29 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

"I don't know what you are complaining about. We are modernizing your infrastructure and making your country better."

Said every colonial power always.

I hate this argument because it is a half-truth that ignores the fact that casual players don't need (or even want} a perfect game. In the death throes of 1.0 my brother and I had just as much fun as ever because neither one of us felt the need to screw the other with triple-jumps. A just like your competitive imbalances didn't make me unhappy, your perfect tournament game does not necessarily make me happier.

It's just a tongue wag that you can use to justify spending all the time doing what matters for a certain part of the crowd while ignoring what others want, while at the same time pretending to care.

A good example of this is the Shuttle Tydirium. 100% Star Wars lore, lots of folks would have fun with it; tournament crowd complains about shared ships and faction flavor.

Comparing point change in a game marketed to a public and sold to them, not forced, feel very different to me from a colonial power exploiting a country, but cool analogy.

And the other problem is that your brother and you is a sample of 2 players, in the i-don't-know-how-many casual kitchen table players exist. And just because you personally don't feel the need to power game the casual table, don't mean others won't do it. Just because it doesn't happen to YOU don't me it doesn't happen ever.

And I'd also argue that most people DO want a perfect game. Look at chess or Go or Checker, all very successful game loved worldwide.

51 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

Actually, that's not in the game for a completely different reason. After the Tydirium was stolen and used as part of the operation to assassinate the Emperor, the Imperials placed remotely activated bombs in all Lambda- class shuttles and blow them up any time the Rebels try to field them.

Are you seriously proposing this as a "can't do it" temporal limitation in a game were Anakin will fight Vader, Han comes in young, middle-aged and old flavors, and Luke can fight himself as the Rebels fight the Rebels??

2 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

Are you seriously proposing this as a "can't do it" temporal limitation in a game were Anakin will fight Vader, Han comes in young, middle-aged and old flavors, and Luke can fight himself as the Rebels fight the Rebels??

<facepalm>

Yep, you got it! My utter nonsense, pretend-Star-Wars-events-really-happened-and-affect-games-in-the-real-world answer was totally meant to be the true basis for FFG's decision-making process!

3 hours ago, Ablazoned said:

Ah. Here's the disconnect. Fun little secret- the app doesn't really matter at this point. Some of us had hope for tournament support, but without it I can't think of a single reason to use the official app. It's about as critical to the game as the packaging at this point. Third party apps do it all and better.

In any case, it's not a meaningful impediment to converting to 2.0.

And I still remain amazed that the XWM community is willing to give FFG a bye on that.

6 hours ago, DailyRich said:

But! It! Should! Have! Been!

It's a much more elegant system than issuing 0-cost upgrades that become auto-includes or errata that force you to remember what cards now no longer actually mean what they say.

And twice-a-year updates is hardly micromanaging.

But what has actually happened here is that you have accepted a paradigm change. Because there was a time when points-changes making lists illegal was deemed anathema.

2 hours ago, Frimmel said:

Now I'm ready for this particular "my way" and think it will probably be just a wafer-thin mint. Only a tiny little thin one. Only wafer thin.

On 1/28/2019 at 4:31 PM, Darth Meanie said:

Well, it's that keeping track of the game itself now becomes a major endevour. Even if you use the app, you can play a list and come back to the app a few months later and discover your list is illegal, same, or undercosted. And now you have to wade through PDFs, blogs, or what have you to figure out why.

If you take months-long breaks, how is it really that different? In 1.0, you come back to find your months-old list is now underpowered, possibly vastly underpowered.

Like, just use app, build, play, right?

1 hour ago, JJ48 said:

<facepalm>

2 hours ago, JJ48 said:

Actually, that's not in the game for a completely different reason. After the Tydirium was stolen and used as part of the operation to assassinate the Emperor, the Imperials placed remotely activated bombs in all Lambda- class shuttles and blow them up any time the Rebels try to field them.

Yeah, I guess I totally missed the ironic-intoned-keystrokes in your otherwise black-and-white text.

38 minutes ago, Tlfj200 said:

If you take months-long breaks, how is it really that different? In 1.0, you come back to find your months-old list is now underpowered, possibly vastly underpowered.

