Hmmm

Having left Armada, I absolutely do NOT want to see that scoring system again. It's flaming garbage. It's the only scoring system I've ever seen that does. Not. Care. If. You. Win. It only cares by how much. So point fortress, is a good way to go. So is just not fighting.

You want every game to be a story of a thousand ways to disengage? Count me out. Because that's literally what nearly every game of Armada devolves into. Killed that, run, 7-4 GG no Re! *Trololol off to report score* Assuming you don't get an actual 10-1 and score essentially two games in one.

Fun fact, over four rounds (there's a way in three as well, but it's rare at least) it's possible in the Armada scoring system to actively draw every game to a loss of 5-6, and still 'beat' a 2 W/2 L record who actually tried to play. Yes that's right. 4 losses in Armada beats 2 wins and 2 losses in many permutations of circumstances. Go ahead and read that again. And yes it happens regularly. It actually gets easier to have of results like them the more rounds you play. I got knocked out of Regional cut because of that. Yes, my salt over it could still season you're steak.

I do agree that something needs to change. For starters, as soon as you half point something you should get it's points. Regen? cool. I still got half. Regen keeps it's end game advantage, but Alpha strike gets it's early game points back. Fair is fair

Second, the bid should also be scored to the opponent. Ffs it's called a bid for a reason. You put it on the table to double down on the list you brought. If you want it back you better come kill me for it. Not this noninteractive point bank with straight upside nonsense. I'm with some of y'all there. But I still keep the bid. Because...

And of course, how could we forget, our dear old friend who has patiently withstood the red headed step child treatment since the days of old, Objectives. Well we don't have those. But by golly we got environments! So I also am in favor of bid gets to choose initiative or environment, and the opponent selects the other. That sounds like a really neat strategy game to me and I hope our area gets some games and events going that way ASAP. And I'm sure we will.

But please Force no more Armada scoring. Don't kill X-wing. Not like this.

Hmm.

First I think that first player second player initiative is just baked into this game so hard and is a huge binary condition that it should not be decided randomly. So no rolling for initiative unless it’s a tie. Playing an aces list going second is flat out weird. I suppose you could fix it with environment cards that a second player chooses but it sounds like this is a fundamental game rules issue than an environment or objective card issue.

One ham handed way of fixing bidding is to literally make the bid automatically scored by the opponent. I bet that would drop bids below 5-10 immediately. I also would be amused with lists that then suddenly add a tie fighter to like a double aces list lol.

Having second player pick an environment card might be fun (a la armada) but a problem with that is that in some xwing games the first second player doesn’t matter enough. So it’s hard to make environment cards that are meant to be 20-30 pts if fixing advantage for aces vs aces and also near 0 benefit for balanced lists that don’t seriously interact at the same initiative level. If you have say just one ps2 X vs one ps2 hounds tooth you simply learn to avoid that particular block and learning how to play that easy little change puts the initiative issue there only worth 5-10 points at best if anything at all.

One thing we could try is doing simple subtractive scoring. Then have a objective in the middle of the board. Each player can score it once a game by flying over with two different ships. Awards say 40 points.

You could just remove the option to bid for initiative completely.

Just a roll of the dice at the start of each game. Winner chooses to take or pass initiative.

Then there's no need to see silly 20+ point bids for initiative and people are more inclined to maximize their point lists all the time.

2 hours ago, SabineKey said:

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.

I concur that my idea for bids is unrefined. I think it is best to look at my proposal as a whole unit. If the other parts are in place, then aggressive shooty play is incentivized and folks are more concerned with scoring VPs than a “win.” In that environment, one list with no bid is offering a more target rich environment for the opponent to score VPs. Bids give tactical options with going 2nd; I don’t think they should give more than that (and I consider hiding VPs a boon - if only a minor one).

8 minutes ago, executor said:

You could just remove the option to bid for initiative completely.

Just a roll of the dice at the start of each game. Winner chooses to take or pass initiative.

Then there's no need to see silly 20+ point bids for initiative and people are more inclined to maximize their point lists all the time.

I am good with that but it requires rewriting the rules rather that the tourney VP structure, so I would think FFG would be reticent to do that.

If bidding went the way of the Dino's, I wouldn't be mad about that either. For the record. I think a roll off would be just fine. Challenges a player to be better versed in their list by knowing how to go first and go second a bit more then currently.

Can someone translate OPs post for me? wtf are "build points" and "individual grand totals" and how do you "sort" them?

23 minutes ago, Tvboy said:

Can someone translate OPs post for me? wtf are "build points" and "individual grand totals" and how do you "sort" them?

