36 minutes ago, dezzmont said:

Every time I come back I’m reminded that you’re all completely mad.

1 hour ago, ForceSensitive said:

Epic is fine. Like, dang gurl u fine level fine. It had some weak spots. But anyone I've named to actually sit down and get to play a round have acknowledged it as good. The weak spots are fixable. A few things on Epic:

I am glad to hear it. I never got a chance to play it because my local scene was entirely organized by OP players, even though most of the people playing were casual.

Combined with the kerfuffle with the dials, and the lack of native support, and it really was an offputting mode to consider jumping into. I was actually going to buy an epic ship until I realized that I would not get the correct dial or the ability to run any special characters on the other faction I was considering to expand to at the time.

It sounds like Epic would have been a great mode for the casual playerbase but it was just rolled out and marketed EXTREMELY poorly and, at least in my local area, TOs and people running the small weekly locals were just not into it. Which was a shame because we were playing a FLIPPING STAR WARS GAME and getting people going 'ooo X-wings' before getting distracted by the person across the room who fielded who imperial knights in the night's 40k game.

Again, huge scale variance may be a bit of a marketing gimmick that is a big annoying to more 'serious' play, but game marketing is important! Small scale games may be more intimate and feel better for OP fans, but its also a bit less razzle dazzle for onlookers than seeing the Millennium Flacon and a few X-wings trying to do a bombing run on an Imperial Raider. Vorthos style players who like the theme and imagining the events of the game (That is right, it isn't all just Timmy, Johnny, and Spike!) should be a huge market X-wing is trying to tap but just... aren't. Again, its almost criminal that Luke Skywalker with R2-D2 on board is just... bad. Or Luke and Han in the Falcon together are just.... bad. Or that Poe is bad. They finally managed to get it together with the PT faction with most named characters being good AND evocative, or if they weren't good at least being interesting and not so terrible you couldn't fly them vs other causal lists. It is nice that spinning was, in fact, a good trick, at least until someone brought Boba to the local.

Hey @Darth Meanie - genuine question ...

I've played maybe half a dozen games of Epic since 2.0 dropped. I like epic and would play more if I could find the time. I think of Epic as a superset of standard, i.e. everything in standard is in Epic. When new ships come along for standard play, or when there's a points adjustment etc., I'm immediately thinking of the ramifications, possibilities for lists and strategies.

I'm not a serious 'competitive' player by any means, I have something like four store tournaments under my belt total (although most of my play group are, so I guess I absorb some of it by osmosis).

As an Epic player, are you looking at your lists, strategies and options each time new ships or new points lists come along in the same way a standard player would? I.e. if new A-wing pilots come along, does that change my A-wing wing? (that's clumsily worded!)

The thought was that every new thing that comes along in standard also comes along for epic (because it's a superset), but reading your posts it doesn't seem like you would view it that way. It makes me wonder whether that whole way of thinking (optimizing lists and strategies) is tied into the competitive play mindset?

35 minutes ago, dezzmont said:

Again, its almost criminal that Luke Skywalker with R2-D2 on board is just... bad. Or Luke and Han in the Falcon together are just.... bad. Or that Poe is bad.

This is the thing that really really REALLY irks me the most about X-Wing in general in that while it is a game where you can pick and choose upgrades, the 'canon' builds for those character really do not feel good.

I will say that Heralds of Hope has redeemed Poe in that regard. Original Poe + BB-8 + Daredevil + Overdrive Thrusters + Black One, feels soooo good and so much like the dreadnaught attacking Poe....he's also 85 points but still it was a real treat and fun to play him!

I do think there is an issue in the game and that can mostly be summed down to the fact that early 2.0 cards weren't as well thought out. I don't think Luke as a pilot is bad at all, but R2-D2 just doesn't feel 'wow' to me and more often than not R2 Astromech is just better on him, and that's sad.

I get that Luke gunner is a crutch card and I can understand why he is still expensive, but it would be nice to be able to play him.