Yeah, but the old list was probably still legal based on points, even if the abilities had changed. The JM5K was the only exception to that.

Now it might not be, and that will be quite typical of most changes.

Since this thread seems to be calling the necessity of these point re-balances in to question, I just wanted to throw out that I absolutely hated the old Ace pack model from 1st ed. These "fix packs" as we came to call them are absolutely the 1st ed equivalent to the 2nd ed bi-yearly re-balance in my eyes, and I do not want to go back to them. Older ships got rendered weak or useless by power creep, so to correct the situation the ship is re-released with an upgrade or two to get it back in the game. This band aid solution would correct things for a time, but as power creep itself wasn't addressed, the issue would simply crop up again in the future. This cycle of buying ships, using them till they are replaced, and buying that same ship again later to allow you to use it temporarily never sat right with me. I don't care that Guns for Hire had some of the coolest paint schemes they ever did or that Rebel Aces gave us some awesome new A-wing pilots and crew options. I would've much preferred the ships in those packs not get rendered useless by the march of time in the first place.

Re-balancing points did not exist in 1st ed in the same way it does in 2nd ed, you are absolutely right in that regard. Personally, I see that as an issue with 1st ed's design, not a barrier of entry for 2nd ed. 1st ed suffered from massive power creep that it couldn't address without heaps of errata and re-releasing old ships with updates, often with point drops on upgrades only the "fixed" ship can use. It's not exactly the same as 2nd ed's complete re-balance but they very clearly have the same goal, albeit with slightly different methodology. 2nd ed hasn't been around long enough to see any big issues of power creep, but should the time come that it is an issue, re-balancing the points of ships and upgrades allows us to avoid seeing the errata page for 2nd ed balloon the same way 1st ed did with each and every new wave. Errata is more annoying for me to track because that is a document online that is directly contradicting printed words on my cards. Re-balancing points doesn't contradict anything that's printed on my stuff, it only contradicts how I've been list building leading up to the re-balance. Since 1st ed did that every time a new aces pack was released, I don't really see what the issue is. More values are changing faster than they were in the past, but the values changing are being changed in ways that don't require a monetary investment on my part. All the re-balancing requires of the player is that they check the app before they leave the house with their list to make sure it's still kosher.

Also just wanted to point out that the official app is fine. It's not perfect, for example it doesn't show the dials for the ships, and last time I checked it wasn't good at displaying condition cards at all. That said, it has all the updated points, it has all the formats, it has a format builder, it saves lists, has a robust card browser, and even has a collection tab to help you keep track of the stuff that you should have somewhere in your collection. There are certainly quality of life improvements that would be nice, like cloning pilots and their upgrades to make building generic lists easier, or automatically sorting by initiative, but those aren't required for the app to function. As it stands, I don't really see anything missing from the app that would make it impossible for someone who owns a 2nd ed core-set and the cards they are trying to play with from actually playing. If I'm wrong, someone please enlighten me, cuz I clearly am not seeing the problems you are.

3 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

But what has actually happened here is that you have accepted a paradigm change. Because there was a time when points-changes making lists illegal was deemed anathema.

Equally, why do you assume the original paradigm was the correct one? The way you're going on here it looks like you're saying this new paradigm is wrong. Just my experience but that seems to be something pretty much unique to you. That actually describes most of your complaints here, in fact. Most of them are so esoteric it feels as though you're just looking for things to complain about at this point.

2 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

Yeah, but the old list was probably still legal based on points, even if the abilities had changed. The JM5K was the only exception to that.

Now it might not be, and that will be quite typical of most changes.

It's literally a two second job to update lists using the app.

Not figuratively, literally.

I had roughly a dozen lists stored in my app when the largest round of pricing updates were released. I saw which lists had been affected immediately, less than five minutes later they were all ready to roll again.

This ain't rocket science, Meanie. If anything, list building is easier to manage now than it ever was.

