Earlier this week, I started a thread celebrating the fact that a StarVipers list placed well at Worlds as I’ve been a SV fan since 1.0.

This opened a BIG discussion about Judge calls and how the game is won.

This is a SW dogfight game and I think it should look and play like one with ships desperately outmaneuvering and zapping each other in proper cinematic fashion. I believe the current system does not compel players to fight in many instances.

A solution is to simply not track wins and losses as the primary point of inquiry at all.

When time is called, each player gets victory points like so....

VP = build points I killed (including halvesies) + opponents bid.

Everyone gives the TO their VPs every round. TO sorts the individual grand totals for setting matches and overall winner at the end. We have Excel. This is doable.

Shenanigans happen when folks are not compelled to kill ships (stalling for salvo, having a giant bid to hide points, intentional draws, securing a lead then running away). The rules should compel players to kill ships. Although I’ve not faulted opponents for running away to secure a win (they are playing in a format that incentivizes this), it still never feels “right” from a genre standpoint. In the end, the joy of watching those big space battle scenes as a kid is what really brought many of us to the XWM table in the first place. The game should be like that.

While I understand and somewhat agree with you, I still find the concept of “bid is points for opponent” to be a ham handed tactic. It encourages waste, which I am not a fan of, and also creates situations where the person with the bid starts off losing, and the person without (or a smaller bid) is once again encouraged to not engage because they are in the lead. The game needs to start with no one having the upper hand.

18 minutes ago, Pewpewpew BOOM said:

A solution is to simply not track wins and losses as the primary point of inquiry at all.

When time is called, each player gets victory points like so....

VP = build points I killed (including halvesies) + opponents bid.

Everyone gives the TO their VPs every round. TO sorts the individual grand totals for setting matches and overall winner at the end. We have Excel. This is doable.

The problem with doing it strictly like this is that mutual destruction earns you the same amount of points as defeating your opponent 200-0.

Now, I’d fully support a system like what they use in Armada, where instead of “win = 1 point, loss = 0 points,” there are 11 match points total, and the more soundly you defeat your opponent the greater share of the pie you get. So going 200-0 would earn you 10 victory points and your opponent would get one, while a really close match would earn 6/5 points respectively. Under that system, yes, you could run away or force a final salvo, but 6-5 victories do not win tournaments.

The Armada system does have its quirks and drawbacks, as does any system, but I’d still support it. I actually think it would work better in X-Wing than Armada because with X-wing the games are shorter, so you can get more games in in a day, meaning there’s a greater chance for weird variances to smooth out and the truly best lists/players to filter to the top.

There are other community proposals for how to deal with bidding.

1) Roll a die for first player irrespective of points

2) First player shifts turn to turn

I agree that the mechanic of resolving tie breaks is one that requires careful thought.

I would propose that Draws are reintroduced, but that intentional draws are banned (and the rules changed to reflect/prevent it)

However you score events (and @Pewpewpew BOOM 's proposal is as valid as any) you can get draws, and the stalemate generated by the draw is the thing that can be exploited. Allowing them to happen would negate this.

Having most games unfinished is bad, but I’m not sure of any of these solutions.

We definitely need something to change though, even if it’s just moving green dice mods up in points and red dice mods down.

Objectives. If failure to move to engagement has actual consequences, psuedo-fortresses and regenerating Jedi suddenly have to make cost-benefit choices as to whether the giving your opponent victory points for letting them hold objectives at no risk is worth it.

20 minutes ago, Herowannabe said:

The problem with doing it strictly like this is that mutual destruction earns you the same amount of points as defeating your opponent 200-0.

I see your point, but although that can be a drawback, I think the net gain in fun aggressive games will outweigh the cost.

Plus, self-sacrifice for the greater good is certainly in line with the SW franchise. This game looks like SW. I want it to feel like it too. My suggestions are not perfect in getting there, but I think they are on the correct route.

