Simple, Non-deathmatch supported play (be it campaigns, patrols, story modes, combat progression)

More pilots in those card packs.

Reduction of rules, piece/token clutter information overload. Reduce set-up time, number of pieces needed.

MORE WAYS TO USE SHIPS AND PIECES WE ALREADY HAVE IN NEW WAYS.

Surprise surprise, card packs, new pilots, new ways to play are all ways to make me happily spend money. We don't need new ships(new champions/units). We need fun new ways to use what we have.

Although custom one-shot scenarios are fun, what I actually mean is just more modes, like a patrol mode, or a exploratory mode, or a way to make progression, like a digitally tracked campaign-tournament account where your pilots accumulate more fame or minor bonuses

53 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

or a way to make progression

One idea I think would be cool are "Zero to Hero" pilots that are no-name/in-game inventions character-wise that could GUAL from game to game.

Like, they start at I1. If they live, they go to I2 and get an elite slot. If they live again, they go to I3 and add a special ability. Then maybe a better special ability, or more mod slots, or something. If they get shot down, they lose a level or just stay the same.

Create a few piltos like this for each faction, and toss them together as the "Earn Your Wings" pack.

And, some canon characters could fit this bill nicely: Luke Skywalker: Tatooine Farmboy/Rebel Recruit/Commander Skywalker/Jedi Knight, for example.

I mean, obviously this is only for scenario/campaign play, but it would be a fun official mechanic for players to then DIY with.

50 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

One idea I think would be cool are "Zero to Hero" pilots that are no-name/in-game inventions character-wise that could GUAL from game to game.

Like, they start at I1. If they live, they go to I2 and get an elite slot. If they live again, they go to I3 and add a special ability. Then maybe a better special ability, or more mod slots, or something. If they get shot down, they lose a level or just stay the same.

Create a few piltos like this for each faction, and toss them together as the "Earn Your Wings" pack.

And, some canon characters could fit this bill nicely: Luke Skywalker: Tatooine Farmboy/Rebel Recruit/Commander Skywalker/Jedi Knight, for example.

I mean, obviously this is only for scenario/campaign play, but it would be a fun official mechanic for players to then DIY with.

Back when I first got into the game, my friend and I discovered HOTAC and wanted to make our own house rules and we came up with a similar system to this... but we never got very far with it since he started a new job and his free time was minimal at best. ANYWAY, what we discovered is that this kind of XP system really only works co-cooperatively, other wise, each player is just going to focus SQUARELY on the opposing "main character" ship to prevent them from gaining XP and advancing.

The system we started to work on was the Officer system. Here, the ships on the board are meant to be like watching a digital read out on a screen. The better you do, the more XP YOU get, which allows you to add an extra ship, upgrade a ship with extra weapons, to a better pilot, chassis or all of the above. Eventually, I wanted to get to a point where you could create an ace. Name the ace, pick the chassis and pick the special ability OR create a new one as long as it wasn't complete overkill. I was working on a branching campaign that would mix things up where certain missions would dictate what ships you HAD to fly, but depending on your personal XP rank, you had X amount of points to upgrade them and other missions where your rank allowed you access to huge ships. One mission I CLEARLY remember was a inspired from either the X-Wing or TIE Fighter video game where the Rebel player was testing an E-Wing prototype and had to fly around destroying drones and after 2 drones were destroyed, the Imperial player had the option of bringing in a Gozanti with docked TIE Interceptors OR could hyper in TIE Defenders with the goal of disabling or destroying the prototypes... but they had to be quick before the Rebel Player's reinforcements came into play...

It... REALLY got involved and had SEVERAL branching outcomes depending on the results. I remember buying extra play mats because one possible scenario involved both sides having a MASSIVE reinforcement surge and required a 6x6 play area...

5 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

One idea I think would be cool are "Zero to Hero" pilots that are no-name/in-game inventions character-wise that could GUAL from game to game.

Like, they start at I1. If they live, they go to I2 and get an elite slot. If they live again, they go to I3 and add a special ability. Then maybe a better special ability, or more mod slots, or something. If they get shot down, they lose a level or just stay the same.

Create a few piltos like this for each faction, and toss them together as the "Earn Your Wings" pack.

And, some canon characters could fit this bill nicely: Luke Skywalker: Tatooine Farmboy/Rebel Recruit/Commander Skywalker/Jedi Knight, for example.

I mean, obviously this is only for scenario/campaign play, but it would be a fun official mechanic for players to then DIY with.

Thats a GREAT idea. And simple!
Though, I think you'd progress to I6 a bit too fast. I have a system that works like this, except it takes a few games to go up initiative levels.

Whats GUAL?

4 hours ago, Kehl_Aecea said:

stuff

yeah. I made a version that is in between what you and Darth Meanie described.

You get points for participating in battle and earning kills. And you can spend them, like:
Go up to the next Init level X: Pay X * 2 points.

I think I'm going to steal Darth Meanie's, if you die, you go down a level until you hit where you started at. Right now, we have a relatively messy system of ejecting, board-fleeing, and repairing and its honestly fun and decently balanced but also a mess to keep track of.

If there's interest, I will post this system soon along with a campaign path for the forumites to play thru. However the campaign system by itself is a generic system-shell you can load any scenario idea into, or just play normal matches with progression and fleeing/ejecting.

3 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

Thats a GREAT idea. And simple!
Though, I think you'd progress to I6 a bit too fast. I have a system that works like this, except it takes a few games to go up initiative levels.

Whats GUAL?

Go Up A Level.

As @Kehl_Aecea points out, your hero is a pretty strong target, so I think it might be harder than you suppose.