2 hours ago, Hippie Moosen said:

Since this thread seems to be calling the necessity of these point re-balances in to question, I just wanted to throw out that I absolutely hated the old Ace pack model from 1st ed. These "fix packs" as we came to call them are absolutely the 1st ed equivalent to the 2nd ed bi-yearly re-balance in my eyes, and I do not want to go back to them. Older ships got rendered weak or useless by power creep, so to correct the situation the ship is re-released with an upgrade or two to get it back in the game. This band aid solution would correct things for a time, but as power creep itself wasn't addressed, the issue would simply crop up again in the future. This cycle of buying ships, using them till they are replaced, and buying that same ship again later to allow you to use it temporarily never sat right with me. I don't care that Guns for Hire had some of the coolest paint schemes they ever did or that Rebel Aces gave us some awesome new A-wing pilots and crew options. I would've much preferred the ships in those packs not get rendered useless by the march of time in the first place.

I actually liked the Ace Packs. I liked getting a repaint and additional pilots. I would hope that something of that ilk continues to happen, or Y-Wings are going to be stuck with a pathetic amount of pilots until 3rd Edition.

1 hour ago, Jike said:

Equally, why do you assume the original paradigm was the correct one?

I don't. I simply point out that what people freely accept now has not always been considered acceptable at all.

16 hours ago, DarthSempai said:

I know i'm just feeding the troll, but i'll take the bait

I mean, all things considered, I post something a little fun, and no one pays any attention to it. Complain about the state of the game, and I get 5 pages of dialog.

Who's trolling who?

Y'all could have let this slide off the front page 36 hours ago, but here we are on page 5 of most everyone telling me I'm wrong.

30 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

I actually liked the Ace Packs. I liked getting a repaint and additional pilots. I would hope that something of that ilk continues to happen, or Y-Wings are going to be stuck with a pathetic amount of pilots until 3rd Edition.

I liked that they had new paint schemes and new pilots on platforms I care about, which is always nice, but that doesn't fix my problem with the Ace packs. If there were a way for the devs to re-balance the game, that was built in from the start as we see in 2nd ed, there wouldn't have been a need for the ace packs to act as a fix for the ships featured in them. 1st ed was getting to a point where some ships that had already been "fixed" were starting to look like they needed another ace pack to regain relevance in the competitive scene.

I'm not quite following you regarding the Y-wings. I play Rebels so I'll be talking about their Y-wings, can't speak on Scum very much. Pilot selection for this ship went up between 1st and 2nd ed. That's not the case for each and every ship, but this one most certainly has more options now than it did before.

I know that we are going to see ships re-released into 2nd ed that wont have any pilots that weren't in the Conversion kits, like the Wave 3 Striker and Z-95, but I don't think that means every ship will be in the same boat. The two getting re-releases in Wave 3 are not anywhere near as popular or well known as a lot of the other ships in this game. Higher profile platforms, ones that have been in multiple films, tv-shows, video games, etc. like your A and B wings or Tie bombers and interceptors will likely get new pilots to bolster their current roster. I don't think anyone here expects Interceptors to stay at just 4 pilots for the entire life of the game. That would just be absurd, when you consider they had 6 pilots at launch in 1st ed.

40 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

I actually liked the Ace Packs. I liked getting a repaint and additional pilots. I would hope that something of that ilk continues to happen, or Y-Wings are going to be stuck with a pathetic amount of pilots until 3rd Edition.

I liked the repaints and the better options, but I also agree that Aces shouldn't be how they try to fix ships anymore. Hopefully, if they do something like them in the future, it'll be repaints and new pilots who simply bring something new to the ship without overshadowing/replacing existing options.

8 hours ago, Jike said:

Equally, why do you assume the original paradigm was the correct one? The way you're going on here it looks like you're saying this new paradigm is wrong. Just my experience but that seems to be something pretty much unique to you. That actually describes most of your complaints here, in fact. Most of them are so esoteric it feels as though you're just looking for things to complain about at this point.

Not unique.

As a mostly non player these days the points changes actually have me excited to maybe buy the conversion kits and try the game again. And I’m a totally casual player.

here are my feelings.

finding other casual players is very hard in my area but I know the game is at least going to be slightly more fair and thus less of a forgon conclusion if they routinely nerf the top meta stuff.

Your sour grapes are my fine wine sir.

13 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

But what has actually happened here is that you have accepted a paradigm change. Because there was a time when points-changes making lists illegal was deemed anathema.

