So it's been over a year since everyone (well, except Brazil ) had access to 2.0. Reflecting back on the year it's been fun, and we've found lots of silly and ridiculous things to fight about so I'm assuming that means that we have nothing bigger to be mad about and thus the game must be in a healthy place. But still, there's always things that annoy people, and more importantly, things that could be done better and fun new stuff that could be added.

So my question is, if you were designing X-Wing Third Edition, what would be some things you'd do?

Not saying 3.0 is needed, but there'll probably be one at some point if the game is successful, right? Most games do go through multiple editions. What are some things you want from 3.0 in five years or however long it is until it's here?

I think most of the answers to this will take a few more years to discover.

Might pan out before the hypothetical version transition in 5 or so years, but not having Fearless as the main/only faction defining talent for S&V is a strong one in my book. 3 points if you want to try and be very cagey (and risk being booted from a tournament) with how you implement it. 5-16 points if you want to offset the downside and aren't flying Serrisu or a Mando Ubermensch. 😠

20 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:

Might pan out before the hypothetical version transition in 5 or so years, but not having Fearless as the main/only faction defining talent for S&V is a strong one in my book. 3 points if you want to try and be very cagey (and risk being booted from a tournament) with how you implement it. 5-16 points if you want to offset the downside and aren't flying Serrisu or a Mando Ubermensch. 😠

I mean, that doesn't sound too different from Ruthless. Even at 1 point, it's...I can't find a good place to put it. The sequel era talents are far and away the best ones out there.

33 minutes ago, Parakitor said:

I mean, that doesn't sound too different from Ruthless. Even at 1 point, it's...I can't find a good place to put it. The sequel era talents are far and away the best ones out there.

Ruthless is a **** of allot better than Fearless thanks to the simultaneous fire rule. It is meant to take advantage of the hp of swarms or spongey support ships, which is supposedly the core of what the Empire military is, to push damage through. It fits the imperial spirit. The aversion to "giving" an opponent points as a possible result of Ruthless's use (due to half points or destroying your own ship) I think is where people step back from it.

As written Ruthless applies to any attack the ship it is on makes and does not require the ship paying the penalty (taking the hit to change the result) to be in any weapon arc, merely close. If you can shoot it and have a buddy at range 0-1 of the target Ruthless applies. Ruthless = Block or envelope and delete. If you position right you can effectively spread the "penalty" across multiple of your ships (a kind a Biggsish effect, keeping more guns on the table while you gain your bonus), or just burn down one.

Fearless is primary only, ship using it has to be effectively nose to nose, range 1 only. So be able to change 1 die to a hit during your attack while granting your opponent a bonus attack die... Without points invested over and above the 3 for Fearless on the ship using it or flying Serrisu or a Mando, the "risk/reward" = plain suicide. That the upgrade pushes Mandalorians as the defining aspect of S&V is just insult to injury... 😠 5+ points to equip unless flying Serrisu or a Mando (none of which, with a talent slot, are below 50 points bare).

Edit: That grumping aside, when's the next episode @Parakitor ???

I'll bite.

Move pretty much all the pre activation/maneuver actions to the system phase.

Supernatural reflexes, advanced sensors, etc at the same timing as decloak.

Objectives as part of the core experience.

Cannons would give you a bonus attack to use them and balanced accordingly.

3.0 huh?

hmmm

Okay, none of the models carry over. Same with the dials. Everything is new. Ships are 50% larger. Why? There are no longer pilot cards, but pilot minis which fit inside the model! Dials are gone. In their place we have movement dice! One has a number, the other has a bank, turn, or straight. Roll the two dice together and you do that speed and maneuver that comes up, though you get to choose if you want to go left or right if a turn or bank comes up. The play area is now on a 4x4 mat.

Epic doesn't and will never exist.

There are no more combat dice! Instead, each player has a green and red spinner! Flick the spinner and find out if you hit your target or evaded the attack!

Since upgrade cards seem to cause too much drama, each ship will have canonical stats and everything just raw damage. No status effects.

I'll edit this later when I think of more things to ruin the game with...

7 minutes ago, Kehl_Aecea said:

3.0 huh?

hmmm

Okay, none of the models carry over. Same with the dials. Everything is new. Ships are 50% larger. Why? There are no longer pilot cards, but pilot minis which fit inside the model! Dials are gone. In their place we have movement dice! One has a number, the other has a bank, turn, or straight. Roll the two dice together and you do that speed and maneuver that comes up, though you get to choose if you want to go left or right if a turn or bank comes up. The play area is now on a 4x4 mat.

Epic doesn't and will never exist.

There are no more combat dice! Instead, each player has a green and red spinner! Flick the spinner and find out if you hit your target or evaded the attack!

Since upgrade cards seem to cause too much drama, each ship will have canonical stats and everything just raw damage. No status effects.

I'll edit this later when I think of more things to ruin the game with...

You completely forgot to mention the blue/white/red color dice that determine if your maneuver causes/clears stress....

I would really like to have a true focused attack rule. On 1.0 and 2.0 focusing attacks to a single enemy ship simply means attacking it successively many times, this is not really focused fire. Furthermore, the defending ship would roll defense dice on each and every attack, we can hardly call this focused fire, it's more like a chain of attacks.

A true focused attack rule would mean all ships attack the target ship simultaneously in a single larger attack. I'm sure there are smarter people than myself that could come up with a better rule, but for example the combined attack could have attack die equal to the highest attack ship +1 die for each ship attacking with it. The defending ship would roll its usual green dice. Pilots with higher initiative could "wait" so as to sync with lower initiative pilots to perform a focused attack.

