Pardon me if this offends some people for the way they play. I'm not truly a tournament player, so if I'm completely wrong in my statements then so be it.

But I am under the impression from what I read that a lot of tournament lists are designed specifically to simply beat the opponent with time.

With this I mean lists making use of regen or swarms or evasive ships (like the 4x Starviper list).

This goes for some "frowned upon" tactics like fortressing too. This is great for a timed game with "final salvo". Its more or less pointless if both players are just going to sit back forever if there is no clock.

My question is, does this not lead to a completely warped perception for the value of some ships/upgrades?

Generally at my local gaming place we don't look at the clock too much. Games normally go until everything is killed, or one player concedes after taking too many losses. This means that in general we tend to engage more aggressively, because there is no point to stalling.

So basically many ships/upgrades are seen in general as brilliant (from a tournament game vs time point of view), but in a fly-till-you-die type of game they don't work at all.

So ultimately what is warped? The perceived value of some ships, or my way of playing the game?

Should I just accept that the timed game is the benchmark, and deal with the fact that stuff others rave about simply won't work in the way we play?

Or should we all be playing timed games where we circle each other and engage as little as possible?

Or should I hope that somewhere FFG takes the time effect into consideration when they balance things?

5 minutes ago, Bort said:

Should I just accept that the timed game is the benchmark, and deal with the fact that stuff others rave about simply won't work in the way we play?

Or should we all be playing timed games where we circle each other and engage as little as possible?

Or should I hope that somewhere FFG takes the time effect into consideration when they balance things?

I think you just have to accept that the current meta is centered around timed matches in a tournament setting. And in that situation different tactics will reign supreme. Regen is extremely powerful if you can get time for it to work. Thus R2-D2 can be make a huge difference. But only if you have a chance to get away and let it work. If you're opponent is doggedly chasing after your ships or you don't have time to run away for some other reason, even one round of being disarmed can be a huge disadvantage. One that isn't countered by regaining one shield. If you don't have the time to carefully line up every shot to be a Bullseye arc shot, Outflank is a better choice then Predator or Crack Shot. And the list just goes on. The more aggressive your expected opponents, the more different the loadout you will favor.

I think that FFG does take the fact that competitive X-wing is timed into consideration when they balance things. I also think that there is no way to make competitive X-wing untimed, so timed matches are here to stay.

So, basically, #1, I guess. I don't participate much in the tournament scene (at least, not yet) but I have grown accustomed to timed games being the norm and generally prefer that format, because a 3 hour game of X-wing does not sound like much fun unless that's explicitly what you're signing up for **eyes Epic longingly**

Every possible tournament structure somehow distorts the value of different abilities, so you're not at all wrong, but rather it's a balancing of trade-offs.

So, yeah, the time limit does warp certain element of the game into being more usefull.(mostly regen :P)

But i think at high level of play, theres always gonna be running and strafing. Of the two list, one is always gonna have an advantage in jousting, and the other, if correctly identifying that an engagement is not favorable, will have to poke and bait the into into making a mistake. Either by engaging in an area that is bad, or by poking enough that the list with less firepower can actually kill a ship and tip the balance toward themselves. So being skittish, waiting, not committing and not making mistake can just be the sign of 2 great players facing off, even in a casual match.

1 hour ago, Maui. said:

So, basically, #1, I guess. I don't participate much in the tournament scene (at least, not yet) but I have grown accustomed to timed games being the norm and generally prefer that format, because a 3 hour game of X-wing does not sound like much fun unless that's explicitly what you're signing up for **eyes Epic longingly**

I have a friend that learned alongside me and then went out and spent close to $300 on Galactic Empire ships and a core set. Our matches typically last an hour or two. Although one match did go six hours, and still wasn't any where close to over over when we called it a draw. And locally matches are played till concede or defeat, rather then being timed. Which has on occasion devolved into flying in circles while both players are trying to line up a shot with their last ship for a while.

I don't doubt that at high levels of play there's a lot of skillful arc dodging. Even at low levels of play it can become a thing once the players get use to what a given ship can do. Then again, that's a large part of the fun of miniature war games like X-Wing. No matter what your skill level, no two matches are ever alike. Even with identical squadron compositions and starting positions, each game will go differently due to each player trying different tactics.

Thanks for all the replies so far.