Yeah, I remember in 1.0 being told by people on the forum that changing the text of cards, how they function and everything was totally an ok thing to do, but changing points? Nonsens, Heresy! Yeah, THAT was nonsens, changing points seemed like the easiest fix by far...

2 hours ago, TylerTT said:

As a mostly non player these days the points changes actually have me excited to maybe buy the conversion kits and try the game again. And I’m a totally casual player.

here are my feelings.

finding other casual players is very hard in my area but I know the game is at least going to be slightly more fair and thus less of a forgon conclusion if they routinely nerf the top meta stuff.

Your sour grapes are my fine wine sir.

I think the OP would rather pretend casual players in favour of the 2.0 model like you and I don't exist, as we contradict his casuals vs. competitive narrative!

The sprawling 1.0 FAQ/Errata list was a barrier to entry and deterrent to me - conversely the points update excited me and sparked my imagination for list building. Far better for the cards to stay the same and just their value, easily communicated via whichever app, to change.

Darth Meanie is just the ghost of X-Wing past.

Another problem with Aces Pack fixing is that they always released fix upgrades (titles, stuff the broken ship could only use), and new pilots.
But old pilots weren't reprinted with lower costs or better abilities. To use one example, Fel's Wrath remained unusable even after the aces pack, and some other pilots on that ship still lacked the much needed talent slot. So they were going to be underpowered forever, regardless of the amount of "Fix Packs" that the ship would get in the future.

About point changes, it wasn't the community how said that it would be anathema. It was FFG policy of not changing the values printed on the card (even when the ability text was errataed if some occasions. Apparently something that was less of a no no for them).

What would have happened with the "Whisper" + Darth Vader combo in first edition? The devs would have needed to either errata Vader's text (making him worse on all ships, including those that aren't problematic like shuttles, reapers, or decimators, essentially killing him as a viable upgrade), or do as they did with the combat system and invent a convoluted flow chart of action windows and triggers to break the combo, resulting on the whole game being affected!

Or really charismatic main characters like Han, Leia, or Luke whose upgrade cards were absolutely abysmal for their cost. Since they resorted to errata only when the current text was deemed dangerously overpowered, what we ended with was that the main cast in crew form was not to be seen in the game, ever.

The thing is that we have been there, done that and seen to the disaster it led to. It's not bad to try something else when the previous thing has horribly failed, right?

On 1/30/2019 at 12:57 PM, Darth Meanie said:

But what has actually happened here is that you have accepted a paradigm change. Because there was a time when points-changes making lists illegal was deemed anathema.

And that's ... fine? I mean, it wasn't like FFG didn't issue errata during 1.0 that made certain lists illegal.

And if you're playing casually, what do you care what's illegal or not?

On 1/30/2019 at 5:57 PM, Darth Meanie said:

...b ut what has actually happened here is that you have accepted a paradigm change.

.. what, you mean like women getting the vote, or slavery being abolished, or Games Workshop realising out of nowhere that games that have rules and can actually be played are much more fun than just displaying big, expensive collections of models and scenery on a table?

.. wait, not sure that last one has actually happened yet

Dial it back guys. Meanie has some good points, originally it wasn't perceived as a good thing to change the point costs, mostly because they were printed on cards and thus presented more of an issue to change than errata text. From what I recall the worry was someone turning up with illegal lists, at least with errata's but no point cost adjustment their list would still be legal just now not work the way they might have thought.

FFG have clearly changed their mind about that and the app is the tool that has lead to it. I think if there was an update every month or two months then there would more certainly be a problem with people turning up with illegal lists. With 6 months between updates and more-or-less firm dates of January and July means that as long as an X-Wing player knows this (and tournament organises do their best to promote it as well) then them turning up with an illegal list lies at their fault. It is a sucky situation, but if they had just checked if their list as legal...a basic thing you do when going to tournaments, then they could have avoided it.

Granted, the same could be said in first edition, the difference is that to get the point costs, you need the app and so you NEED to build using the app.

Speaking as myself, I also want to see Epic and more casual formats like Meanine, but I can also live without them for now because the game as it stands now is fresh and enticing to me.

I'm not saying that I agree with Meanie's viewpoint, or that I think there are easy solutions to the problems he presented...but as an X-Wing player his opinions should not be easily discarded.

