21 minutes ago, Schu81 said:

Well, I understand that a lot of people disagree with me, but maybe I didnt explain my main points properly.

1. I would love my ships to do something cool, not just focus every round. Being able to reposition or something like that (Plus focus).

2. I always try to minimize dice variance. I believe in statistics and dont really want to rely on luck all that much. Trying to minimize the luck factor is good listbuilding in my oppinion. Otherwise you could always just roll dice, without modificators. That doesnt mean I want anything overpowered. Of course things should be balanced and weil priced.

3. Predator Upgrade was just an example. How can it be OP, if every faction can use it? There has to be a reasonable price for it to avoid spamming, but it could bring some more interesting combinations to the table.

Not just Wedge or Luke.

1) Add a ship to your list that can coordinate or add Squad Leader. It'll open up your options a ton.

2) Target lock?

30 minutes ago, Schu81 said:

2. I always try to minimize dice variance. I believe in statistics and dont really want to rely on luck all that much. Trying to minimize the luck factor is good listbuilding in my oppinion. Otherwise you could always just roll dice, without modificators. That doesnt mean I want anything overpowered. Of course things should be balanced and weil priced.

You might look into chess. Zero variance. Zero luck factor. Perfectly balanced.

29 minutes ago, Schu81 said:

Well, I understand that a lot of people disagree with me, but maybe I didnt explain my main points properly.

1. I would love my ships to do something cool, not just focus every round. Being able to reposition or something like that (Plus focus) .

1. That’s why we have ship abilities, linked actions, and so many interesting new mechanics, right? If anything, 2.0 has far more competitive and interesting ships and choices than 1.0 ever had. There is a little more variance, but I’m ok with that.

46 minutes ago, Squark said:

While a general increase in randomness can help the underdog to a point, it's often unsatisfying. I'm not saying dice don't have their place in the game, but for every "Great Shot, kid, that was one in a million!" point where randomness creates an exciting and memorable turning point, there's several games where the dice are too hot or too cold and nobody gets to have fun. It doesn't help that variance reduction is not evenly available, either.

Well, sometimes in Magic your 60-card deck gives you all the wrong cards at all the wrong times, and you're out of life before deck ever gels. But that's just. . .games. Trying to fix that is how you wind up with non-variance 1`.0.

Also, once I learned to look for it, I've realized that hot and cold dice are really an illusion. I have an easy example from just last week:

I had 2 T-70s with 1 Hull each vs. Dooku with 5 Hull. Snap shot Dooku for 2 crits and a hit; my opponent elected to spend his focus to avoid the crit, with the (statically supported) notion that a 4-die R1 attack against a 1 HP ship would succeed. His dice went "cold" when he rolled 2 blacks and 2 eyeballs that can no longer be focused. He was counter attacked by the now surviving T-70, and then Init killed by the other T-70 at the beginning of the turn, losing the game.

Cold dice?? Sorta. . .cuz he dipped 'em in ice-water with a mis-spent Focus.

38 minutes ago, Schu81 said:

3. Predator Upgrade was just an example.

I was teasing; no hard feelings. 😁

But, overall, my general feeling with you OP is that most of what you miss are the things 2.0 intentionally fixed.

I have never really viewed 2.0 as anything more than an entirely new game based on something you think you knew.

11 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

You are at the early moments of Xwing 2.0 .

And this, big time.

The game is much smaller than it once was, and each individual faction is a LOT smaller, thanks to the (very smart) notion of faction-locking upgrades.

While it can feeling like the Rebels and Imperials are getting forgotten, the game is in fact growing at a break-neck pace. We have had 5 waves of ships in a year, cards packs, and a whole new way to play non-standard XWM.

Y'all jumped into the pool right when they started adding water. I'm getting in now when it's half-full. By next year, things look to be going swimmingly.

21 minutes ago, direweasel said:

My advice to that person would be "Be the change you want to see."