42 minutes ago, SabineKey said:

While I understand and somewhat agree with you, I still find the concept of “bit is points for opponent” to be a ham handed tactic. It encourages waste, which I am not a fan of, and also creates situations where the person with the bid starts off losing, and the person without (or a smaller bid) is once again encouraged to not engage because they are in the lead. The game needs to start with no one having the upper hand.

The way I see it is that you should have the most control over your VPs. If I choose to have a big bid, you should not suffer for it by having fewer targets to shoot at and gain VPs.

15 minutes ago, TasteTheRainbow said:

Having most games unfinished is bad, but I’m not sure of any of these solutions.

We definitely need something to change though, even if it’s just moving green dice mods up in points and red dice mods down.

If killing ships is what the system rewards, I believe tourney games will actually see MANY more games where one player is left standing since the player with a “lead” is incentivized to continue pushing their advantage over speeding away.

13 minutes ago, TasteTheRainbow said:

Having most games unfinished is bad, but I’m not sure of any of these solutions.

I disagree with this premise. If games are unfinished when ships are actively engaging and fighting, but lists are evenly enough matched that neither has a huge advantage, then ending without one side being completely destroyed isn't a bad thing.

What if final salvo only came into play if some points were scored? If nothing is halved/destroyed, the game is a "draw" and neither player gets a win? Wouldn't solve the entire fortressing problem completely, but would remove the safety net of just hiding and having more final salvo dice than your opponent.

11 minutes ago, Pewpewpew BOOM said:

The way I see it is that you should have the most control over your VPs. If I choose to have a big bid, you should not suffer for it by having fewer targets to shoot at and gain VPs.

Those fewer targets then become (theoretically) easier to hit/avoid. The bid itself is not the problem, it is the efficiency of upgrades on a high bid list. If a list with a huge bid is being very successful despite lacking all of the upgrades/ships that they have chosen NOT to take, then the upgrades/ships that they have taken are undercosted and need a points adjustment. i.e. if a two ship list with ship X and Y with Z upgrades and a 20 point bid are being very successful across the board, then X + Y + Z should be adjusted so they collectively cost 190+.

10 minutes ago, Pewpewpew BOOM said:

The way I see it is that you should have the most control over your VPs. If I choose to have a big bid, you should not suffer for it by having fewer targets to shoot at and gain VPs.

But having fewer ships means its easier to focus fire and destroy pricier targets. Take the difference between running two tie fighters or Fel. Fel is more slippery, but has hp of one of the TIE Fighters. One kill, 3 damage, gets you more points then doing twice that damage and killing two ships.
This also misses that bids mean fewer upgrades as well. You might have a bid, but I spent those points on a control piece that’s going to limit your options for engagement.
I would also like to bring up again that by giving your opponent “more control over your VPs”, you have also given them more incentive to run. They start the game winning. That is the exact same problem as lists gearing for the final salvo. They are in the position of power, thus can afford to “stall” until they get the engagement they want.
I’m also getting a weird vibe off of “your VPs”. They aren’t yours until you earn them. Giving someone VPs because of decisions in list building seems counter to the desire of making the actual gameplay matter.

I do think aggressive playstyles should be rewarded but preferably in MOV. Maybe they could treat final salvo as an overtime win which is only worth 1 point compared to 2 points for a regular win. This would make stalling less desirable.

9 minutes ago, reqent said:

I do think aggressive playstyles should be rewarded but preferably in MOV. Maybe they could treat final salvo as an overtime win which is only worth 1 point compared to 2 points for a regular win. This would make stalling less desirable.

It already is - you get 100 MoV each for final salvo, one person gets the victory point. Going to final salvo basically means that you will be the guy who misses out on cut because of MoV

12 minutes ago, Dreadai said:

It already is - you get 100 MoV each for final salvo, one person gets the victory point. Going to final salvo basically means that you will be the guy who misses out on cut because of MoV

Oh sorry I didn't know.

