I got a late start to 2.0 due to busy holiday work schedule, so I only have a couple dozen games in, but I have yet to table or be tabled in a match. Maybe 2 or 3 times it got down to 1 ship each left on the mat, but its usually half or more of each squad still standing at time.

While I like 95% of the 2.0 changes, maybe taking all of the offensive token stacking and passive mod abilities out was not a great idea after all.

For Competitive, removing all the token stacking did put more emphasis on flying skills and action choices, but when every game goes to time, some of the smaller tournaments end up lasting longer than they need to.

For casual, where people are often just fighting to the death, when a simple 200v200 match takes 2-3 hours to finish, that could be a road block to entry for some people.

What are your thoughts?

It gets better the more you play. It doesn't always take that long.

I would not still be playing the game if they kept all the token stacking nonsense from 1.0.

I have finished tournament games before time and my list had 7 ships. I was done with my dials before my opponent often enough.

I haven’t noticed any difference. 7 of my last 8 games finished before time.

My matches usually last about 40-50 minutes from what I’ve seen.

My playtime got longer in 2.0 but thats because I'm more cautious. With certain lists I was able to table my opponent in like 20 minutes in 1.0, which I wasn't able to do in 2.0 most of the time. But 8/10 games end before time.

I think it greatly depends on the level of play, the lists involved, the number of ships on the table, the pace of the game, your agressivity during the game.

If you want a quick play, just put your ships front to front and go straight. I can assure you it will be over in 30 minutes.

My games are honestly the opposite, where I mostly finish mine. Defensive token stacking was severely reduced in 2.0, where as red dice mods were not hit nearly as hard. I think a lot of games that go to time is because there are a lot more ships on the board so mistakes usually cost just a ship, and put that player noticeably behind, instead of cascading into a snowball table. People will be playing a lot slower because of higher ship counts too.

19 minutes ago, pickirk01 said:

For  casual  , where people are often just fighting to the death, when a simple 200v200 match takes 2-3 hours to  finish, that could be a road block to entry for some people. 

Anyone can use a clock!

In casual game where we usually play with the normal tournament time limit (to get more games in) we seldomly finish before time unless one of the players resign. But it had at least as much to do with talking about other things while playing so everything takes a bit longer.

I'm glad to hear a lot of games are not going to time. I usually play in a league at the FLGS and do the kit tournaments there so I never go beyond the store tournament level (so far anyway). It is probably just a symptom of my local group then. Good to know.

5 minutes ago, pickirk01 said:

I'm glad to hear a lot of games are not going to time. I usually play in a league at the FLGS and do the kit tournaments there so I never go beyond the store tournament level (so far anyway). It is probably just a symptom of my local group then. Good to know.

It can definately be a local meta thing. If you meta plays things like rebel beef or tie swarms, then games can more often go to time as it takes time to get positioning on those types of lists. If your meta is more 2 and 3 ship lists, you might see games finish before time. Setting less dials helps in this area as well.

Dpends who I am playing, but with my current list I often have 30 minutes to spare.

If you're just playing casually call it when you're bored or someone is waiting...

My casual matches almost always go to time, while my tournament matches rarely do. Maybe we tend to discuss more and be less efficient when playing casually, but I think the bigger factor is in my circle of friends we know each other's tricks and strategies, so we tend to dance around each other a lot more.

At a guess, about a quarter of my games - casual or competitive - go to time. I die fast, saving my opponent valuable time.

I play a lot of 3 ship lists that require a fair bit of thought and my local meta leans heavily towards 4 or 5 ships. So if my games finish before time, it's usually because I've messed up and been stomped.

37 minutes ago, wurms said:

It can definately be a local meta thing. If you meta plays things like rebel beef or tie swarms, then games can more often go to time as it takes time to get positioning on those types of lists. If your meta is more 2 and 3 ship lists, you might see games finish before time. Setting less dials helps in this area as well.

Agree with this. I play Y-ion swarm and my games usually go to time, especially if I go against another gunboat list.

Lately I've switched to Ace swarm and I've also been going to time, especially against other swarms. I'm going to try out a 4 ship list tomorrow night and see how that goes.

But in any event, it does seem like tournament games are going to time more frequently for whatever reason.

1 hour ago, pickirk01 said:

I got a late start to 2.0 due to busy holiday work schedule, so I only have a couple dozen games in, but I have yet to table or be tabled in a match. Maybe 2 or 3 times it got down to 1 ship each left on the mat, but its usually half or more of each squad still standing at time.