By that I mean take some leadership and set stuff up. I was in a similar environment, but was able to sell a few people on a "Last Man Standing" rules set. I presented it at first as a good way to introduce new people to the game, since you only have to keep track of one ship, but it's since spread so that we play that fairly frequently, even when there are no new people around at all.

For those who aren't familiar, it's very simple. You get one small or medium ship, 80 points or less, and put up to 8 people on a single 3x3 map. No shooting first round, 2 points for each ship you destroy, -1 for dying. Most points wins, IE you get a bonus for being the "Last Man Standing", but just flying around avoiding combat is discouraged too. Only other restriction is no Lone Wolf, since it would always apply. I always have a few pre-made for new players so they don't have to dig into list building, with iconic ships and pilots that anybody even moderately familiar with SW would know. It would also be really easy to use the quickbuild cards to do the same thing.

Once I convinced them of how fun that was, they were a bit more flexible when I debuted other alternate play styles. Now we throw down Mario Kart and Hunger Games sometimes, and once I get all the Trench Run bits, (which I'm close!) we'll do that too.

Again, it sounds fun, but keep in mind that not everyone has such an accommodating group. By all means, talk to the group about it, but some players are so set on tournaments that they absolutely refuse to play any other format, and if those are the only sorts of players at your local game store, you're just flat out-of-luck.

1 hour ago, Schu81 said:

Well, I understand that a lot of people disagree with me, but maybe I didnt explain my main points properly.

1. I would love my ships to do something cool, not just focus every round. Being able to reposition or something like that (Plus focus).

2. I always try to minimize dice variance. I believe in statistics and dont really want to rely on luck all that much. Trying to minimize the luck factor is good listbuilding in my oppinion. Otherwise you could always just roll dice, without modificators. That doesnt mean I want anything overpowered. Of course things should be balanced and weil priced.

3. Predator Upgrade was just an example. How can it be OP, if every faction can use it? There has to be a reasonable price for it to avoid spamming, but it could bring some more interesting combinations to the table.

Not just Wedge or Luke.

So you want to double reposition, double modded ships? Well yeah that's OP and not fun.

On the totally unrelated note, have you considered Republic Jedis

51 minutes ago, direweasel said:

You might look into chess. Zero variance. Zero luck factor. Perfectly balanced.

*deep breath* I realize you probably didn't mean anything, but, "If you hate randomness so much, play chess," is a hugely reductionist argument. It's a snide strawman argument that shuts down discussion instead of looking at a nuanced issue and exchanging ideas. Like I said, I don't think you were trying to pick a fight, but realize that if you'd said that to my face, my eyes would have rolled so hard I'd be getting a look at the inside of my head.

Right, so let me elaborate a little. Variance is not bad by any means. It's simply a tool in a game designer's arsenal. Good implementations of variance create diverse experiences which force interesting choices. Bad variance mechanics just rob players of agency. To give you an example;

-The critical hit deck is an example of variance done right. There's not too much difference in the power of a critical effect, but how you react to a particular critical hit card varies wildly. This creates a decision point that forces both players to readjust their plans.

-The original 1.0 crit deck was an example of poor variance. A fair number of the crits were harmless to ships, so the power of a crit varied wildly between games. Sometimes a pilot lost multiple expensive upgrades and/or abilities, sometimes a decimator had its agility reduced to -1, and still got to roll 2 green dice at range 3 behind an obstacle.

45 minutes ago, Flurpy said:

Predator Upgrade was just an example. How can it be OP, if every faction can use it? There has to be a reasonable price for it to avoid spamming, but it could bring some more interesting combinations to the table.

It's not OP because only some people can use it; it's OP because it makes all the other talents junk in comparison. Do you remember 1st edition? How much did you use cool hand, adrenaline rush, marksmanship, lightning reflexes, wired, elusiveness, daredevil, expose, opportunist, decoy, wingman, intimidation, juke, outmaneuver? Compare that to how often you used the big four: Predator, Expertise, Push the Limit, and Veteran Instincts. They really just rendered all the other talents worthless because of the raw efficiency they offered.