1 hour ago, Faerie1979 said:

I think you just have to accept that the current meta is centered around timed matches in a tournament setting.

Oh, I totally get that. It just gets annoying sometimes to see things go the opposite direction when rebalancing comes in than what we would expect, simply because we don't play timed games.

Which is what I'm trying to discuss here. Or find out at least. Not whether timed matches is a thing. But whether the fact that tournament play are timed, people have started to play beating the clock instead of the opponent, and we now have ship/upgrade points based on that instead of really how effective a ship/upgrade is.

1 hour ago, Maui. said:

I think that FFG does take the fact that competitive X-wing is timed into consideration when they balance things. I also think that there is no way to make competitive X-wing untimed, so timed matches are here to stay.

So, basically, #1, I guess. I don't participate much in the tournament scene (at least, not yet) but I have grown accustomed to timed games being the norm and generally prefer that format, because a 3 hour game of X-wing does not sound like much fun unless that's explicitly what you're signing up for **eyes Epic longingly**

The irony is, because we DON'T have a time limit, there is generally no point in just sitting back and avoiding each other, leading to much more aggressive play from both players, leading to much faster games.

8 minutes ago, Faerie1979 said:

I don't doubt that at high levels of play there's a lot of skillful arc dodging.

Certainly, but I'm not talking about arc dodging here. I'm talking about basically refusal to engage / complete avoidance.

There is obviously some sense in sometimes running away to get a better line of attack after turning back. So I admit there is a gray area where its simply smart play vs. delay tactics.

But if your entire strategy is to make a single engagement, do some small dmg and regen yourself, and then run away the rest of the game to win on time / final salvo.

Or just sit in a corner and wait (See for example my list: here).

We put our games on the clock and started playing in a more tournament style and the game seems to play a bit better and everything feels a bit more balanced. A list that was going to lose badly un-timed to the last ship style at least made a game of it in a timed count up the points and half-points game.

Although I'm not sure that over a bunch of matches these "close" matches played a dozen times are going to actually end up with .500 records for each list. I've been wondering if the time constraint is hiding issues with things by ending games while things are still "close" and making everything appear balanced.

2 hours ago, Bort said:

Or should I hope that somewhere FFG takes the time effect into consideration when they balance things?

I’ve talked with one of the play testers about how the process works, which was super interesting overall. The short version is that the design is balanced around “was this fun?” If the answer is no, then they look at different iterations to see if it’s more fun.

I don’t know that “fun” is ever really defined, but they’re not balancing things around clock considerations in any explicit manner that I’m aware of.

If it’s not fun in a timed game, it’s probably not fun in an untimed game either, though.

Ships and upgrades are on a curve scale. There are a tournament ships and upgrades and there are casual ships and upgrades and then majority lie in the middle.

The inquisitor ship is toward the tournament side. They are hard to kill and plink away damage. They are very much played for their longevity making them good tournament ships. If you play a casual match to the death, they probably arent a good ship, hence why the Jendon 3 inquisitors took 2nd place in the two major tournies cause the last match is now 2 hours, and they eventually fall.

Regen bots are very much a tourney card, while 90% of all other astromechs are on the casual side, aside from R2A6 found on Obi, or the occasional R3 and R4 rebel astros.

Any card/ability that slows death has a good chance to be seen in tournaments. The longer you live, the less points you give up. Simple as that.

Is this bad for the game?

I dont think so. Its not much different than intentional fouling in basketball to send players to the free throw line and stop time. Or running the ball constantly at end of football games to run out the clock, or keep and hold the ball in the corner in soccer/football matches. All games that go to time have a certain game tactic/strategy for the clock. Xwing is no different. If you are up on points you can run and evade/turtle up.

6 minutes ago, wurms said:

Ships and upgrades are on a curve scale. There are a tournament ships and upgrades and there are casual ships and upgrades and then majority lie in the middle.

The real problem then becomes when the tourney meta starts to crowd out everything else for casual games as well due to people not understanding the differences between the two environments. You see the same thing in collectable card games. It can become virtually impossible to find a game of Magic the Gathering, for example, where your casual "for fun" opponent doesn't expect you to obey the Type 2 Standard deck construction rules to the letter. Which means every time a new expansion comes out, a large part of your collection suddenly will never get used again.