This is partly why i am disappointed upgrades don't have subtitles, that way we can have two Luke Gunners, one be the crutch, and the other be a card that is better suited to fly with Chewbacca or Han as the pilot.

2 hours ago, eljms said:

Hey @Darth Meanie - genuine question ...

I've played maybe half a dozen games of Epic since 2.0 dropped. I like epic and would play more if I could find the time. I think of Epic as a superset of standard, i.e. everything in standard is in Epic. When new ships come along for standard play, or when there's a points adjustment etc., I'm immediately thinking of the ramifications, possibilities for lists and strategies.

As an Epic player, are you looking at your lists, strategies and options each time new ships or new points lists come along in the same way a standard player would? I.e. if new A-wing pilots come along, does that change my A-wing wing? (that's clumsily worded!)

It makes me wonder whether that whole way of thinking (optimizing lists and strategies) is tied into the competitive play mindset?

Yes, of course I look forward to every wave just as much as everyone else, and I look to see what I can now do that wasn't possible before. I'm mean, I'm trying to win a game of XWM, so I'm "competitive". . .

BUT

I'm looking for different stuff. A high IN generic with a talent slot gets me more excited than an Ace with a cool ability. If Tycho were to jump back into the game, he's got to do 1 of 2 things:

A. Stand on his own in a firefight with 8-10 opponents without support (that is a tall bill} or

B. Function as a support piece for as many other friendlies as possible. This is mostly what I'm looking for. So, for 54 points each, Soontir Fel is a No, but Warthog is a dream.

Similarly, 1 Charge Talents like Crack Shot are a waste. My Epic game is going to feature DOZENS of attack rolls, Crack Shot is going to have to come up at a perfect time to make it change the game. OTOH, something like Marksmanship that is "on" all the time is totally worth 1 point.

And lastly, I'm thinking: "Do I want 1? 4? 6?" Will it work in a wing?? And even if not, maybe I want several, because it is easier to play with multiple ships that have the same upgrades than everything being a solo piece. My go-to set-piece for Resistance isn't Poe; it's a flight of 4 Black Squadron T-70s with Marksmanship. At 200 points for the flight, that's like choosing something at 80 points for standard; plenty of room to design around for the rest of the list.

Quote

The thought was that every new thing that comes along in standard also comes along for epic (because it's a superset), but reading your posts it doesn't seem like you would view it that way.

The part that's missing is the superset. Everything that's Standard is Epic, but there can be stuff for Epic that isn't Standard. Titles for the Huge ships; Commanders for the Huge ships; Teams, Hardpoints, Cargo. Every wave gives Standard players a bunch of new upgrade cards; Huge ships have not seen a single new feature since the Huge CK kit dropped. And it is pretty sad that 4 out of 7 factions don't have Titles or Commanders; FFG didn't "convert" the Raider for FO at all, they just gave it an in-faction dial and base.

Also, we've been teased with the design space of "Epic Only" upgrades like Dreadnaught Hunter, and then seen almost none of that come to fruition. The Hyperdrive ring and the Jedi Commander offer some promise of change, but seriously, I can't get too jazzed about getting 1 card a year.

Also, as I pointed out, you could really scale some abilities differently for Epic. Stuff that would be overpowered in Standard could be just fine in Epic because of distance and numbers dilution.

And as for seeing an actual new Huge ship "wave" to try?? Ha!! They couldn't get the CR-90 right, and bailed on the Raider. The only reason the C-ROC is better is that they couldn't forget the blue line this time. 🤣

I would have really expected a Consular Corvette by now. . .

Geez, step away for a few days and this blows up. I have to agree a LOT more with Darth Meanie than FTS Gecko. I have known too many POTENTIAL players who looked at X-Wing, found out that the whole focus is on 1 on 1 tournament play and decided to not even get into the game or sold off their one core set. FFG's focus on that style has limited their sales and appeal to many.