As for barriers of entry...I think every game has its own and X-Wing first edition had as many barriers of entry as second edition and perhaps more. I can only go by what I have seen locally but I've seen a much better turnout at our Wednesday night casual nights and tournaments for second edition than I did in first.

15 hours ago, Firebird TMK said:

Not unique.

Hey Firebird! Would you mind expanding on your own thoughts to the problem that Meanie presents and your side of it. We've only really heard from Meanie regarding this issue and it would be interesting to get another person's opinion on what they perceive to be a similar problem.

On 1/30/2019 at 3:40 PM, Frimmel said:

I think Darth Meanie just wants to be able to show up to gameday and not worry that all the lists in his bag are now illegal and the time he set aside to play now has to be taken up with time to prepare to play. Or is that my worry? 

The way I get ready to go to gameday, since I do not take all my stuff, just lists I prepared prior, missing a new points drop can have catastrophic effects for my evening. If I had other things to do this week I could easily show up to a gameday this weekend not ready to play. Now it isn't that big a deal. It's casual. But it isn't nothing .

This bears some similarity and attitude to things I find tiresome in other aspects of my life. Many things I deal with tend to behave as if their decisions and parameters are the only ones that matter. As if their thing is the only thing I spend time with or money on. Many things acting as though they know what's best for me. Many nebulous authorities making changes that affect me that I don't get a voice in and my recourse is "take it or leave it." "My way or the highway" is what I get at work. Now I get it in X-wing.

Now I'm ready for this particular "my way" and think it will probably be just a wafer-thin mint. Only a tiny little thin one. Only wafer thin.

4

I did want to address you since I did likewise to meanie.

Life tends to do that to you, free time is so fleeting these days with other responsibilities and I would completely sympathise with your lack of time to play compared to list management IF the point adjustments were every month or ever two months. With it being 6 months a part it isn't too difficult to list build, have them set aside and be good for 6 months. Besides, in a casual scenario, you could in theory just carry on as is. It only becomes an issue if you enter competitive stuff.

As for not having a voice in things and the 'take it or leave it' attitude. With all due respect, this is not a committee. If you asked 10 different X-Wing players how points should be adjusted, you'd get 10 different answers with people's own bias coming into it, even people like yourself telling it to leave it alone. The effort to craft a better experience for the majority of X-Wing players and the health of the game over all these changes have to come along. Yes it is inconvenient and if you can suggest a better method then I'd gladly hear it because, again with all respect in the world, if we turn the scenario on its head you'd dam-n a lot of X-Wing players to endure a lot of overpowered and mispointed stuff merely for your own convenience of time; your way or the high way. At the end of the day a compromise must be met and the better outcome for a majority should be decided (at least to me).

One thing I am missing is the context of what kind of X-Wing player you are? I know meanie is a casual player who plays on his kitchen table, what about you? Same or more competive?

All in all, I think EVERYONE would prefer it if the points were perfect and didn't change, but they do, and that's one wafer thin mint I would gladly take after the foul taste that first edition last 6 months left me with. I was REALLY not enjoying X-Wing in the last 6 months of 1st edition to the point where I nearly said 'I am done'. Second edition got me playing again, and I am loving it.

'Perfect' points would have to change.

Casual X-wing is dead. Long live casual X-wing!

At my local store tonight, we had 8 players, more than we generally got for 1st ed. We tried out new lists, using the new points. Some flew Hyperspace lists, others used Extended.

Then, one person had to go. What shall we do, we have uneven players!

How a about a 3-way game? Today we used 3 Z95s each; last week we flew Tie Interceptors with 5 players, scoring points for damage inflicted, respawning when destroyed. The week before, we flew 60ish point single ships of our choice.

The game is good. Play what you enjoy doing, don't worry about what everyone else is doing. If you aren't enjoying a game, change the game.

Darth Meanie? Keep flying the stuff you like. Retro-convert the new factions and their ships to 1st ed if it pleases you, or convert the others to 2nd ed, or simply play a mashup of both editions plus any house rules you feel like.

On ‎1‎/‎30‎/‎2019 at 8:29 AM, SabineKey said:

@Firebird TMK Might I ask what you found confusing about the options I listed?

Just thinking that there have to be more than two options. See my next post.