Actually, it was one of many reasons why talent-less ships were never used at the end of 1.0: the difference between a ship that can take one and a ship that can't is just night-and-day.

If you want those effects now, you have to use skill . You can have passive focus modification with the force, it just costs more than Expertise did and it's more limited in application. You can have passive rerolls with Fire Control Systems or Predator, it just requires planning your maneuvers carefully or following the same ship longer than you might want to. You can have high initiative or double-reposition, but you'll be limited in the pilots you can choose; you can't just staple them to every ship like you could in 1.0. In fact, Darth Vader with FCS and Afterburners has all four of those qualities: High initiative, double-reposition, passive re-roll, passive focus mods. But each of those is limited by how you play them, and he's actually fairly fragile so messing up with him gets you in trouble.

When you can make a freighter work like an ace, what's the point of an ace ship anymore? That's why the end of 1.0 was riddled with large-base ships; there wasn't a meaningful distinction like we have now. You could take a Lothal Rebel, give it Engine Upgrade and coordinate it from Fenn Rau, then put Maul and Ezra on it for full passive mods. You could take Dash, give him push the limit and engine upgrade and just boost-roll around the board dodging all arcs and throwing 4 double-modded dice with his crew. And the list goes on.

The result of 2.0 is that there are more diverse lists and less broken combos. Sure you're not going to find that treasure trove of insane combos like Timewalk Assajj or Dengaroo or Ghost/Fenn, but neither will your opponent , so instead you are going to have a meaningful game with anything you play or anything you play against. You'll be rewarded for playing well or punished for playing poorly.

And believe it or not, there are combos you can pull off that are super crazy if you really try. Take this:

Dace Bonearm (34)
Fearless (3)
4-LOM (2)
Conner Nets (6)
Electronic Baffle (2)
Static Discharge Vanes (8)
Moldy Crow (18)

I mean sure it's 73 points, but look what he can do! He lands at R1 of a ship, attacks with expertise, denies its defensive focus with 4-LOM, passes off an ion token with SDV, triggers his ability to pass off two more ions, ionizing the large ship on top of whatever damage he deals, and THEN at the end of the round he baffles away the ion, drops the conner net and hard turns away, forcing 3 ions on the large ship for a second turn in a row! And that's not to mention the other 127 points you can fit in with him. Or try this:

Hera Syndulla (VCX-100) (73)
Intimidation (3)
Advanced Sensors (10)
"Zeb" Orrelios (1)
Saw Gerrera (9)

Jan Ors (43)
Moldy Crow (18)

Phoenix Squadron Pilot (30)
Intimidation (3)
Proton Rockets (7)

Total: 197

Jan Ors just has to keep Hera in one of two huge arcs and can hang out far away from the action. The A-Wing blocks the defending ship, then Hera does an AS target lock and then rams from the side (pretty easy with her pilot ability). Jan Ors uses her ability so Hera has 6 red dice with a target lock. Those 4 eyeballs she ends up with turn into a massive pile of crits from Saw Gerrera. And then the defender doesn't get any dice because the two intimidations stack on top of each other. That crit train could easily destroy an X-Wing in one attack. Of course, maybe the A-Wing missed, so they still have a defense die or two. Maybe they survived the first attack. Well then your A-Wing uses those prockets for a juicy 5 attack dice!

The combos are there, they just don't work unless you're willing to put in the effort to make them gel just right. They don't just auto-work, because that's how you get an auto-win. You have to block, land bullseyes, dodge arcs, and do the hard things. But when you do, you can make an insane combo come out to pay off massively!

5 minutes ago, ClassicalMoser said:

I mean sure it's 73 points, but look what he can do! He lands at R1 of a ship, attacks with expertise, denies its defensive focus with 4-LOM, passes off an ion token with SDV, triggers his ability to pass off two more ions, ionizing the large ship on top of whatever damage he deals, and THEN at the end of the round he baffles away the ion, drops the conner net and hard turns away, forcing 3 ions on the large ship for a second turn in a row ! And that's not to mention the other 127 points you can fit in with him.