9 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

One idea I think would be cool are "Zero to Hero" pilots that are no-name/in-game inventions character-wise that could GUAL from game to game.

Like, they start at I1. If they live, they go to I2 and get an elite slot. If they live again, they go to I3 and add a special ability. Then maybe a better special ability, or more mod slots, or something. If they get shot down, they lose a level or just stay the same.

Create a few piltos like this for each faction, and toss them together as the "Earn Your Wings" pack.

And, some canon characters could fit this bill nicely: Luke Skywalker: Tatooine Farmboy/Rebel Recruit/Commander Skywalker/Jedi Knight, for example.

I mean, obviously this is only for scenario/campaign play, but it would be a fun official mechanic for players to then DIY with.

So, basically, an official HotAC Campaign?

1 hour ago, drail14me said:

So, basically, an official HotAC Campaign?

Sure.

Other than the cards would be new pilots, and would have pre-designed abilities not chosen by the player (for better balance), would not require co-op play, would not be tied to a specific campaign, would not need an AI system, would possibly be tournament legal as single pilots, would probably not change chassis when GUAL, and would actually be an official product, they would be just like a HotAC Campaign.

Except so different it actually seems like a new stand-alone idea.

7 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

Go Up A Level.

As @Kehl_Aecea points out, your hero is a pretty strong target, so I think it might be harder than you suppose.

I’ve had the opposite experience. Generally I’m the strongest player and things tend to snowball hard if accumulation is too easy.

I’ve also been on the losing side a few times and wow having to fight uphill against even more powerful ships against a strong opponent isn’t fun it’s discouraging

(I guess the competitive players like tourneys more, I prefer not)

anyway hence why why I make my progressions very slow

1 hour ago, Blail Blerg said:

I’ve had the opposite experience. Generally I’m the strongest player and things tend to snowball hard if accumulation is too easy.

I’ve also been on the losing side a few times and wow having to fight uphill against even more powerful ships against a strong opponent isn’t fun it’s discouraging

Well, in my vision of this idea, each Leveled-Up pilot is a prebuilt pilot card that you would graduate to as a "perk." OTOH, as a prebuilt card, the pilot would be costed appropriately for it's toughness/ability. So nothing is really snowballing. . .you are still playing with 200 points while getting the "privilege" of showing you won last game.

More like the idea of "Yeah, eventually you can fly Baron Soontir Fel, but you have to earn it. Today, you're playing with Recruit Soontir Fel, back in his Academy days. If you win, tomorrow can play Fight Leader Soontir Fel." And so on. It's not that the I6 Fel is unbalanced as a card (or allow you to have more points because you're not scaling the points of the pilot up), you just can't table him right out the gate.

And maybe in stand-alone tournament play, any of the 3 versions of Fel are legit for a list. But "Progressive Fel" can become a neat game mechanic, especially with groups that meet up regularly. Players that routinely meet at the same FLGS could have a bulletin board showing what "version" they are on, as sort of a non-scored win/loss tracker.

On 8/4/2019 at 10:19 AM, Squark said:

The one thing conspicuously missing from the card packs (aside from more pilots) was one for new players to get all the generic upgrade cards from the conversion kit. As is, a new player has to go diving through each and everyexpansion to get important cards like Proton Torpedoes, Perceptive Copilot, or Fire Control System.

Or they could just ask people. I just inventoried my collection: I have 700+ upgrade cards extra (i.e., not counting the ones I put aside, which come out to 300+).

1 minute ago, Darth Meanie said:

But "Progressive Fel" can become a neat game mechanic.

Hey now! No need to bring politics into it!

22 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

Hey now! No need to bring politics into it!

It's a little known fact that the Baron's middle name is actually Soontir and he used to sell repulsorlift insurance before going to the Academy. . .

6 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

It's a little known fact that the Baron's middle name is actually Soontir and he used to sell repulsorlift insurance before going to the Academy. . .

Ah, ok. I was just concerned that the final evolution would be deciding if you wanted Progressive Fel or Anarchist Fel or Feminist Fel or...

23 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

MORE WAYS TO USE SHIPS AND PIECES WE ALREADY HAVE IN NEW WAYS.

This. Official variants for races/hazard courses, Tower defense, Boss Rush, All vs. One, Co-Op, Campaign... The components are awesome, the rules are solid. Get more gameplay out of them! Possibilities are aplently.

On 8/4/2019 at 1:15 PM, takfar said:

An official co-op campaign, HOTAC style.

That's about it.

FFG has really missed the boat on this. I know several people who are not interested at all in 1on1 tourny play, but do like flying X-Wing. I would not have invested so much in ships if I had not found HOTAC. Why FFG has ignored this gold mine is mystifying. While an app would be great to go with it, their performance with the 2.0 app makes me very leary of trying any other app of theirs.

15 minutes ago, Wolfshead said:

FFG has really missed the boat on this. I know several people who are not interested at all in 1on1 tourny play, but do like flying X-Wing. I would not have invested so much in ships if I had not found HOTAC. Why FFG has ignored this gold mine is mystifying.

You know, it could be as simple as FFG having a very hard time coming up with a good, workable co-op campaign than doesn't share so much in common with Josh Derksen's genius HotAC that they (for a couple of possible reasons) don't want to risk it.

For epic play I would like squadron perks. For example if you run 3 Gold squadron members (named or generic) in a flight one ship can reroll 1 dice when targeting huge ships. Small buffs can add a lot flavor and identity to your fleet.

The flight leader card kind of does this but not to the extent that I would like.

For new players I wish they had box sets like agent of strife that included a damage deck templates and range rulers. Maybe call them advanced starters.