Epic has been a badly neglected sideline. We are now a year after release and the app STILL doesn't support any Epic items? Has there been ANY news of the supposed "new app" that was mentioned a year ago?

There is a healthy group of players who enjoy the HOTAC/Flight Group Alpha/Battlestar Pallas way of playing X-Wing. FFG has IGNORED this segment and lost out on all sorts of potential sales items. By splitting out RPG and Miniatures divisions, they are making it clear they have no intention of supporting any of these players.

Tl/Dr, FFG has focused on OP ONLY and it has cost them player base and sales.

The eternal optimist in me just wanted to tell everyone to hang back a bit and let it play out. If the game is still good- keep buying and playing. If you stop entirely, the game will surely die.

1 hour ago, cybercat07 said:

The eternal optimist in me just wanted to tell everyone to hang back a bit and let it play out. If the game is still good- keep buying and playing. If you stop entirely, the game will surely die.

This.

Ive been refraining from posting here, because, as Obi Wan said “Im not brave enough for politics”. But now is as good a time as any to share my thoughts.

As another opinion on the subject, I think its great that we all want the best for this game, even if we dont agree on what that is. Just keep in mind that were all here because we love this game. Keep the discussion civil.

Overall, I think that communication is key here and because we dont have much of it (from both FFG and AMG), we have to make assumptions. Ride out the storm, as there is bound to be another announcement soon. Hopefully that will answer some questions. Remember:

Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to the darkside (and great force regen on Maul...)

20 hours ago, Stay OT Leader said:

And let’s be clear: FFG want that to happen because they make more money from Legion armies than X-Wing squads. Running X-Wing down is a strategy.

So, this seems like a bit of an odd take to me. I'm not doubting that the profit margins for on sprue, unassembled, unpainted models are better than for painted and assembled minis, but the two games also appeal to quite different customer/player bases. There's surprisingly little overlap between the X-Wing and Legion players in my local area, and I think a large part of that does come down to people picking games based on if they want a "hobbyist" element to it or not.

Speaking personally, while I play 40k and Age of Sigmar and grudgingly do the building and painting needed to make a playable army, I've put a lot more play time and money into X-Wing because I can just pick up a new expansion and play with it right away. It's the one reason that I've not got into Legion - the game looks great fun, but I just don't have the time for more models I need to build and paint before I can game with them.

Surely it's better to have products that appeal to a range of potential audiences rather than doubling down on just one, even if the profit margins aren't quite as good on some lines?

Maybe AMG will declare the K-wing too ugly to exist and ban it? 🤔

21 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

I've played Standard a handful of times, and really didn't enjoy it very much.

The main problem here is that neither you, nor more importantly FFG, is listening.

Epic is pathetic because FFG let it be that way. If they had spent any time at all designing for that environment, casual players could have had the colorful Star Wars-inspired game that many people first walk up to the table for.

Instead, they designed 2 editions of Sport-Wing, which in the long run didn't even keep the competitive players engaged.

I'm doomcasting?

So you admit you stick with a game that you don't enjoy very much in the hopes that they'll finally focus on an optional mode that was never focused on and doesn't seem likely to get much more attention in the future. Especially with the economic and social impacts of the Covid situation.

Knock yourself out man. Your attitude just makes me think Epic was a mistake. The game doesn't scale well from dogfights to Huge ships, felt like a stopgap kludge until they released Armada where they could put capital ships in their proper role, and stringing along the few players who had an interest in the format just wound up frustrated over the whole thing. Better to never have gone down that path in the first place.

15 hours ago, dezzmont said:

I am glad to hear it. I never got a chance to play it because my local scene was entirely organized by OP players, even though most of the people playing were casual.

Combined with the kerfuffle with the dials, and the lack of native support, and it really was an offputting mode to consider jumping into. I was actually going to buy an epic ship until I realized that I would not get the correct dial or the ability to run any special characters on the other faction I was considering to expand to at the time.