Sadly no. Due to the timing on Connor Nets and the clearing of Ion tokens all 6 tokens would be removed after the target ship's activation completed. Nice shout out to Alex's (? I'm probably getting them mixed up.) Ace's High build though.

For ref:

Connor Nets: After a ship overlaps or moves through this device, it detonates. When this device detonates, the ship suffers 1 [hit] damage and gains 3 ion tokens.

Ion rules, sub 4: After the ship finishes this activation, it removes all of its ion tokens.

2 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

Well, sometimes in Magic your 60-card deck gives you all the wrong cards at all the wrong times, and you're out of life before deck ever gels. But that's just. . .games. Trying to fix that is how you wind up with non-variance 1`.0.

Also, once I learned to look for it, I've realized that hot and cold dice are really an illusion. I have an easy example from just last week:

I had 2 T-70s with 1 Hull each vs. Dooku with 5 Hull. Snap shot Dooku for 2 crits and a hit; my opponent elected to spend his focus to avoid the crit, with the (statically supported) notion that a 4-die R1 attack against a 1 HP ship would succeed. His dice went "cold" when he rolled 2 blacks and 2 eyeballs that can no longer be focused. He was counter attacked by the now surviving T-70, and then Init killed by the other T-70 at the beginning of the turn, losing the game.

Cold dice?? Sorta. . .cuz he dipped 'em in ice-water with a mis-spent Focus.

A single instance in which a player takes a gamble with resources is not really what I was referring to. And frankly, I'm not certain your opponent made the "wrong" decision anyway. (All but) guaranteeing Dooku would survive the other T-70's shot was by no means a bad decision.

I'm not talking about a single instance of the dice not doing what you expect, but the occasional game which beats the bell curve. A different dice system could reduce such games (Armada does a good job of this), but I'm not sure such a change would have gone over well with players, anyway.

58 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:

Sadly no. Due to the timing on Connor Nets and the clearing of Ion tokens all 6 tokens would be removed after the target ship's activation completed. Nice shout out to Alex's (? I'm probably getting them mixed up.) Ace's High build though.

For ref:

Connor Nets: After a ship overlaps or moves through this device, it detonates. When this device detonates, the ship suffers 1 [hit] damage and gains 3 ion tokens.

Ion rules, sub 4: After the ship finishes this activation, it removes all of its ion tokens.

I'm... gonna cry now

But combine with a couple of Ion Torp Fangs or ICT Kavil + something and you're still good.

People are gonna disagree with me a lot about this point, but: the part that's actually interesting about this game to me (and different form other games), is the emphasis on precise movement, flight restrictions and flying with dials. Not wombo-comboing during list building/card combos. The game is the worst to me when during flight you have an obscene amount of options that are generally equally good, low amounts of flying/dials/ships you have to take care of (sorry it does take less skill to fly than a larger group of ships).

7 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

People are gonna disagree with me a lot about this point, but: the part that's actually interesting about this game to me (and different form other games), is the emphasis on precise movement, flight restrictions and flying with dials. Not wombo-comboing during list building/card combos. The game is the worst to me when during flight you have an obscene amount of options that are generally equally good, low amounts of flying/dials/ships you have to take care of (sorry it does take less skill to fly than a larger group of ships).

I mean, I guess I'll take the bait? Mostly just to give my opinion. . .

IHMO, the Flight Path System (which is essentially what you are describing) is nothing more than that: a system/mechanic for allowing the parts of the game to interact. It's not actually the game itself. Granted, it is a novel and enjoyable part of the whole, but to rarify it as the end-all-be-all of XWM makes the game nothing more than a sophisticated hour-long catch-me-if-you-can.

