hyperspace “tourney mode” upkeep.

I get it could be frustrating to have to adapt the point costs - for a casual game at home with friends I dont think it matters too much though. If you’re playing the same rule set and point chart, it doesn’t matter that much if it’s an out of date one.

5 hours ago, Redblock said:

You don't need to track, app does it for you Fail to see your point really...

your failure to understand doesnt mean it isnt a relevant reality, it just means you need to try looking from someone elses perspective. For example: I spent over $1,500 on x-wing over 5 years and it was my favorite game or hobby period. the App and absurdity of 2.0 completely reversed that. now I only play homebrew 1.0. From what I can see that exprrience is mirrored by half the 1.0 playerbase. The WAAC turney players stayed on for 2.0, the people who just buy for the models stayed in, but the majority of casuals are either disenfranchised or outright quit.

4 minutes ago, Vontoothskie said:

your failure to understand doesnt mean it isnt a relevant reality, it just means you need to try looking from someone elses perspective. For example: I spent over $1,500 on x-wing over 5 years and it was my favorite game or hobby period. the App and absurdity of 2.0 completely reversed that. now I only play homebrew 1.0. From what I can see that exprrience is mirrored by half the 1.0 playerbase. The WAAC turney players stayed on for 2.0, the people who just buy for the models stayed in, but the majority of casuals are either disenfranchised or outright quit.

And yet as a casual player myself, I just can't see it from your perspective. Sorry. You're welcome to expand on your comment though.

Edit: My post was very confrontational, so I will take my own advice.

I can't see the problems regarding the app. To me it has given me a tool to assist list building and a way to store my lists digitally while also providing the benefits outlined by FFG. I can understand people not wanting to want an app to play the game. However, to me the positives of it vastly outweigh the negatives and I can't understand the criticisms levelled at it.

Considering that a majority of our playerbase here has remained with only one or two players dropping (one a high-level player and the other a casual) I would dispute the half the 1.0 players comment. Don't get me wrong there are those that have their reasons for not carrying on, but that's their choice and the game is still incredibly popular and hasn't seemed to impact the game's appeal.

3 minutes ago, Vontoothskie said:

your failure to understand doesnt mean it isnt a relevant reality, it just means you need to try looking from someone elses perspective. For example: I spent over $1,500 on x-wing over 5 years and it was my favorite game or hobby period. the App and absurdity of 2.0 completely reversed that. now I only play homebrew 1.0. From what I can see that exprrience is mirrored by half the 1.0 playerbase. The WAAC turney players stayed on for 2.0, the people who just buy for the models stayed in, but the majority of casuals are either disenfranchised or outright quit.

I consider myself a casual player. I build fun squads. I try new stuff. I love the game. I rarely metagame (and when I do, I’m picking the almost-there metagame option rather than the true top tier - my last meta list was a take on Kylo RhoBoats in 1.0).

I am not going to say your opinion is invalid, but I also do not understand it. I honestly prefer many of the 2.0 mechanics to the classic game. I love turrets being mobile arcs now. The force is kind of a unique cool ability, etc.

I guess I don’t see how the app invalidates a fun game just because the points and slots can change as necessary for rebalancing. This is one case where tournament play actually enhances casual play. They find the broken garbage, and ffg fixes it. Which is better than ffg “fixing” it by releasing even more overpowered combos like they did in the twilight of 1.0

36 minutes ago, Ebak said:

Considering that a majority of our playerbase here has remained with only one or two players dropping (one a high-level player and the other a casual) I would dispute the half the 1.0 players comment. Don't get me wrong there are those that have their reasons for not carrying on, but that's their choice and the game is still incredibly popular and hasn't seemed to impact the game's appeal.

Considering the x-wing game is no longer in the top 5 in sales as of Spring 2018, the sales data atm doesn't support your thesis. It will be interesting to see when the next ICV2 comes out how 2.0 is selling.

https://icv2.com/articles/markets/view/41010/top-5-non-collectible-miniature-games-spring-2018

4 minutes ago, Lace Jetstreamer said:

Considering the x-wing game is no longer in the top 5 in sales as of Spring 2018, the sales data atm doesn't support your thesis. It will be interesting to see when the next ICV2 comes out how 2.0 is selling.

https://icv2.com/articles/markets/view/41010/top-5-non-collectible-miniature-games-spring-2018

You mean back in 1.0?

Out of curiosity, do you know where it was on the list, or do they only announce top 5?