Time limits in tournament games are there to keep the tournament progressing on schedule, pure and simple. There's no exclusive "right way" to play X-wing, your experience and those of competitive players are equally valid, they just exist in different contexts. There couldn't be ~500 person tournaments that play 6-8 rounds a day without some sort of restriction on the length of individual games, and both that environment and those restrictions do change some of the incentives of play in individual games. Two of the largest differences in tournament play are that the stakes of the game are somewhat higher, and that a major X-Wiing tournament is a serious test of endurance; playing X-Wing for 8-12 hours is mentally and physically taxing. The combination of these two factors makes risk mitigation more important than it would be otherwise; this is the root of a lot of playstyle differences from casual games, as improvising mid-game is a bigger risk than executing a plan you've practiced and are familiar with, and many players will focus on taking efficiency pieces that can reliably perform rather than splashy hit-or-miss effects.

Plenty of other people play X-Wing the same way you do at their FLGS, including many of the folks who also play more competitively at tournaments. Forum discussion tends towards standard tournament play, though, because organized play is one of the things that drives the online community. Whatever the main competitive format is of any game tends to become the benchmark by which that game is discussed, as it is a shared experience and frame of reference that people can relate to. A standard play experience also helps make the game more accessible in some ways; for example, players can play a game at any points limit, but when your FLGS hosts X-Wing night you know you can just show up with 200 points and find a game. Even when players aren't participating in tournaments, many are practicing or planning for them because they want to improve or just enjoy the competitive aspect.

It's easy to look at some discussions from the outside and be disturbed with them. It helps to remember that what you see online tends to be the most passionate and opinionated voices carrying a discussion to a theoretical extreme. Many, if not most, tournament games are not too far removed from casual ones. Players are a little more careful with their flying, but still engage each other within a couple of rounds. About half of games do go to time, but that doesn't mean they were tied; tournament scoring is a disincentive for concessions. Final salvo only matters in the event of an exact tie; I've never seen it happen myself. In short, while there certainly are differences between competitive and casual gameplay, online discussion tends to exaggerate them and highlights the worst aspects.

As far as listbuilding goes, again, people can and do talk themselves into a frenzy about Jedi, regeneration astromechs, swarms, bids, etc. in search of every last percentage point of perceived efficiency. If you look at lists from Worlds, for example, these sorts of lists are common sights, but no single archetype dominates, and the squadrons still consist of iconic ships and pilots that don't look out-of-place on the table. The incentives may be slightly different in a competitive environment, but even if the game is going to end at time, you still need to deal more damage than you take , so it's not like the cards and effects favored in tournament play won't still be good at the FLGS or on the kitchen table. In fact, I'd say that in terms of whether specific game components are strong or not, larger points values like Epic games change that dynamic more than competitive play does.

6 minutes ago, Joker Two said:

In fact, I'd say that in terms of whether specific game components are strong or not, larger points values like Epic games change that dynamic more than competitive play does.

True. When Mage Knight was still huge in my area (this was around 2000 or so) you could find games ranging from 200 points up to 800 points. But more often it was a 300 point match. Enough points to have diverse forces, but not so many that each person's force becomes unwieldy with excessively long turns. Naturally this limited what you could use since some figures were so expensive you could only field that one figure in a 300 point match, but they needed support to do well. Granted, those large point value matches where you're fielding a full army or the super expensive pieces like tanks and dragons can be a great deal of fun.

One of the biggest differences I'm seeing between Casual X-Wing and Tourney X-Wing is a willingness to field a wide range of upgrades. People who mainly play casually are more likely to experiment with oddball choices rather then sticking with the "tried and considered best" options.

1 hour ago, wurms said:

Is this bad for the game?

I dont think so. Its not much different than intentional fouling in basketball to send players to the free throw line and stop time.

I admit I don't know much about sports, but intentional fouling actually does sound like a bad thing to me.

3 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

I admit I don't know much about sports, but intentional fouling actually does sound like a bad thing to me.

I find it makes the ends of basketball games dreadfully unwatchable.

6 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

I admit I don't know much about sports, but intentional fouling actually does sound like a bad thing to me.

It is, but at the same time it's also a valid tactic. I'd imagine coaching teams spend a lot of time working out who, how, and when should foul or get a penalty flag since a single player getting too many infractions could get them ejected from the game. Sometimes it's accidental, but you know it's quite intentional and planned out in advance fairly often.