If objectives were introduced would you have missions for each round or do x amount of deathmatch than those that make the cut play objectives?

1 hour ago, Herowannabe said:

The problem with doing it strictly like this is that mutual destruction earns you the same amount of points as defeating your opponent 200-0.

Now, I’d fully support a system like what they use in Armada, where instead of “win = 1 point, loss = 0 points,” there are 11 match points total, and the more soundly you defeat your opponent the greater share of the pie you get. So going 200-0 would earn you 10 victory points and your opponent would get one, while a really close match would earn 6/5 points respectively. Under that system, yes, you could run away or force a final salvo, but 6-5 victories do not win tournaments.

The Armada system does have its quirks and drawbacks, as does any system, but I’d still support it. I actually think it would work better in X-Wing than Armada because with X-wing the games are shorter, so you can get more games in in a day, meaning there’s a greater chance for weird variances to smooth out and the truly best lists/players to filter to the top.

This is the best idea I've seen. It encourages players to actually engage and discourages players from conceding.

Will it result in a meta change? Yes, probably, but IMO the change to playstyle that the points system will encourage is only a good thing.

I'm 100% in favor of objective-based play. Rather than scoring points based on ship costs at all , your objective is to do A before your opponent does B. If your opponent does B, he wins. If you do A, you win. Very simple, but trickier I guess for establishing MoV. If MoV is really that important, you could divide the points up a little more like the Epic scenarios do. I don't like fortressing and I think straight-up deathmatches are boring and anti-thematic a bit.

In the meantime, I'm vastly in favor of what was proposed earlier: The winner of the bid chooses betweeen choosing initiative and choosing environment. It depends which is more important and how bad your opponent's environment really is for your list. I'd probably give up second player to some of them. Either way it makes the bid a little bit less of a 1-sided game-changer where losing it by 1 point screws you over.

I kinda liked the ITC rules from another well known game, where the catch is that there's a whole lot of secondary objective available in a document, and at the start of the game, each players choose 3 in response to seeing their opponents list. It could be stuff like destroy a specified ship, keep a ship alive at all cost, protect your backline, reach the opponents backline, stay in a specified zone for a few turns, etc. All objective for both players were open of course.

The fact that you could pick objective more suitable to do after seeing what the opponent is bringing made if feel like a real strategy game to me, one where you decided what the strategy to win the battle would be, and not just go forward and shoot.

I wonder if something similar could be applied to X-wing? With ITC, usually they were a LOT of unit of the map, so if you knew your opponent wanted to kill a specific unit, it was easier to hide it or commit less with it. I don't think this would always work with X-wing, so perhaps we would need more type of secondary objective, like you need to destroy a pod, but your opponent is the one to place it, or to successfully launch half of your ordnance or something.

5 hours ago, DarthSempai said:

I kinda liked the ITC rules from another well known game, where the catch is that there's a whole lot of secondary objective available in a document, and at the start of the game, each players choose 3 in response to seeing their opponents list. It could be stuff like destroy a specified ship, keep a ship alive at all cost, protect your backline, reach the opponents backline, stay in a specified zone for a few turns, etc. All objective for both players were open of course.

The fact that you could pick objective more suitable to do after seeing what the opponent is bringing made if feel like a real strategy game to me, one where you decided what the strategy to win the battle would be, and not just go forward and shoot.

I wonder if something similar could be applied to X-wing? With ITC, usually they were a LOT of unit of the map, so if you knew your opponent wanted to kill a specific unit, it was easier to hide it or commit less with it. I don't think this would always work with X-wing, so perhaps we would need more type of secondary objective, like you need to destroy a pod, but your opponent is the one to place it, or to successfully launch half of your ordnance or something.

IMO following the route of a game NOT designed for tournament play is not the way to go.