This would greatly enhance the emphasis placed on formation, squadrons and piloting skills. The game would shift from list-building into real flying.

3.0 will be hands-free.

That's right; no dials, no dice, no templates. Just amazing, vibrating Brownian goodness with Star Wars ships.

#1: hire some decent technical writers.

//

In general, perhaps learn lessons from other FFG games.

• Maybe multiple kinds of attack dice or defense dice. That's how most of their other games do it... Armada, Imperial Assault, Legion.
  • This allows more or less effective attacks and defenses on any given number of dice. Maybe something like an A-Wing could have 3 weaker dice, rather than 2 strong dice like a TIE Fighter.
• Maybe steal the Armada crit system. I'm not really an Armada player, but the normal effect is that the first damage card is dealt face-up, and the rest face down, regardless of how many crits are rolled. However, there are upgrade cards which allow you to substitute other critical effects.
  • For instance, maybe an Ion Cannon applies an Ionization crit, rather than how it currently works. Maybe Concussion Missiles do splash damage instead of doing a crit.

//

Also worth considering: elimination of initiative killing. I'd give a "destroyed" ship a condition that weakens their attacks, so there'd still be a value to being higher init. However, that'd go a long way towards making generics a lot more viable as mixed-in ships.

20 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

#1: hire some decent technical writers.

//

In general, perhaps learn lessons from other FFG games.

• Maybe multiple kinds of attack dice or defense dice. That's how most of their other games do it... Armada, Imperial Assault, Legion.
  • This allows more or less effective attacks and defenses on any given number of dice. Maybe something like an A-Wing could have 3 weaker dice, rather than 2 strong dice like a TIE Fighter.
• Maybe steal the Armada crit system. I'm not really an Armada player, but the normal effect is that the first damage card is dealt face-up, and the rest face down, regardless of how many crits are rolled. However, there are upgrade cards which allow you to substitute other critical effects.
  • For instance, maybe an Ion Cannon applies an Ionization crit, rather than how it currently works. Maybe Concussion Missiles do splash damage instead of doing a crit.

//

Also worth considering: elimination of initiative killing. I'd give a "destroyed" ship a condition that weakens their attacks, so there'd still be a value to being higher init. However, that'd go a long way towards making generics a lot more viable as mixed-in ships.

Yep. I feel like they did a pretty decent job with 2.0, but the one big swing and miss for me was not incorporating at least 1 more set of dice. Accuracy dice or ordnance dice, something like that.

I would like an atmospheric mode, but if you made it different enough it would probably have to be an entirely different game. Altitude, different maneuvers, etc.

1 hour ago, Hiemfire said:

Edit: That grumping aside, when's the next episode @Parakitor ???

We're shooting for this week, but we have a Hyperspace Trial on Saturday, too. So if you don't see an episode by Friday, expect a good one next week.

4 minutes ago, Parakitor said:

We're shooting for this week, but we have a Hyperspace Trial on Saturday, too. So if you don't see an episode by Friday, expect a good one next week.

Sweet. Looking forwards to it.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

ffs, people.

ffs.

I'll say also: almost seems like the thread had the wrong name.

If it was "ideas too big for 2.0" I think it gets the point across, musing about things that are probably too complicated to put into 2nd edition (for instance, splitting accuracy and damage, agility and resilience--an idea I generally think is bad, but I understand the impulse). However, that name doesn't convey a "2.0 is dead and we need 3.0" vibe that isn't really in the original post, but forum participants don't read...

Un-nerf turrets. Rotate actions are never frakking worth it.

and the ships with free rotates barely need it.

It'll be a flightsim video game with cool lootbox microtransactions with random content that makes it easier to win the more you pay instead of being a lame candyland board game for babies.

/s

Get rid of tractor beams. Change up the dice to get accuracy a la Armada. Change up deployment and add objectives a la Legion, though that's a street tough one. Mostly just the first two.

Get rid of gas clouds. Honestly, I dont think they add anything good for the game.

Accuracy/damage dice and Evasion/hull dice

I'd forgotten about this till this thread, could really play with weapon types. missiles and their to hit effects. spring to mind first but lots of stuff would be possible.

2 hours ago, Chetote said:

Get rid of gas clouds. Honestly, I dont think they add anything good for the game.

Agree and disagree - should remove the autothruster element to it and/or have a penalty for overlap. Possible risk of receiving 3 ions? That sounds good.

Maybe adopt the HotAC model... you cannot perform a range 3 attack obstructed by a gas cloud for LoS reasons, and there’s a risk of ionization for going over them. The AT element was/is garbage.

10 hours ago, Captain Lackwit said:

Un-nerf turrets. Rotate actions are never frakking worth it.

and the ships with free rotates barely need it.

Oh, I disagree, rotate turret is a good action that helps me keep ships in Y-wings ion turret arc.

Most of the time the arc is forward or sideways but in trying to avoid their arcs I often have to switch it to the other side or my rear arc.

If turreted ships had full 360 arcs it would be too easy, ir they'd be over priced.

If new attack and defense dice existed. What would they be like?

'Normal' Red Attack = 2 Blank, 2 Focus, 3 Hit, 1 Crit

'Accurate/Rapid Fire' Orange = 1 Blank, 1 Focus, 6 hits

'Innacurate/Powerful' Purple = 3 Blanks, 2 Focus, 3 Crits

Defense dice could also be done similarly.

'Normal' Green Defense = 3 Blank, 2 Focus, 3 Evade

Agile Blue Defense = 2 Blank, 2 Focus, 2 Evade, 1 Double Evade

Slower Yellow Defense = 4 Blank, 2 Focus, 2 Evade