First off, this is just a post about general ponderings and musings regarding the game. I invite you to share yours. Generally, however, I am very satisfied with 2.0, the meta, and the fun of the current dog-fighting deathmatch. Hyper/Ext both have their place and points changes keep things fresh.

That being said... X-Wing has evolved. I remember back in the 2014-2015 days (or even earlier) when we played and had win by complete destruction in something like 40-50 minutes. Fun times. We as a community have generally all become little X-wing chess masters, and have learned the value of moving slow, the vast importance of the first engagement and initial positioning, and to trust our dials more than our dice. Lets be honest: games rarely ever end by destruction anymore. There are recent major GSP events that the final 2 hour match ends with still half of the ships on the table. Also, the points are generally promoting higher ship count builds. I think its still 80 percent play style though. If we throw any two builds at each other's throats, they'll generally clear each other up in 75 minutes.

I don't lament this too much, honestly, but it does make me wonder if there would be a way to jump start things in another direction that rewarded speed of play/destruction. An option could be to run as a new format (FFG/AMG sponsored or just done on a local level), thus keeping the standard game intact, or even just a mix of scoring options within an event. So, in other words, the cut may use a different means of scoring than the finals, etc.

A Couple of Ideas

Dials Down!

The first player to have dials down gets to give a calculate token to any ship. (I think this is most likely to be a local fun-times add-on to league night.)

Complete Destruction

Basically reverse the scoring priority order of the standard tournament. Points destroyed determines your ranking, not wins. Wins only break ties. So, example, I may lose a game 200 - 150, but I may be ranked higher than a player than won his game 16 - 0. So, if its 4 games to the cut and I have these results (my scores first): 100-200(L); 150-100 (W); 100-100 (D); 185-165 (W), then my score to the cut would be 535 (Wx2). I think this would really increase the pace of play, aggression, and keep things interesting even when you're losing a match. It would be the death knell of the Super Ace list archetype that relies on snatching the win by points alone, so they may have to be adjusted in points a bit. And I could see a mix of scoring here. To the cut by this method and then standard scoring for the Final Cut. Be a punchy beginning, but ending with a cagey finish. (BTW, this is not my idea)

Objectives

Not a knew topic here, but my flavor of idea... I was pondering the possibility of each faction having a set number of Objective Cards. Say 8. They would focus on the particular identity of that faction. There could be a couple generic ones that are similar across factions. The sky's the limit on creativity within each faction. For a tournament, you must bring 3 of your Objective Cards. They are reveled to your opponent, and he reveals his 3 to you. Then you each choose one Objective secretly, placing it facedown in the play area. If you achieve you objective you get an additional 30 points to your score.

Ideas (share yours, I'll add others later on, I gotta go for now)

Rebels "When your fist ship is destroyed, if all of your other ships have at least one damage, you complete this objective."

I think a small campaign style event would be good.

Each player brings a roster of 600 points for the day.

The day will be split into 4 rounds with swiss pairings.

Each round is a mission that a player brings 200 points into lasting 75mins.

Points are scored for mission objectives as well as scoring half the value of destroyed ships.

Ships that are destroyed are removed from your roster, ships used in a mission are not repaired if used in the next mission.

Each mission will have a mission critical ship which you would have had to build into your roster.

Mission 1 Collect data satellites. Mission critical ship "A large base ship to collect the satellites".

Place 7 satellites on board at set locations, players get 25 points for each sat that they take away from the field. Large base ship must flee from starting edge of board.

Mission 2 Laying mines. Mission critical ship "a ship with mines".

Have 6 quadrants on board player with a mine in each quadrant at the end gets 25 points per quadrant. Mines can be targeted by a special action "target mine" which allows the opposing player to fire at it gaining 1 strain in process.

Mines can also be destroyed by flying over them.

Mission 3 capture crew...

You get the idea.

Dials down just penalizes high ship count and newer players. Hard pass on that one.

Complete destruction makes the game about combat math more than strategy. Armada scoring currently operates on a similar principal where 'Margin of victory' takes precedence. In that system it is possible to have won every match rather comfortably but in the margins in your event, demonstrating a good mastery of the game. But you still lose to someone who only actually won half their matches and lost the other half by full or close to total destruction either way. Race car drivers shouldn't be allowed to win a race because they wrecked the car every other lap but posted record times the other laps. You shouldn't be winning a strategy game event if you can't actually strategically win half of the rounds. So again, hard pass for me.

Objectives. Yes. Good. Goooood. This is the way. But X-wing has been notoriously hard to implement a objectives system into.

1 hour ago, ForceSensitive said:

Dials down just penalizes high ship count and newer players. Hard pass on that one.