9 minutes ago, Lace Jetstreamer said:

Considering the x-wing game is no longer in the top 5 in sales as of Spring 2018, the sales data atm doesn't support your thesis. It will be interesting to see when the next ICV2 comes out how 2.0 is selling.

https://icv2.com/articles/markets/view/41010/top-5-non-collectible-miniature-games-spring-2018

Well that was before the launch of 2.0 and during a very oppressive part of 1.0. However, you are partly right, it will be interesting to see the statistics from a worldwide point of view.

however as long as my local meta stays strong then I’m not really that bothered with the rest, it’s not like I am going to travel and play in the states. Still, the sales information will be interesting.

9 minutes ago, Ebak said:

Well that was before the launch of 2.0 and during a very oppressive part of 1.0. However, you are partly right, it will be interesting to see the statistics from a worldwide point of view.

however as long as my local meta stays strong then I’m not really that bothered with the rest, it’s not like I am going to travel and play in the states. Still, the sales information will be interesting.

I'd prefer to see the actual sales figures instead of just a ranking. Rankings can tell us what's most popular, but they can't really tell us how healthy or unhealthy a game is.

6 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

And we use Huge fonts.

I think you mean EPIC fonts...

7 hours ago, Lace Jetstreamer said:

Considering the x-wing game is no longer in the top 5 in sales as of Spring 2018, the sales data atm doesn't support your thesis. It will be interesting to see when the next ICV2 comes out how 2.0 is selling.

https://icv2.com/articles/markets/view/41010/top-5-non-collectible-miniature-games-spring-2018

Spring 2018..... so back in the day of Miranda-Nym and the Miranda final salvo Loopin’ Chewie?

yeah, that doesn’t help your argument either.

To offer myself as a counterpoint, I'm a casual/kitchen sink player who dropped off the game years ago who is back in hard with 2.0 and loving every minute of it. All the mechanical changes are big improvements, the components and models are great, I'm loving squad building with the official and third party apps, and I'm teaching the game to some new players. I'm hoping to play this afternoon and first thing this morning I was excitedly checking the points update and tweaking the lists I've built.

The changes affect tournament play quite a bit for meta lists, but not too much for casual. Many ships got cheaper, but a few elite pilots got more expensive. Upgrades that can be exploited with combos went up. Upgrades that aren't used much, but are used by casuals went mildly down.

One exception is Proton Torpedoes went up a decent amount, because they are worth it.

Overall, no change greatly affected the game for a casual player.

17 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

Which  kinda is my point of this whole thread. Another  change. Semi-noted somewhere. How the **** is anyone  supposed to stay current without being a try-hard?  

Actually, the only way to NOT stay current is to try super hard. If you don't try hard, you use the builder to build and you are current.

The only way to show up at an event with an outdated list is to have a printout from a while back and still wanting to play it. It's really a bare minimum to ask players to check their list legality before an event, and that's the only thing that is asked of them. You don't have to follow the meta. You don't have to know anything about points or current available releases. Literally less effort to be right than wrong.

7 minutes ago, NilsTillander said:

If you don't try hard, you use the builder to build and you are current.

Literally less effort to be right than wrong.

Sure, I can use a machine and let it vomit me out a correct result. That doesn't mean I understand anything about what's going on.

It's why I wasn't allowed to use a calculator when learning math.

1 hour ago, Darth Meanie said:

Sure, I can use a machine and let it vomit me out a correct result. That doesn't mean I understand anything about what's going on.

It's why I wasn't allowed to use a calculator when learning math.

So you WANT to be able know all the points by heart? Is that really what you want? All the 100s of cards?

If you want to do the adding of points yourself from a printed out point list because you're better than a computer at additions, then yeah, you need to keep track of the version of the point list pdf.

11 minutes ago, NilsTillander said:

So you WANT to be able know all the points by heart? Is that really what you want? All the 100s of cards?

Yeah that's right.

If I don't want 0% knowledge of the game and only use a machine, then I must want 100% memorization of all cards.

There's no middle ground, like say, understanding the Brobots is a 2-ship list only to discover that Brobots became a 3-ship list.

26 minutes ago, NilsTillander said:

So you WANT to be able know all the points by heart? Is that really what you want? All the 100s of cards?

As a "try-hard" and somewhat successful competitive player of 1.0, I certainly had close to 95% of the upgrade cards and their cost memorized, as I did for many of the pilots in each faction (as did most of the other competitive players). This allowed for easy theory-crafting on a long drive or other down time, and when something new came out or you wanted to drop something old form a list, you had a good sense of what sort of commensurable options could plug into that spot.