9 hours ago, SabineKey said:

But having fewer ships means its easier to focus fire and destroy pricier targets. Take the difference between running two tie fighters or Fel. Fel is more slippery, but has hp of one of the TIE Fighters. One kill, 3 damage, gets you more points then doing twice that damage and killing two ships.
This also misses that bids mean fewer upgrades as well. You might have a bid, but I spent those points on a control piece that’s going to limit your options for engagement.
I would also like to bring up again that by giving your opponent “more control over your VPs”, you have also given them more incentive to run. They start the game winning. That is the exact same problem as lists gearing for the final salvo. They are in the position of power, thus can afford to “stall” until they get the engagement they want.
I’m also getting a weird vibe off of “your VPs”. They aren’t yours until you earn them. Giving someone VPs because of decisions in list building seems counter to the desire of making the actual gameplay matter.

The incentive to run is there if getting a “win” is a factor. My suggestion is that VPs are reaped from what you kill. If you have a 20pt bid and all I really want is 20VP, then I can run away until time is called and get a puny 20VP for the trouble and nothing else.

High bids effectively hide VP from an opponent unless they obliterate the enemy completely. Giving bid as VP incentivizes players putting points on the table as a part of play, which I think is a good thing.

This topic is why Im not sold on 2.0 as an improvement over 1st. we're seeing the exact same mechanical problems as 1.0 but with different specific pilots or upgrades triggering issues.

initiative has been a bordeline win condition for many lists since first edition launched. it needs to be random, alternating, or rendered less potent so people cant use it as a crutch. game balance cant be achieved without fixing this first, cuz othwrwise its trying to fix the walls when the roof is leaking, you know?

You get something for a bid. Points spent on upgrades or ships can be scored in whole or in part without destroying the entire list. Points spent on a bid can not. If some ace needs a big bid then those bid points should be able to be scored just like ship and upgrade points.

The Armada system with points based on margin of victory seems more the direction being sought.

18 minutes ago, Vontoothskie said:

This topic is why Im not sold on 2.0 as an improvement over 1st. we're seeing the exact same mechanical problems as 1.0 but with different specific pilots or upgrades triggering issues.

initiative has been a bordeline win condition for many lists since first edition launched. it needs to be random, alternating, or rendered less potent so people cant use it as a crutch. game balance cant be achieved without fixing this first, cuz othwrwise its trying to fix the walls when the roof is leaking, you know?

Well, without a doubt there have been improvements in rules and such, with a few exceptions that eventually showed up (Nantex jank, the whole ability queue timing... thing ) but the win condition for the game didn't drastically change from 1E, so it still has the same problems of being able to be gamed to un-sportsmanlike levels.

I personally am leaning towards wanting to see objective play, and am interested in the "casual" scenarios that they are coming out with. I imagine it wouldn't be hard at all to incorporate them into an OP format to allow for a secondary win condition besides "shoot more"

1 hour ago, Pewpewpew BOOM said:

The incentive to run is there if getting a “win” is a factor. My suggestion is that VPs are reaped from what you kill. If you have a 20pt bid and all I really want is 20VP, then I can run away until time is called and get a puny 20VP for the trouble and nothing else.

High bids effectively hide VP from an opponent unless they obliterate the enemy completely. Giving bid as VP incentivizes players putting points on the table as a part of play, which I think is a good thing.

Can’t say I’m convinced that the “puny” part of the free points is enough to change my view. You also haven’t addressed my point about it giving the non-bidder the advantage to choice the engagement because of their led.

I also stand by my assertion that free points shouldn’t be a thing. You want points, earn them. There might be a better way to get the bid points without destroying the whole list, but just giving them to the opponent is still ham handed.

31 minutes ago, Frimmel said:

You get something for a bid. Points spent on upgrades or ships can be scored in whole or in part without destroying the entire list. Points spent on a bid can not. If some ace needs a big bid then those bid points should be able to be scored just like ship and upgrade points.

The Armada system with points based on margin of victory seems more the direction being sought.

I can get behind that. But those bid points must be earned by the opponent. You don’t get points for simply lucking into a match.