Complete destruction makes the game about combat math more than strategy. Armada scoring currently operates on a similar principal where 'Margin of victory' takes precedence. In that system it is possible to have won every match rather comfortably but in the margins in your event, demonstrating a good mastery of the game. But you still lose to someone who only actually won half their matches and lost the other half by full or close to total destruction either way. Race car drivers shouldn't be allowed to win a race because they wrecked the car every other lap but posted record times the other laps. You shouldn't be winning a strategy game event if you can't actually strategically win half of the rounds. So again, hard pass for me.

Objectives. Yes. Good. Goooood. This is the way. But X-wing has been notoriously hard to implement a objectives system into.

Lol. No offense meant.... but you either don’t play swarms, don’t play aces, or your local meta is entirely different than mine! 🤣 👍

ACE PLAYERS ARE THE WORST ABOUT DIAL SET TIME!!! And no offense to them they lose if they miss one beat. I get it. Also new players tend to set dials faster in my experience.

So I like and agree with your other points... what’s your suggestion to a path of change? Obviously any change will not be perfect... otherwise we’d be doing it.

As a whole leave things as is? Or accept the drawbacks for something new?

Also, I’m suggesting too that this could be a format choice not a total core revamp. So we could play a Complete Destruction event just for change of pace.

36 minutes ago, JBFancourt said:

Lol. No offense meant.... but you either don’t play swarms, don’t play aces, or your local meta is entirely different than mine! 🤣 👍

ACE PLAYERS ARE THE WORST ABOUT DIAL SET TIME!!! And no offense to them they lose if they miss one beat. I get it. Also new players tend to set dials faster in my experience.

crazy to me, because I'm an AVID ace players, usually playing lots of 2 ships list with crazy reposition and everything, and i'm definitely one of the fastest a setting dials round to round in my locals. Good aces players already have 2-3 turn planned in advance anyway, and they pick move that will let them decide later with repo depending on what the opponent might do. The hardest ship to pick a maneuver for are usually ships do have a single action, no force, and no good repo, so they have to pick a side first and make it count. Ace ship will just pick the hard 2 turn and go from there

Games are also going to time now because defense is much better while offensive has declined.

25 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

Games are also going to time now because defense is much better while offensive has declined.

With the niche exceptions of the ETA and Zizi Tlo, I fundamentally disagree with this sentiment. How has defense gotten better?

"Defense" might not be the right term, but efficient generics take a long time to kill . Aggressor Sloane Swarm (does that still exist?), Spam Scyks, or Malarus + 6 are good examples. There isn't a tonne of individual defense on a per-ship basis. But chewing through a list of ships which are this efficient, given the level of offense in 2e, just requires a lot of minutes.

18 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

"Defense" might not be the right term, but efficient generics take a long time to kill . Aggressor Sloane Swarm (does that still exist?), Spam Scyks, or Malarus + 6 are good examples. There isn't a tonne of individual defense on a per-ship basis. But chewing through a list of ships which are this efficient, given the level of offense in 2e, just requires a lot of minutes.

That I'll definitely agree with that, that doesn't seem to be what Blail was asserting. If they were using that logic, offense would have increased, as well, or at least not declined.

4 hours ago, 5050Saint said:

With the niche exceptions of the ETA and Zizi Tlo, I fundamentally disagree with this sentiment. How has defense gotten better?

Generics cost less for far more health. Tie F from 1.0 to 2.0 = 26->22. Xwing 40->38?? Then look at arcs, and socks and tie bombers and aggressors everything else.

Offense has declined: Most of the old power EPTs like PTL no longer exist. Phantoms down to 3 dice. Tie Adv slightly nerfed. Soontir weaker/more situational. Etas. Nantex even are 2 die turrets. Grand Inq, now considered one of the better aces is 2 die.

Many 1.0 aces were shooting 3 TL F or 4 dice (many times also TL F). Often a lot of guidance chipped 4 die ordnance. Darth Vader crew is gone, the scum crews are slightly weaker. TLT is gone. One can go on and on. Think and you will understand

Yeah offense has gone WAY down.

20 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

Generics cost less for far more health. Tie F from 1.0 to 2.0 = 26->22. Xwing 40->38?? Then look at arcs, and socks and tie bombers and aggressors everything else.

Offense has declined: Most of the old power EPTs like PTL no longer exist. Phantoms down to 3 dice. Tie Adv slightly nerfed. Soontir weaker/more situational. Etas. Nantex even are 2 die turrets. Grand Inq, now considered one of the better aces is 2 die.

Many 1.0 aces were shooting 3 TL F or 4 dice (many times also TL F). Often a lot of guidance chipped 4 die ordnance. Darth Vader crew is gone, the scum crews are slightly weaker. TLT is gone. One can go on and on. Think and you will understand

Forgive me then, I thought you meant defense has gotten stronger solely in the context of 2nd edition. My brain doesn't live in the 1st Edition headspace anymore. In anycase, more ships on the board seems a bit of an odd point as more ships equals more offensive power, as well.