It sounds like Epic would have been a great mode for the casual playerbase but it was just rolled out and marketed EXTREMELY poorly and, at least in my local area, TOs and people running the small weekly locals were just not into it.

Got to organize it yourself then. I'm one of about 5 community organizer types that we have locally. By quirk I'm the only one that wanted to even do Epic(or Hyperspace for that matter). Best we got was one Epic game every other week. If your local organizers agent making it happen, someone's gotta step up.

The only real rollout issue was the cr90 dial, on one ship. That ship was more economical to get old and convert anyway with no problem. The manufacturer mistake was serious, to be sure. There was some weird fit issue with some cardboard but no worse than a lot of standard stuff has problem wise too. The marketing was actually pretty good too, definitely more than a usual wave in hype, so that's not the issue. Again, look at Aces High. That was just a preview and people were playing it the next day all over. Well before the rules came out officially. Even at events.

The 'problem' with Epic is nothing to do with it's rule set, marketing, or production. People just don't like leaving 200/6 for some reason. Also again, look at all the clamoring for objectives play, anything to break up standard. FFG delivered with two card packs, they sold well,...I still haven't gotten anybody to play one yet. Played Epic dozens of times, yet not a soul will touch the environments. And I'm taking about local folk including the other organizers who also advocate objective play not agreeing to a game with it. Honestly it's bizarre to me. Like you said about your locals, no body wants to move for some reason even though there's a lot of casual players.

They didn't put Epic in the official app. Seems a pretty clear statement of where Epic falls on the priority list. They didn't have the stones to not do 2nd Edition Epic and pass up all those sweet profit margins for just selling cardboard in a huge ship conversion kit. Then that same lack of character prevented them from doing it properly.

I was considering adding the huge ships to my collection right up until they decided not to put them in the official app. And then they waffled on whether there would be prequel era huge ships. There was publicity for Epic. The marketing for Epic was really poor. Publicity lets folks know you're selling snow. Marketing gets Eskimos to buy snow.

3 hours ago, Koing907 said:

So you admit you stick with a game that you don't enjoy very much in the hopes that they'll finally focus on an optional mode that was never focused on and doesn't seem likely to get much more attention in the future. Especially with the economic and social impacts of the Covid situation.

Knock yourself out man. Your attitude just makes me think Epic was a mistake. The game doesn't scale well from dogfights to Huge ships, felt like a stopgap kludge until they released Armada where they could put capital ships in their proper role, and stringing along the few players who had an interest in the format just wound up frustrated over the whole thing. Better to never have gone down that path in the first place.

Why don't you go back and read all of my posts in this thread before you give me BS just to be contrary.*

Quote

The game doesn't scale well from dogfights to Huge ships, felt like a stopgap kludge until they released Armada where they could put capital ships in their proper role, and stringing along the few players who had an interest in the format just wound up frustrated over the whole thing.

Because this just proves you don't know what you are talking about. You think Epic is lame. That's fine. Yours is not a universally shared opinion.

But that's doesn't give you the right to tell everyone to play Armada instead.

And I find attitudes like yours* far more frustrating than the release schedule for the XWM mode I enjoy.

*On second thought, go back and read the whole thread. You've skipped nearly all the content just to whine at me.

16 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

Similarly, 1 Charge Talents like Crack Shot are a waste. My Epic game is going to feature DOZENS of attack rolls, Crack Shot is going to have to come up at a perfect time to make it change the game. OTOH, something like Marksmanship that is "on" all the time is totally worth 1 point.

Crack Shot is strong in epic. Saying "it is a waste" is either hyperbolic or lack of understanding its strength. It is comically easy to line up a bullseye with wings and huge ships on the boards and cancelling an evade result is great. It is definitely rougher to run at 2 points compared to it's old single point cost oviously, but Nantex-play should have affirmed that massed Crack Shot is very strong.