While I like 95% of the 2.0 changes, maybe taking all of the offensive token stacking and passive mod abilities out was not a great idea after all.

For Competitive, removing all the token stacking did put more emphasis on flying skills and action choices, but when every game goes to time, some of the smaller tournaments end up lasting longer than they need to.

For casual, where people are often just fighting to the death, when a simple 200v200 match takes 2-3 hours to finish, that could be a road block to entry for some people.

What are your thoughts?

I agree, although I may be in the minority on this one. I think 1.0's abundance of dice modifiers made the aspect of shooting more enjoyable and competitive than in 2.0. TLT, turrets, bombs, miranda, wookies, Fenn, and so on were issues of poor game design, but doing damage to the enemy ship that you have flanked, at range 1, with mods was something that it did well. There is too much swingy variance in 2.0 that the game ends up kind of being dumb sometimes. Probably not the right way to describe it. Maybe... less serious?

Essentially, the variance and lack of ways to reduce it makes the game take on an underlying layer of Yahtzee. Maybe it's fun for people who like to press the button on the slot machine or roll the dice in the casino, but that level of variance is almost kind of diminishing to the game experience. I e 2.0 succeeds in spite of it, not because of it. I've never heard anyone speak highly of the level of variance now and I think the added struggle of not getting damage through after you do everything right (mace has a block of tie bombers, flanked, behind them, at range 1 and rolls 2 paint on 12 reds over three turns) makes the games take soooooo much longer and can dampen the mood.

The only 2.0 games that I've had not go to time are from people scooping, but yeah the extreme amount of variance compared to 1.0 is dragging these games out and is kind of souring them in a way. It feels like there isn't as much of a reward for tactical execution such as blocks, flanks, running them through an obstacle field because you can just get frigged by the variance. It's not like 1.0; the variance of dice actually is a large deciding factor in these games now and sometimes both parties are just going to roll blanks turn after turn, keeping ships alive and the game trucking along to time.

and yeah yeah it's a dice game I know, but you asked for thoughts, so here you go. I understand that some people like gambling and slot machines, but I play this game for the tactics firstly, so the "omg dicerolls are hilarious" part is just not my cup of tea.

went to a hyperspace trial on Saturday, 6 round 4 of which ended before time. 1 or 2 were only 5-10 mins spare but 1 had 30mins to go and another 20mins.

At my last Hyperspace trial only two of my games went to time, and that was with me flying a swarm.

The casual games going long is sort of a different thing, which I do sympathize with. One week, I went to the game store, only two people were there playing a game, and I waited an hour and a half for it to finish and then they just went home. So next week, when I was the odd man out, I just left, because I didn't feel like waiting around again. More the problem there is that the games aren't scheduled or guaranteed - that's why I sort of like tournaments if they're casual enough, because you're guaranteed to get X number of games in. Casual night is also really fun, but with small numbers of people the random lengths of games can be offputting. I'm considering suggesting timing casual games locally, just to speed up the ones that end up taking all night.

Some of us have also started playing with 100 point lists, which for many reasons (this being one of them), makes the game better for new players.

In theory, less token stacking, less shields and more damaging crits (cascading ones) should mean shorter games in 2.0. Maybe though, like others mentioned, more ships per squad in general, and players being more cautious because of the previously-mentioned factors compensate and it ends up being about the same duration as 1.0?

In fairness, part of the reason my games take longer is I’m less familiar with the ships than in 1.0, so I play slower than I used to.

but yes, I have

Part of the reason games go to time is a weird mixture of:

• MoV mattering (you can't just scoop when you've clearly lost, because in a tournament, a 200-190 is a lot better for you than a 200-100), which is a function of the tournament scoring system. But conversely, W/L also mattering, and mattering more meaning its not worth risking a 50-25 win to angle for a 150-50 win. Both players have weird incentives to play to time often. (Any other tournament scoring system would introduce its own distortions, those are just some of this one's.)
• Casual games and players not knowing when to quit - if we're playing at league night and you're winning handily and I'm down to just 60 points of support ships, there's no reason to not just scoop and get another real game in, but people often don't and just run away instead anyways.

2.0 having less perfect offensive probably exacerbates those things but those are the root reason.

Rarely do I ever go to time. I have been playing the same list over and over for the past month or so. Getting ready for a big tournament.

My experience has been about 40% of the games go to time, and it usually depends on the lists flown. If one player has either a swarm of 6+ or a really beefy list of 25+ HP, then the game generally goes to time. Otherwise, anything from 30 minutes to 65 minutes is the general time that a game for me lasts.