To counter some of your points, as much as attack power has decreased, defensive power has decreased, as well. Stealth Device now breaks when suffering damage not just when defending. Evade tokens do not add an evade to the dice pool but rather just change a result. Lightweight Frame no longer exists (the biggest nerf to QD). TIE Defenders are limited to 2 in a list and have to fully complete their maneuver AND be able to perform the evade action to get an evade. Palp only turns eyeball results. Soontir is weaker/more situational. Autothrusters don't exist (nerfing every 3 die ace). Most three agility aces don't even have a mod slot to buff their defense. Vader and Kylo don't have the evade action. TIE Phantoms don't get to cloak immediately after they shoot. Lowwhrick's ability is super bad now. Reinforce allows hits through. Rex's condition goes away when anyone shoots him, not just the recipient of Suppressive Fire. R4-D6 doesn't exist. Concord Dawn only works in the front arc and only changes a result to an evade instead of adding one. But more important than anything...

...infinite regen existed.

There was a rather infamous final where two players, being unable to put any damage through their regen, played Loopin' Chewie on stream to runout the clock rather than try (even with TLT) to put through damage.

I have no qualms with your assertion that offense has declined since 1st Edition, but your assertion that defense is much better than what it was is way off. They both have declined.

@JBFancourt I've played my share of aces and swarms and everything in between over the years, and against many more in my meta. I've done mostly 4 and 5 ship builds all of 2nd myself. But I specifically said low ship count, not necessarily Aces. Rebel 4x4 would get a bonus advantage with your dials down idea vs Imp Ace+Mswarm for example. @DarthSempai has it with his statement. I've seen a few Ace style players that are relatively slow to place dials, but on the whole they are much faster in my experience. Especially once they have their approach locked in. Their mid to late game can be pretty simple to play out if their initial is good. Sure, their might be a crucial round or two in a game where they take awhile, but that's minor in the scheme of it.

(Edit: I just realized this went long again. I guess I was due to post an essay again 😔 Sorry. I'm really trying guys.)

As to fix it, now there's a tricky bit. Like I mentioned, X-wing doesn't integrate objective play very well. Certainly not in the traditional sense. For starters, the game was not largely designed around objective play in the first place like some others are. It's design was to be arena combat basically, and of course it's extremely good at that experience. But with that came a few odd bits that get in the way of some of the more traditional Objectives we think of in wargaming.

Let's think of say Warhammer for a moment where the board is six feet long and a unit usually only moves six inches or so. And we make an objective that says get unit X to location Y. It could take all six turns to cross the distance in a six turn game if it uses supporting game features like transports and simply running. So it works because you have to commit a fair plan to that unit to accomplish something simple as 'move that way'. And an opponent is interacting with you the whole way to stop you through bogging you down in fights and other means, getting the whole game to actually, y'know, play against your objective. And the turn limit helps drive the objective home. But an X-wing can cross the game board in about 3 turns. You could bump it sure, but you can't really stop it from getting there. Get an unlucky roll, and you won't even kill it on the way. Then add to that the lack of a game time limit (not counting a clock because it wouldn't matter in casual play), so there's nothing to really frame the objectives importance. So simple objectives that are 'go here' don't work.

Many mechanics and core rules put limits on the objective game and just get in the way. Ships always* have to move, so 'hold area/point' doesn't work particularly well. If decently focused, killing an individual unit can range from nearly impossible to laughably simple, so 'destroy target X' doesn't do great either. And on down the rabbit hole we could go. Epic can get around some, maybe even a lot of this. But it does so by breaking pretty far out of it's own games basic limits in the first place. Like adding turn limits, albeit subtlety, back in to the game.

I could try to come up with objective play solutions. I've been pondering it for practically the games life as it is. This forum is a veritable graveyard of objective play ideas, mine included. And 'play faster' ideas. And hard drives for 'kill-em-all' endings. And there's the real rub. What your after seems to be a 'play faster' AND 'kill-em-all' experience at the same time. I don't personally share these two motivations or desires of the game though. It's bizarre to me really. Not bad, just weird. But if I put my dungeon master hat on and were to try to tailor a style of event for you, to at least get you closer to the experience I think* your after, these are the levers I'd look at pulling in some way to get you there. In no particular order:

Add game time limits. A turn count. Say 10 rounds. Sounds odd I know, but it's player information that frames decision making process. Might be attached to some narrative or objective. I don't need to make the player physically play faster, or adjust event time. I might just need to add a second form of countdown clock.

Add a specific mandatory ship count. Say 4 ships. This hedges in some variances of play that lead to time problems. Level the dial count from the very beginning so everyone had the same low-ish number of decisions to make. And keeps artificially low how much there is to actually need removed to get a total destruction ending.

Use scoring objectives. Shift the focus from the elimination of units, to getting the required score. Say 200pts, conveniently. If I can rig a system that makes up for the surviving ships with scored points, games should more often end at the threshold of 'total' victory by the score system. Maybe something that awards 10pts at the end of each round no matter what. