Here's a big change that keeps surprising me:

MANY ships/pilots need little (one or two) to NO upgrade cards to be effective.

Combo-Wombo is no-longo!

2.0 is a different game. 7 factions. new mechanics. Force enhanced pilots. two formats. points adjustments ('fixes') every 6 months. re-structured tournaments/ways to qualify for top level events.

its been quite a roller coaster ride. you have probably arrived at a good time to jump in tbh.

I'v played since wave 1 of 1.0 but drifted away from the game towards the last 3 waves or so of 1.0 then made the decision to convert my scum into 2.0. Its been hard staying with just one faction but mostly the right decision for me.

The two points adjustments for 2.0 have hurt scum (but also other factions) with FFG attempting to create more balance across the factions. Depending on who you talk to different factions are in top3 but few would argue that imperials and republic are among the best factions right now (Force mods are really strong but not unbeatable).

17 hours ago, kyten44 said:

Hello old friends. I have not played x wing in over a year. Since before 2.0. And to be honest, i miss it. And am thinking about picking it up again. However, i am nevous about the changes from version 1 to 2. Am i going to be disappointed when my old ships or tactics dont work anymore? Basically, how is the learning curve? And does the game still feel alive and active?

Also, are the Imperials still the best? 😃 well that was a silly question. Of course they are!

I tried 2.0 and went back to 1.0. medium bases are the only real improvement.

1.0 was toys on the table with enough strategy to be fun, but ultimately it was a silly game where the dice made or broke your efforts and you had fun regardless.

2.0 is everything awful they added in the last waves of 1.0... its the tournament/powergamer aspects of the game with none of the casual fun. its designed to convince you its "balanced" and therefore a SERIOUS game where winning makes you a winner. 2.0 is really into the idea that more tokens and more complex interactions is more tactical or strategic, but it simply is not. . its the exact same game with the exact same problems, just you need a dumb app and you have to buy components a second time.

30 minutes ago, Vontoothskie said:

2.0 is really into the idea that more tokens and more complex interactions actually making choices during the game instead of just making a list and expecting it to work on its own is more tactical or strategic,

Fixed

50 minutes ago, Vontoothskie said:

2.0 is everything awful they added in the last waves of 1.0... its the tournament/powergamer aspects of the game with none of the casual fun. its designed to convince you its "balanced" and therefore a SERIOUS game where winning makes you a winner. 2.0 is really into the idea that more tokens and more complex interactions is more tactical or strategic, but it simply is not. . its the exact same game with the exact same problems, just you need a dumb app and you have to buy components a second time.

I guess I don’t see that at all.

In 1.0, especially late 1.0, you had a litany of cards that gave you outs for the mistakes you made or just relegated flying to not matter at all. You also had to have specific builds or else you could not win. Period.

2.0 makes everything viable - that gives you many choices and rewards good flying and a strategy that fits your lists strong points and avoids its weak areas.

12 minutes ago, ScummyRebel said:

I guess I don’t see that at all.

In 1.0, especially late 1.0, you had a litany of cards that gave you outs for the mistakes you made or just relegated flying to not matter at all. You also had to have specific builds or else you could not win. Period.

2.0 makes everything viable - that gives you many choices and rewards good flying and a strategy that fits your lists strong points and avoids its weak areas.

Much as I agree, I wouldn’t want to dogpile a true 1.0 holdout. I didn’t make the point very well in my original post, but the feel of certain ships is definitely different in 2.0. At the same time, it takes a very different approach to upgrades and card interactions—I’d argue it’s a better one overall, but it’s certainly different .

There are moments when I genuinely miss some of the wombo-combo BS of late 1.0. But then my goals as a player are probably different than some people’s. My only “meta” is me and my buddy. I never make it to tournaments, and I only get out to the game store maybe once per year. So in that sense, I had little objection to the game of buying the newest wave and ride herd on each other with the latest broken crap until the next wave came out.

I do think it’s ultimately better for the game to be more balanced and diverse, though. And I think that 2.0 is great for that. I guess the one thing that still genuinely bugs me is that the Z-95 doesn’t feel fun anymore in 2.0. Not that it was a powerhouse in 1.0, but I used to fly a lot of ‘em, and the thing just sucks now.

Also, the best change to happen in 2.0. The Galactic Republic. I can run Obi-Wan in a list, so...yeah. That wins.

18 minutes ago, FatherTurin said:

Also, the best change to happen in 2.0. The Galactic Republic. I can run Obi-Wan in a list, so...yeah. That wins.

The new factions are cool for sure. we were running that stuff in wave 5 of 1.0 though, as mels miniatures and house rules are your friend

2 hours ago, ScummyRebel said:

I guess I don’t see that at all.

In 1.0, especially late 1.0, you had a litany of cards that gave you outs for the mistakes you made or just relegated flying to not matter at all. You also had to have specific builds or else you could not win. Period.

2.0 makes everything viable - that gives you many choices and rewards good flying and a strategy that fits your lists strong points and avoids its weak areas.

all 1.0s problems are still there though. 2 dice attacks dont get through consistently enough to be useful, initiative is still king, and certain combos and ships still dominate...

the only difference is now casual players have a near impossible time of it. the App turned a casual game into 40k level neckbeardery. my wife plays about once a month, and almost always flies the squadron she painted up of her favorite O.T. ships. in 2.0 she got tired of trying to find what the idiotic points changes are each time, and mostly gets bored and plays xbox instead.

**** my entire 40k kill team group is former X-wing fanatics who abandoned the game when 2.0 got stupid. i mean when people think GW rules are better you know you got a problem

20 hours ago, kyten44 said:

And does the game still feel alive and active?

It of course depends on one's local community-scene, but the X-Wing bubble has seemingly burst (in my opinion) and the community feels like it's on the decline. While some local scenes report doing as well (or better) than they were doing at the tail-end of 1.0, others report a decline or death of their local scenes. Nationally, Gencon this year had about 50% of its seats for Day 1 and Day 2 still available, which is very unusual and is the first time in the game's history there have been empty seats, let alone so many.

While some familiar faces are still around on the tournament circuit, I can think of quite a few "household names" that have seemed to step back or retire from 2.0 X-Wing. During the course of playing tournaments in 1.0, I became close friends with about a dozen competitive X-Wing players. All but three of them have stopped playing (some never converted, some sold off their collections, some have converted but just don't make the time for X-Wing at the moment). Also worth noting that the Organized Play system is ridiculously confusing now, as they abandoned the straightforward "Kits, Store Champs, Regionals, Nationals, Continentals, System Opens, and Worlds" system that they once had... but I have no idea what was wrong with this clearly tiered system? The existence of semi-yearly points changes and multiple competitive formats doesn't help matters either, in my opinion, especially since the official X-Wing App was basically a dumpster fire on release and is still probably the least-preferred app option out there, which early in 2.0's OP Days didn't do anything to help persuade people to embrace it. On top of that, prize support for 2.0 has basically been garbage. At the few events I ran, I can barely give away the lame impossible-to-see metal tokens, and FB Sale/Trade groups are full of posts of people selling the 2.0 Prize stuff at rock bottom prices. In the early days o 1.0 X-Wing, the FFG Prize Support was coveted and you could flip a bag of Focus or Evade tokens for a pretty penny if one desired to help assuage travel/play costs, and people wanted the stuff and placing high enough to get it meant something. Having such limited and tone-deaf prize support hasn't done much to encourage players to turn out for events, either, sadly...

So, basically, you'll need to take the temperature of your usual local haunts to see how many people play and how often. Could be dead in your area, could be alive and well.

28 minutes ago, Vontoothskie said:

all 1.0s problems are still there though. 2 dice attacks dont get through consistently enough to be useful, initiative is still king, and certain combos and ships still dominate...

Yea, this is my basic take on 2.0 X-Wing as well. It's essentially "same sh**, different day." Like, they changed some things , yes, true. But they didn't change enough to really warrant a truly different feeling game. Linked actions are cool, the feel of some ships and their dials has been improved, some (but not all) degenerate stuff has been curtailed. But dice also have an even greater impact on the game's outcome than they did in 1.0 (since variance is harder to mitigate), and like of all my critiques of 1.0 I'm not sure "it needs to be more of a dice game" was one of them...

2 hours ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Yea, this is my basic take on 2.0 X-Wing as well. It's essentially "same sh**, different day." Like, they changed some things , yes, true. But they didn't change enough to really warrant a truly different feeling game. Linked actions are cool, the feel of some ships and their dials has been improved, some (but not all) degenerate stuff has been curtailed. But dice also have an even greater impact on the game's outcome than they did in 1.0 (since variance is harder to mitigate), and like of all my critiques of 1.0 I'm not sure "it needs to be more of a dice game" was one of them...

Force mods aka passive mods and high initiative ships that reposition have spammed the game and I don't think its a better game because of this.

Half points has an impact on tactics and ur less likely to table a list than u were in 1.0

I could list all the things I don't like about 2.0 and some of them would be different from 1.0 but agree that essentially x-wing 2.0 has some of the same shortcomings that 2.0 had. I still think 2.0 is a good game, I just don't think its as balanced as some say it is.

you could argue that the 'meta' is much more diverse in 2.0 but what would you expect with 7 factions? Diverse does not mean better, it just means more variety. powerful archetypes still exist in 2.0, there are just a. few more of them now.

1 hour ago, Vontoothskie said:

The new factions are cool for sure. we were running that stuff in wave 5 of 1.0 though, as mels miniatures and house rules are your friend

I think this is a bit unfair. You're comparing stock 2.0 to modified 1.0 to claim that 1.0 is better, when house rules could also fix the issues people have with 2.0.

1 hour ago, Vontoothskie said:

all 1.0s problems are still there though. 2 dice attacks dont get through consistently enough to be useful, initiative is still king, and certain combos and ships still dominate...

the only difference is now casual players have a near impossible time of it. the App turned a casual game into 40k level neckbeardery. my wife plays about once a month, and almost always flies the squadron she painted up of her favorite O.T. ships. in 2.0 she got tired of trying to find what the idiotic points changes are each time, and mostly gets bored and plays xbox instead.

**** my entire 40k kill team group is former X-wing fanatics who abandoned the game when 2.0 got stupid. i mean when people think GW rules are better you know you got a problem

I'm not sure how an app is supposed to have removed the casual aspect of the game, especially since even in 1.0, many people used an app to build their lists. And if you're sticking to casual games played with house rules, who cares if the official points change, as long as your group is fine with allowing people to keep running lists that were valid when they built them?

51 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Yea, this is my basic take on 2.0 X-Wing as well. It's essentially "same sh**, different day." Like, they changed some things , yes, true. But they didn't change enough to really warrant a truly different feeling game. Linked actions are cool, the feel of some ships and their dials has been improved, some (but not all) degenerate stuff has been curtailed. But dice also have an even greater impact on the game's outcome than they did in 1.0 (since variance is harder to mitigate), and like of all my critiques of 1.0 I'm not sure "it needs to be more of a dice game" was one of them...

I guess one of the reasons I like 2.0 better is that I did think it needed to be more of a dice game. In 1.0, I often wondered why we even had dice when half the lists I faced didn't care what the rolled results were anyway.

20 minutes ago, Da_Brown_Bomber said:

you could argue that the 'meta' is much more diverse in 2.0 but what would you expect with 7 factions? Diverse does not mean better, it just means more variety. powerful archetypes still exist in 2.0, there are just a. few more of them now.

As a casual player, this was a huge selling point of 2.0 for me. In 1.0, I always felt extremely limited in what I could fly. If I wasn't flying certain ships or even certain pilots, or if I didn't put the "correct" upgrades on those pilots, odds were that I was in for a horrible slaughter. Now, there are still stronger and weaker lists, but it seems to me that even the weaker lists at least have some chance now. I guess in 1.0, it seemed like there were a small collection of "right" lists, and any that weren't on the list were failures. In 2.0 it's more like a small collection of "wrong" lists, and any that aren't on there can probably be made to work.

(Word of advice: I'm almost positive 4x Lambda s is a "wrong" list.)

3 hours ago, JJ48 said:

(Word of advice: I'm almost positive 4x Lambda s is a "wrong" list.)

If by 'wrong' you mean 'so good it feels wrong', then yes.

I don't see how 2.0 killed the game for a 'casual' player. We don't have 'fix' cards being released in hugely expensive (see the Raider) or entirely unrelated (hello Autothruster tax) expansions. The app (and the the superior third party ones) do the heavy lifting if there is a points change. It is true that certain ships are strong in the game at the moment, but that was always the case in 1.0. However, by chipping away at passive/guaranteed modification, no ship is immune any longer. Point enough two dice attacks at a ship, and you will push damage through, whereas in 1.0 you could almost ignore them entirely.

11 hours ago, Vontoothskie said:

I tried 2.0 and went back to 1.0. medium bases are the only real improvement.

1.0 was toys on the table with enough strategy to be fun, but ultimately it was a silly game where the dice made or broke your efforts and you had fun regardless.

2.0 is everything awful they added in the last waves of 1.0... its the tournament/powergamer aspects of the game with none of the casual fun. its designed to convince you its "balanced" and therefore a SERIOUS game where winning makes you a winner. 2.0 is really into the idea that more tokens and more complex interactions is more tactical or strategic, but it simply is not. . its the exact same game with the exact same problems, just you need a dumb app and you have to buy components a second time.

Hi Vontoothskie. We have agreed on many things before, but I disagree with this. I have found 2.0 to be much better for the Casual player. I feel that almost all of the problems I had with 1.0 are fixed and I'm very satisfied with 2.0. There are more tokens, but I don't think that takes away from the game. In fact, many of the tokens fix some of the issues there were. There are complex interactions, but no where near as complex as they used to be. They also aren't as game breaking as they were before.

One of the reasons why I think the Casual player is better off is because there are more competitive ships. Also, generics are worth taking. The game is more about flying and less about list building. You can do well with a very vanilla list, if you fly right. This is great for someone who doesn't want to go elbows deep in shenanigans.

8 hours ago, Vontoothskie said:

all 1.0s problems are still there though. 2 dice attacks dont get through consistently enough to be useful, initiative is still king, and certain combos and ships still dominate...

the only difference is now casual players have a near impossible time of it. the App turned a casual game into 40k level neckbeardery. my wife plays about once a month, and almost always flies the squadron she painted up of her favorite O.T. ships. in 2.0 she got tired of trying to find what the idiotic points changes are each time, and mostly gets bored and plays xbox instead.

**** my entire 40k kill team group is former X-wing fanatics who abandoned the game when 2.0 got stupid. i mean when people think GW rules are better you know you got a problem

I also disagree about 2 attack dice. I think they DO get through a lot more often. It is much harder to get double tokens these days, so more shots means more chances of someone blanking out. Even Reinforce still allows at least one hit to get through. The old way basically shut down 2 dice attacks, but now you can always get at least one damage through. Why, I took Vader and 5 Tie Fighters to Krayt Cup and won more games than I lost. Our team tied for 4th place. Those Tie Fighters did amazing things.

I think you are hung up on the app too much. You can always just print off the PDF if that helps. The points don't change THAT much and it doesn't usually change too many things. I mean, if it is such a hardship, just play with whatever the points are at whatever time you want to play with it. If you aren't doing tournaments, you should be fine. The points really just fix when they notice there is something broken....or making something cheaper when they realize it is over costed. It really more fixes things that are busted, and that is a good thing.

I'm not sure how you think 2.0 got things worse. I feel as if it fixed just about everything that was wrong with 1.0.

I think this is getting into the weeds a bit. Some people love 2.0, some people prefer 1.0, and that’s ok. Each person may have trouble understanding why the other person feels the way they do, but trying to convince them that they are wrong is never gonna work, because there’s really no wrong way to enjoy X-Wing. Personally, I’m done with competitive play for the most part, although I may take part in a few more casual tournaments in the future. That’s not wrong, even though it’s foreign to the die hard competitive player who is testing out their Worlds list.

We play what we like and what we enjoy, that’s that. I tossed all my 1.0 components in the trash, others love the original game. In the end, we all love pushing plastic spaceships around and going pew pew.

Fly casual folks.

One thing I found better going to 2.0 was the damage deck.

With the less shields and more hull shift, the damage deck is more effective.

You really have to watch your shield levels and maximize them if possible to negate the deck.

2.0 is a much better game as ships are no longer obsolete. Even as a filler, they can all be flown.

Scum needs more love but the addition of Republic and Separatist factions adds a lot of fun.

Force is factor which needs careful management as it can run out just when you need it most.

Calculate is a great option for droid pilots.

All in all, less upgrades and more flying/positioning is key to winning. A plus in my style of playing.

53 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

I also disagree about 2 attack dice. I think they DO get through a lot more often.

Agreed here for sure - the list I took to our Hyperspace trial (and where I made top 16 and was just shy of top 8), 4 out of 5 ships had a 2 die attack native (one of those 4 was Ric so he selectively made it up to 3 die, but still counts as 2 die in my book). Aside from one pesky Soontir Fel I blocked (and still had 3 shots on!) that canceled it all out, I felt like my two die shots still mattered

12 hours ago, CoffeeMinion said:

Much as I agree, I wouldn’t want to dogpile a true 1.0 holdout. I didn’t make the point very well in my original post, but the feel of certain ships is definitely different in 2.0. At the same time, it takes a very different approach to upgrades and card interactions—I’d argue it’s a better one overall, but it’s certainly different .

There are moments when I genuinely miss some of the wombo-combo BS of late 1.0. But then my goals as a player are probably different than some people’s. My only “meta” is me and my buddy. I never make it to tournaments, and I only get out to the game store maybe once per year. So in that sense, I had little objection to the game of buying the newest wave and ride herd on each other with the latest broken crap until the next wave came out.

I do think it’s ultimately better for the game to be more balanced and diverse, though. And I think that 2.0 is great for that. I guess the one thing that still genuinely bugs me is that the Z-95 doesn’t feel fun anymore in 2.0. Not that it was a powerhouse in 1.0, but I used to fly a lot of ‘em, and the thing just sucks now.

Ex-1.0 holdout here.

Now is a great time to get back in. 2.0 has had a year to gel, regrow from a more limited pool of options, and many major problems have been ironed out. The game has more mechanics, and many of the 1.0 mechanics (for example, Bullseye Arc) have been fleshed out in a way that they add to the game as a whole, rather than just being a special effect for one ship.

I guess my pet peeve is that I miss the ship sub-types: no more TIE shuttle, Defender /D, E2 B-wings, Vaksai option, etc. Many of these have been baked into the ship so that they are not gone, but the alternative is.

However, 2.0 seems to be focused on broadening the depth and breadth of play options in the game, something that 1.0 utterly ignored. Ergo, if Standard is not your thing, your have options that don't require DIY. THIS is the single biggest thing that made me change editions.

10 hours ago, FatherTurin said:

Also, the best change to happen in 2.0. The Galactic Republic. I can run Obi-Wan in a list, so...yeah. That wins.

I agree for a different reason.

I didn't want to waste money on Conversion Kits. With Republic, I don't have to.

10 hours ago, Vontoothskie said:

**** my entire 40k kill team group is former X-wing fanatics who abandoned the game when 2.0 got stupid. i mean when people think GW rules are better you know you got a problem

Indeed

The problem is those people 😜