Ironically, I reject OP's claim that WAAC Competitives followed 2.0, while Casuals stayed with 1.0. I have given up competitive X-Wing after my 5-year run of competitive 1.0, because all the unknown, fluctuating, and variable costs are just too many fiddily pieces to work with, and it's cumbersome and uninviting. It also doesn't help that by progressively removing reliability-enhancing-abilities, you're increasing the effect that RNG has on the game. As a tryhard competitive, I want the dice to have as little of an effect on my match as possible, because I want my deck-building and game decisions to be what determines who advances and who doesn't as those are things I can control. This is why you typically see the "big name" competitive folks flying hyper-modified list, and not generic spam. These sorts of players have moved to the least RNGed options in 2.0, which have been things like Redline, Whisper, Marauder-Han Boba, Palob, Luke, etc. ... and will include things like Triple Upsilons.

27 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

There's no middle ground, like say, understanding the Brobots is a 2-ship list only to discover that Brobots became a 3-ship list.

But that could happen with or without an app. FFG announces they've errata-ed the Aggressor and it now costs this many points. Only instead of having a handy app that takes care of that for you, you have to look at your Aggressor card and remember, "Oh, wait, this is 65 points now, not what's printed on it." That hardly seems "casual" to me.

This thread was pretty good for a bit there.

To rewind past stuff I kinda failed to take in, Darth has some very, very good points.

But I'd answer the question of is casual dead?, with a resounding no.

I'm a very casual player and our little group is growing. Several of our regulars are off to the Sys Open and a few could be considered fairly competitive in their list building. All are really cool guys though, they don't bat an eyelid about teaching people or trying 'illegal' things. Come one, come all, we'll sort you out and catch you right up.

I can already recall a whole ton of new points off the top of my head. Not because I try hard to remember them, I'm just really interested. So I naturally have my casual finger on the pulse.

It all depends on a given definition of casual. But everything actually boils down to how much you enjoy the game?

At this point, thanks to 2.0 and the update, the game is at it's most enjoyable for ages. If you give it a go, you might find the hurdles are comparatively insignificant and are easily overcome.

We are not dead yet.

Also, Epic ships are fine with old points and a few home rules on the upgrades. Just chuck em on the double mat and carry on.

10 minutes ago, Cuz05 said:

We are not dead yet.

3 hours ago, Cuz05 said:

But I'd answer the question of is casual dead?, with a resounding no.

So, of course the title has a bit of theatrical histrionics in it because, c'mon, let's be honest: no one would open a thread entitled "Darth Meanie is Unhappy (Again}."

Yes, people will play casually. Yes, people will play without the intent of going to a tournament. That's not actually what I was trying to get at.

I no longer feel like people will be able to have a casual/light touch/now-and-again relationship with the game. Tracking changes is now more than "I didn't buy the latest expac so I don't know the newest mechanic" or "I haven't read the FAQ so I didn't know that was illegal." It's really down to nitty gritty minutia: a point here, a point there, add a slot, take a slot (we all fall down?}. It's not just that you didn't buy the latest stuff or know a major ruling; your old ships can literally become a different game/meta behind your back.

Quite subtly. To the point where the die hards already have a thread to track that.

On ‎1‎/‎28‎/‎2019 at 2:45 PM, Redblock said:

You don't need to track, app does it for you Fail to see your point really...

And while this may be the #1 Liked response (as well as true}, what it really means is we have now submitted to

Schrodinger Wing!

"You can never say you know X-Wing until you have opened the app."

Even if that is q 6 mos.

On 1/28/2019 at 3:55 PM, Darth Meanie said:

As  a casual Epic player who builds 8-12 ship lists, the app does not have near  enough functionality to make it more than a a place to brainstorm.  

I'm (serious not mocking) super confused...you play epic, which is not supported in 2.0...but you use the app to build squads?

Or...you use the 2.0 app to build your 1.0 squads?

You're too casual to track points changes but serious enough that changes to the top-tier broken ships and upgrades meaningfully effects your list building?

Super lost what "audience" you belong to?

3 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

So, of course the title has a bit of theatrical histrionics in it because, c'mon, let's be honest: no one would open a thread entitled "Darth Meanie is Unhappy (Again}."

Yes, people will play casually. Yes, people will play without the intent of going to a tournament. That's not actually what I was trying to get at.

I no longer feel like people will be able to have a casual/light touch/now-and-again relationship with the game. Tracking changes is now more than "I didn't buy the latest expac so I don't know the newest mechanic" or "I haven't read the FAQ so I didn't know that was illegal." It's really down to nitty gritty minutia: a point here, a point there, add a slot, take a slot (we all fall down?}. It's not just that you didn't buy the latest stuff or know a major ruling; your old ships can literally become a different game/meta behind your back.

Quite subtly. To the point where the die hards already have a thread to track that.

Except there is two easy solutions.