To wit, I think this is one of the fallacies of Perfect Balance as a worthy goal. It's not. If all pieces interact with each other on the same level, and there is no stratification of quality/choice, you have nothing left but a fairly vanilla movement game. IMHO, the closer you get to Perfect Balance, the closer you get to boring, because no pre-game choices matter, and victory boils down to which player makes the first movement mistake.

Basically, if there is no wombo-comboing, we may as well have Red Team vs. Blue Team generically chasing each other around trying to line up an R1 Bullseye. And while I would find that fun once or even a half-dozen times, it would ultimately devolve into something about as interesting as a riveting game of Candyland.

1 hour ago, Darth Meanie said:

Basically, if there is no wombo-comboing, we may as well have Red Team vs. Blue Team generically chasing each other around trying to line up an R1 Bullseye. And while I would find that fun once or even a half-dozen times, it would ultimately devolve into something about as interesting as a riveting game of Candyland.

If there's no comboing, why would Bullseye matter?

I mean, I don't get how anyone could think of 1st Ed as a more varied list building experience given how flubbered the balance was

So instead, let's focus on ships that do more than just "move and focus", which is just about EVERY ship when utilized to the max but let's just talk Ito "combos"

If your love is upgrade combos, you get yourself a force user. Full stop. And I don't mean Luke, I mean get thee to the prequels and pick up an Aethersprite or Sith infiltrator.

Aethersprite force + fine tuned + ability gives you SO MANY OPTIONS every round based on resource management alone.

Meanwhile, the Sith is just a potential bloat of upgrade cards with the additional ability to roll/cloak and pack all sorts of zaniness.

The Jedi and sith are as "first edition" you can get in an actually well designed game. They got action options and upgrades galore, but they actually pay for them, actually have to worry about firing arcs, and can't actually sit invincibly on infinite damage mitigation/regen.

All in all, a MASSIVE improvement for everyone

15 hours ago, JJ48 said:

If there's no comboing, why would Bullseye matter?

M12L Kimogila

On 8/23/2019 at 2:34 AM, Schu81 said:

Hello Community!

Actually, XWing has been my favorite game for years, but somehow the magic (or force) is not as strong anymore.

I have got a feeling, that I have got far less options to create strong lists.

To me, list building is an important part of the game and that's where the fun begins. Finding great lists is playing XWing, before ACTUALLY playing it.

Unfortunately, most upgrade cards are not as strong anymore and FFG tries to keep the pilot abilites rather weak since 2.0 dropped. I originally thought this was a good idea, but somehow this just gives me less list building options than before.

Being the "Rebel guy" in my local community, I'd love to get some nice goodies for my ships.

But there is hardly any new stuff coming out for the old factions.

Yes, there are new factions with new ships... but I can't use their stuff for the most part, because the powerful things are restricted to a certain faction.

My favorite upgrade card in XWing 1.0 used to be the "Predator" skill. It was awesome

You could put that on almost any ship (just like an Auzituck for example) and make it a decent fighter, which could use it's main ability (reinforce) while still being able to modify attack dice.

There is no such thing anymore. You have to put a force user on a ship instead, which is far more difficult and expensive (unique card, crew or gunner slow required).

Apart from that, I really miss discovering and using some really strong synnergy effects between pilots and upgrade cards.

Why is there no Ten Numb with Mangler Cannon anymore? I am not mentioning Horton Salm and TLT here, because TLTs were really really bad for the game in general. But I think you get the idea, of what I mean.

Yes, a lot of things are much better now... for example the fact, that the arc matters a lot more.

But it's difficult enough to get and keep things in arc, so why are the really good cards bullseye only (predator)?

Why are there so few great upgrade cards, that taking another ship instead of any upgrades at all seems to be a good choice nowadays?

IT feels like you want some old, super easy to use and broken combo. Because there's plenty of cards that are still very good.

Crackshot is one of the best card in the game. An extra damage, that's not action dependant, for only 1 point? (0.5 point in V1 terms). And anyone can take it! If that's not strong enough for you, what is?