However, I will agree with you that Marksmanship is great in epic. Against wings it is okay, but against huge ships it shine. Huge ships crits are very debilitating. Once you get past the shield regen, layering crits end those ships. I've yet to try DeadeyeShot in epic (for obvious pandemic reasons), but am interested in the possibilities. Have you had a chance to try it out yet?

21 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

Crack Shot is strong in epic. Saying "it is a waste" is either hyperbolic or lack of understanding its strength. It is comically easy to line up a bullseye with wings and huge ships on the boards and cancelling an evade result is great. It is definitely rougher to run at 2 points compared to it's old single point cost oviously, but Nantex-play should have affirmed that massed Crack Shot is very strong.

However, I will agree with you that Marksmanship is great in epic. Against wings it is okay, but against huge ships it shine. Huge ships crits are very debilitating. Once you get past the shield regen, layering crits end those ships. I've yet to try DeadeyeShot in epic (for obvious pandemic reasons), but am interested in the possibilities. Have you had a chance to try it out yet?

Yes, I've tried Deadeye and liked it. I have a hard time deciding which I would prefer: Marksman, Deadeye, or mixing both.

And my Crack Shot crack comes from an assumption it won't pull it's weight, so under your advisement I'll need to give it a try. 🙂

I never put crack shot in an epic list except as maybe an odd filler. I don't think you'd really need it unless it was an after thought. Against huge ships, uh, why? They're 0agi. For the cost of say four copies, I'd rather upgrade two generics to higher I, and init kill some generics with mass fire. Or for the same four points, put that towards ordnance. I say this from experience. The two times I tested crack shot in Epic I ended up losing many of them before they could even fire, or just not having anything to use it on before later dying anyway.

Unless someone's trolling with full Defender wing. In which case your still going to lose, you'll just be able to say you had a card that'd help if you hadn't gotten mass killed anyway lol. Pls, don't be that guy 😑 😂

"One of our focuses is using Organized Play as a vehicle to expand upon the core game experience through use of events that feature alternate game modes, highly focused narrative event s, and an emphasis on equally rewarding everyone who plays, especially at the in-store level, where communities for these great games thrive."

Sounds promising!

https://www.atomicmassgames.com/star-wars-op-message

I will remain skeptical. I've been down this road before.

Am I alone in feeling that fighters in Armada feel terrible as game design element? Especially slow stuff like b-wings. It just doesn't make sense that fighters can't move and attack on their own. Seems to their big advantage in the movies and shows is their ability to react to the battle quickly.

To bring this make to the marketing points.

I own 13 Tie Interceptors and 9 Tie Defenders to give an idea of the general size of my collection. Purely because my friends and I would get together every Saturday and spend half the day playing massive 2x2 or 3x3 epic games. I loved that FFG released classic pilots like Maarek Stele in the Defender, and I loved that cards like Tie/D let me playout fantasies I've had since I was a kid playing Tie Fighter. (I got into Star Wars through the games not the movies).

FFG's bungling of Epic ended my group of friends playing X-Wing. They were really only interested in the big group games, and by the time Epic was finally released the momentum was gone and no one wanted to play catch up converting their collection. Plus ever since FFG cut down on familiar EU pilots and removed a lot of the fluffy cards in favor of more popular tournament favorites like X7, I don't think I've ever bought more than 4 of any single ship. Typical just 2 now for upgrades. They just don't connect to me on an emotional level like they used to.

I can definitely say as someone that doesn't care about tournaments that the new approach has probably cut my spending on X-Wing by two thirds.

It's been a fun ride on these forums with y'all.

I'll miss that, for what it's worth.

I'm sure we'll meet again on some new AMG forums or in real life.

Cheers.

14 hours ago, ForceSensitive said:

The 'problem' with Epic is nothing to do with it's rule set, marketing, or production. People just don't like leaving 200/6 for some reason

See

14 hours ago, Frimmel said:

They didn't put Epic in the official app. Seems a pretty clear statement of where Epic falls on the priority list. They didn't have the stones to not do 2nd Edition Epic and pass up all those sweet profit margins for just selling cardboard in a huge ship conversion kit. Then that same lack of character prevented them from doing it properly.