The OP is suggesting that instead of number of wins and margin of victory, players should be ranked by the total squad point value of ships they have destroyed, with half points awarded if a ship has lost half its hull/shields, similar to the way MoV is calculated currently. This would encourage players to play very aggressively, since losses would not matter, only how much stuff you blow up.

Personally I wouldn't mind seeing some kind of objective which would encourage people to engage one another. Rather than making the game entirely objective based, I wonder whether it would work to have something like "Place a satellite at the centre of the play area. At the end of the end phase, if a player has at least one ship within range 3 of the satellite and their opponent does not, they gain 5 points." That way it would still be possible to win without focusing exclusively on the objective, but if you decide to sit in a corner for most of the game you might be handing your opponent a large head start.

40 minutes ago, Tvboy said:

Can someone translate OPs post for me? wtf are "build points" and "individual grand totals" and how do you "sort" them?

Build points: I used the term to indicate points used to build a list.

Individual Grand Totals: let’s say you play in a 3-round event. You earn 200, 140, and 54 VPs across the 3 games. Your individual grand total is 394 VPs.

Sort: if you have these totals next to associated player names on a spreadsheet, you can highlight the column of totals and sort them in descending order and find who is 1st, 2nd, etc.

What if you could select a ship in your opponents list as a bounty target? When you destroy that ship you get extra kill points for it. Gives you an incentive for destroying their 'squad leader'. Losing your squad leader could even have a negative effect on the remaining ships in the squad increasing your odds to victory. eg each remaining ship gains 2 stress tokens when their squad leader is killed. Squad leaders would logically be the highest initiative pilot you have in your list.

7 hours ago, Pewpewpew BOOM said:

I concur that my idea for bids is unrefined. I think it is best to look at my proposal as a whole unit. If the other parts are in place, then aggressive shooty play is incentivized and folks are more concerned with scoring VPs than a “win.” In that environment, one list with no bid is offering a more target rich environment for the opponent to score VPs. Bids give tactical options with going 2nd; I don’t think they should give more than that (and I consider hiding VPs a boon - if only a minor one).

While there are things I like about your proposal, the reason I have brought up the bid aspect because I believe it to be that big of a sticking point. For me, it’s a poorly thought out piece that threatens to turn the idea from a solution to merely putting the problem on other people’s shoulders.

1 hour ago, SabineKey said:

While there are things I like about your proposal, the reason I have brought up the bid aspect because I believe it to be that big of a sticking point. For me, it’s a poorly thought out piece that threatens to turn the idea from a solution to merely putting the problem on other people’s shoulders.

Fair enough. I do think that bids allow the design space to hide points and that should be avoided. I imagine that finer methods exist.

Personally, I find games with variable initiative really fun and would’ve liked to have seen it incorporated into 2.0. However, that is a wholly different hot-button topic and I’ve already hit my quota for this week. 🤣

My thoughts:

POINTS: Tournaments are decided and players ranked by points scored not games won. If we’re tied 100-100 (or 0-0) it doesn’t matter. Those points are added to our totals for the next pairings, and we start the next round. No final salvo, no stalling issues. Games won is tie breaker. (Basically reverses points and MOV as is now).

BID: Bid Brackets are instituted. If you’re in the same bracket you roll a die just as normal. It makes bidding much more certain and much more like purchasing a known quantity upgrade. Caps at 10 points.

Brackets:

200

199-197

196-194

193-191

190+

Destroy half points on list, gain half of bid rounded up (just like on a ship). Destroy full list gain full bid.

I wouldn't hate objectives, depending on how they're done. I know the ManyPodcasters did a set of them in late 1e that I never got around to playing with, but the premise seemed nice.

Victory came from a race to then-100 points. Destroy ships for the points, or score objectives for some scenario-based points value. The most basic one: two obstacles are chosen as objectives. If you're within Range 3 of the obstacle, but the other player is not, you'd score 20 VP (used to be 10 out of 100). Realistically, you can't really win with the obstacle, but it provides an actually-clear "this is a reason to get out of your corner" task, a "don't just flee with Corran/Miranda" task.

Some of the other objective scenarios were a little more complicated (and even monumental: I think a shuttle escort scored 50 out of 100 points!), but I like the concept of something that just forces folks to have an engagement, but specifically in a way where there's a clear rule about how it works, and both players can build their lists with the different possible objectives in mind.

Judges arbitrarily ruling against tactics stinks like a Bantha left out in the rain. If there's going to be a "players must fight," it ought to be built into the actual rules of the game.