And if any one option is too strong, it actually kills list building. Why have anything else exist in the same slot if one card just dominate the choice by far? (In V1, it used to be PTL, VI, or expertise. Any other card was basically not worth existing. In v2, proton torps at 9 points were the same thing, etc.)

On 8/23/2019 at 2:58 PM, Squark said:

*deep breath* I realize you probably didn't mean anything, but, "If you hate randomness so much, play chess," is a hugely reductionist argument. It's a snide strawman argument that shuts down discussion instead of looking at a nuanced issue and exchanging ideas. Like I said, I don't think you were trying to pick a fight, but realize that if you'd said that to my face, my eyes would have rolled so hard I'd be getting a look at the inside of my head.

That was not my intent. I was trying to make the OP think about why you prioritize reducing variance so much, and what the logical conclusion of that might be. There's a reason variance exists in games, and it's to keep the game from being utterly predictable. Chess is a great game (it would have to be, to still be here after this long), and I do enjoy it, but at a certain point, it's just not fun anymore. I know the grandmasters would disagree with me, but to me, it lacks replayability because after I've played the same person a given number of times, I lose interest in playing them further because I know their tendencies and how things are likely to go.

There is also definitely such thing as too much variance. Otherwise, "coin-flip" would be a wonderful and interesting game played and enjoyed by billions.

The "sweet spot" is somewhere in the middle. You want a game that has a compelling theme, and is based on some level of skill and familiarity with the rules and components, but that still has some way of showing the randomness that exists in nature, especially in competitive battle type games. It doesn't have to be dice, it could be a card draw or some other way of introducing unpredictability. But there needs to be something. People can reasonably disagree on where that "sweet spot" lies, but most would accept the fact that it exists.

That's what I was really trying to go for.

I just recall the days of when 1st Ed was terrible (to most people). The combos made it so that variance was almost eliminated with so much dice Modifications. It was absurd. Double nodded was the norm and adding in extra hits was also the norm. It was horrible! You never had any variance! It sucked the fun out of the game for most people.

Re-read what the developers said they were going to do for 2nd Ed and you will see what many people started to hate about the game of 1st Ed X-wing. I do realize that there were a number of people who preferred it that way, but they are the minority. I have no sympathy for them as the game was circling the toilet.

3 hours ago, heychadwick said:

I just recall the days of when 1st Ed was terrible (to most people). The combos made it so that variance was almost eliminated with so much dice Modifications. It was absurd. Double nodded was the norm and adding in extra hits was also the norm. It was horrible! You never had any variance! It sucked the fun out of the game for most people.

Re-read what the developers said they were going to do for 2nd Ed and you will see what many people started to hate about the game of 1st Ed X-wing. I do realize that there were a number of people who preferred it that way, but they are the minority. I have no sympathy for them as the game was circling the toilet.

I think it wasn't just the lack of variance; it was the lack of variance in a game clearly designed to have variance. The problem wasn't that there were some cards to help control variance; it was that some lists all but removed variance completely.

The other thing: what most folks call "variance reduction" isn't just about variance. It's usually about increasing the average result .

That's why we saw Expertise/Fire Control System on Quickdraw, rather than Accuracy Corrector.

It's not that 1st Ed removed variance

It's that Xwing has a limited number of rolls as is, especially compared to other miniature games. Less rolls equals a higher margins of error, meaning FAR greater liklihood of deviating from the average.

Basically what this meant was guaranteed defenses screwing you over.

ex: Palp Soontir eating like three shots before taking damage. If you whiffed JUST ONE ROLL against him (or if his greens spiked), you got ****** that round and most likely got screwed out of the game.

So: more mods with few rolls = far greater impact of variance. This was made WORSE by the spamming of two-three ship lists.

More rolls = closer to average expected values of the course of a game.

Less mods generally equals more rolls required to kill a thing

.... generally (stupid greens)