1: Remember that point changes happen twice a year. When it happens, have some fun retooling lists, seeing how to adapt and improve. That’s what I did Monday. If you like list building, this shouldn’t be a hassle.

2: Forget points change is even a thing. Download the current PDFs and use them from here on out. You are a self proclaimed casual. What does it matter what to you what the competitive crowd uses? This might lead to conflict when you find other casuals who do keep up with the point changes (and this thread has shown there are plenty), but this can still be overcome, as you have professed to liking custom scenarios. A change of points for an evening is little different.

I understand and can sympathize that it’s not working out like you want, but the problems you are having are of your own design. They have simple work around for those willing to put in the work.

I'm fully a casual player (at home, with the same 3 other people, with an occasional fifth, sometimes multiplayer, sometimes not), and we play tens of other games so it's hardy like any of us have the time to give a hoot about the meta and keeping up with the Important Tournament People, and I'm FULLY in support of this model. I dabbled back in 1E and then stopped because the game felt too gamey for my tastes, and so far I've quite enjoyed what 2E has brought to the table in terms of actually flying my ships.

It truly does not seem like any work whatsoever to adapt to the new changes since the app I use (shout out to LaunchbayNext!) just updated, and for a lark I dug around a bit to see what the changes were in comparison. I guess I can see how, if you insisted on only flying the same list for multiple games, the incremental points changes might add up so your list isn't the same. But playing the same thing over and over to improve your performance incrementally each time isn't what I'd think of as casual - it's the pinnacle of competition (which is to say, it's focusing on the ONLY thing you have control over, which is to not make mistakes).

And if someone turned up because they'd been without an internet connection for a few days, we'd either make time for them to build a new list, or just play the old list, and fix it for next time. It's very easy.

3 hours ago, Ablazoned said:

I'm (serious not mocking) super confused...you play epic, which is not supported in 2.0...but you use the app to build squads?

Or...you use the 2.0 app to build your 1.0 squads?

You're too casual to track points changes but serious enough that changes to the top-tier broken ships and upgrades meaningfully effects your list building?

Super lost what "audience" you belong to?

Yes, I basically only play Epic, and it is a huge tragedy that it is no longer supported.

I have been keeping an eye on the goings-on with the app, because I am massively disappointed in its execution and it is a big reason I am a 2.0 hold-out. Someday, if Epic ever comes around again (different topic, but I am dubious}, I sorta want to have an opinion of where this game is headed. And yes, I could use a 3rd party app but at this point I am holding FFG accountable to the fact that an app, their app , is now integral to how the game functions.

The 3rd bit is tricky. I could care less about tournament play, and thus the meta doesn't affect me at my kitchen table. In 1.0, we actively culled the broken garbage. OTOH, I am not so naive as to think that the choices made in game design, which are all tournament focused, have no impact on the game I am handed. Thus, I care about where the design of this game is headed.

So, I don't know, what audience is that? "Concerned X-Wing Player?"

3 hours ago, SabineKey said:

Except there is two easy solutions.

1: Remember that point changes happen twice a year. When it happens, have some fun retooling lists , seeing how to adapt and improve. That’s what I did Monday. If you like list building, this shouldn’t be a hassle.

2: Forget points change is even a thing. Download the current PDFs and use them from here on out. You are a self proclaimed casual. What does it matter what to you what the competitive crowd uses? This might lead to conflict when you find other casuals who do keep up with the point changes (and this thread has shown there are plenty), but this can still be overcome, as you have professed to liking custom scenarios. A change of points for an evening is little different.

I understand and can sympathize that it’s not working out like you want, but the problems you are having are of your own design . They have simple work around for those willing to put in the work.

1. This is probably what would happen.

2. See above. I am talking about the "ethos" of the game's design.

so

3. I don't see it strictly as my problem. While you, and many others, are just fine with it as a sacrifice to perfect balance, other less committed players may find the ever-moving-target of list micro management as an off-putting part of the game. To wit, I am "professionally-casual" and I am wondering if I care enough to keep up.

And if people don't care enough to keep up, they might not care enough to stay. Or they might decide not to get into this game. And that's as bad for my hobby as it is for yours.

******

As another random thought, coming from the idea that this game has slipped in popularity, I might ask: did this happen because:

A. The death throes of 1.0 hurt it badly

B. It just lost it's momentum naturally as an older game,

or

C. It spends too much time trying to be the perfect game at the cost of attracting Star Wars fans who just want to noodle around.

Granted, loaded question because I'm implicating "C." But without Epic, Missions in the expacs, and with micro-management of the game components taking up most of my consideration, this game doesn't often hit my Star Wars button anymore. Which, I dare say, is the main reason casuals play.