On 10/25/2019 at 8:00 AM, theBitterFig said:

If there's going to be a "players must fight," it ought to be built into the actual rules of the game

I think you summed up the issue right there. If the spirit of the game is “players must fight” then the rules should support and incentivize that rather than have judges bare that weight. Even in instances where I agree, it still seems like a lot put on judges.

I like the idea of objectives. I do not like the idea of squad-based scoring. To me it should be one or the other. Either you're getting objective points like you do in Aces High, or you're trying to kill ships. What makes Aces High so great is you're just stacking up tokens, not counting silly MoV scores based on point costs and health thresholds. Getting more points over the basic 200 per side is just kind of annoying to me, and seems like more to keep track of.

I want X-Wing to be fun and math is super annoying.

1 hour ago, ClassicalMoser said:

I like the idea of objectives. I do not like the idea of squad-based scoring. To me it should be one or the other. Either you're getting objective points like you do in Aces High, or you're trying to kill ships. What makes Aces High so great is you're just stacking up tokens, not counting silly MoV scores based on point costs and health thresholds. Getting more points over the basic 200 per side is just kind of annoying to me, and seems like more to keep track of.

I want X-Wing to be fun and math is super annoying.

points scoring right now is confusing. even top players occasionally lose track of what they need to score points on to take the lead from getting half points or exactly what combination of half and full points they need to win in the closing stages. ffg should streamiline things. not quite sure how but mathwing during ur timed game is clunky and detracts a bit from the fun of playing.

6 hours ago, ClassicalMoser said:

I like the idea of objectives. I do not like the idea of squad-based scoring. To me it should be one or the other. Either you're getting objective points like you do in Aces High, or you're trying to kill ships. What makes Aces High so great is you're just stacking up tokens, not counting silly MoV scores based on point costs and health thresholds. Getting more points over the basic 200 per side is just kind of annoying to me, and seems like more to keep track of.

I want X-Wing to be fun and math is super annoying.

I am certainly behind objectives as a concept if they encourage players to actually fight. I am not sure what kind of objectives work for a space dogfighting game. I’ve played minis games with objectives like Rangers of Shadow Deep, earlier versions of Malifaux and Warmahordes, but XW is a very different setting.

What is wrong with just having a player's intitiative bid be automatically scored to the opponent? It' stupid that those points are basically untouchable unless that player gets completely tabled.

2 hours ago, Tvboy said:

What is wrong with just having a player's intitiative bid be automatically scored to the opponent? It' stupid that those points are basically untouchable unless that player gets completely tabled.

As I have said multiple times, it doesn’t solve the problem of one player starting with an advantage, and are thus disincentivized to play. That’s the problem with lists that do better with final salvo. They start in the position of power.

I also don’t think you should get free points. Again, this is about making it clear that that the point of the game is to fight. If you want to do that, start people off on a level playing field and make them earn their points. You shouldn’t get free points for just licking into a match up.

Now, I can agree that complete victory being the only avenue to those points has proven to be problematic and should be changed. But the other end of just giving those points to the opponent is just as problematic and ham handed.

Look, swarms already have the advantage of time over aces, if the aces take too long they lose the final salvo and if they make a single mistake they have to kill 3-4 ships to make up the points they lose. If they have to make up for their bid as well you are ending ace play.

The game ain’t broke, but the wrong ‘fix’ might break it

3 minutes ago, Estarriol said:

Look, swarms already have the advantage of time over aces, if the aces take too long they lose the final salvo and if they make a single mistake they have to kill 3-4 ships to make up the points they lose.

Why I don't see a problem here?

We have to play perfect against more guns and more hull because we have paid a heavy tax to move last?

2 minutes ago, S4ul0 said:

Why I don't see a problem here?

We have to play perfect against more guns and more hull because we have paid a heavy tax to move last?

Because ace play is high risk high reward? It’s not easy mode. If you punish the archetype you’re just going to end up swarm vs swarm jousting as you’re rewarding extra guns on the table instead of better flying.

55 minutes ago, Estarriol said:

Because ace play is high risk high reward? It’s not easy mode. If you punish the archetype you’re just going to end up swarm vs swarm jousting as you’re rewarding extra guns on the table instead of better flying.

Sorry but I quoted you because described very well the problems with this matchup.

You must fly better to win against swarms. You must engage because the clock is against you. You can't make mistakes. All of this is fine.

Where is the problem? Why we need another thread writing about the scoring system?

Can the Aces win this matchup?

There is at least one player forced to engage. Why all this effort to change who?