I was considering adding the huge ships to my collection right up until they decided not to put them in the official app. And then they waffled on whether there would be prequel era huge ships. There was publicity for Epic. The marketing for Epic was really poor. Publicity lets folks know you're selling snow. Marketing gets Eskimos to buy snow.

Epic was, flat out, very poorly marketed and released with mistake after mistake after mistake. It wasn't just 'People don't like leaving 200/6 for some reason.' Epic was released in a way that made it super clear FFG didn't care about it at all, and that means people aren't going to want to invest money into it or time into it.

Like I said, a huge part of marketing games or other entertainment products is trying to create the perception of a relationship between the end user and the product. Epic... didn't even try. Not a little bit. So its not a mystery of why it wasn't adapted.

Saying 'people just didn't want to leave 200/6' is a classic marketing 101 blunder: It isn't the customer's job to like your product, its your job to get the customers to like your product. If people weren't hopping over to Epic, or enviromental play, like any other marketing issue, it is the marketer's fault for not understanding something or implementing their marketing plan incorrectly. If you just say 'The customer didn't engage with it' as a marketer, your going to get fired because your ENTIRE job is to understand your customer's behavior and make smart choices to influence it, which is why you do things like market research and try to understand the industry you are in. There is a clear desire for Epic, even among players who never played it, and Epic is a 'genre' of product in the wargaming community that tends to be super popular and generate excitement. The market was there, and what they wanted to do was an industry standard way to make money and generate hype. They just... failed.

In the case of Epic, the whoopsie in question was super clearly 'Bungle the release super hard it makes everyone really quite aware Epic does not have any real future on the horizon.' So even ignoring that hurting the sale of epic specific products, it also means people aren't going to try out the mode and invest emotional energy into it either. You can say it was 'just the dial on one ship' but an Epic ship is, for most consumers, a luxury purchase, and FFG's customer service department was just canned at the time, so it was still a mega-bad look that absolutely made every other problem Epic was facing (not being a launch product, clearly being unfinished, almost certainly not having future products because FFG kept mismanaging reprints) worse. Over-essentializing 200/6 as a mode didn't help of course, 2.0 launched in a way that sold its primary mode as AMAZINGLY inflexible (not launching with flexible totals, for example) that made selling ANY new mode really hard, but it still wasn't something completely insurmountable. FFG just looked at a small hill and said 'why bother we are going all in on 200/6 anyway' and didn't even try, despite various playmodes kinda... being REALLY important for both OP AND casual markets in most minis games.

As for environment cards, it feels similar: They were very much positioned as 'wacky side content.' They weren't super well integrated into how people 'thought' about X-wing, but there would have been easy ways to change that. For example, most wargames HAVE much less bombastic environment equivalents in tournament play to force lists to be somewhat versatile and adaptable, like Infinity and the T3 system. Obviously the existing enviroment cards vary in how appropriate they are for high level play and I think the OP community would revolt, but this is how most games do this sort of thing: tournaments don't have the wackiest stuff but tend to still have scenario based effects you can't predict and must be able to adapt too, which increases the skill cap rather than decreasing it.

But even just re-framing the type of content environment cards were without making any actual mechanical changes would work. For example, including a few minor environment cards in core would get you more primed to think of them as the 'core experience,' though that would require them to have the concept of environment cards when making core, which they may not have. Another way to 'push' environment cards would be printing a 'standard' environment card that is just the rules as is, but making it so you HAVE to select an environment card from here on out, so even though tournaments would always use the standard environment, every game in theory 'has' an environment, so saying 'wanna use a non-standard one?' is a bit less 'out there.

The power of framing a product can't be understated. Subtle alterations to how you position what you are selling or advocating massively change the perception of it.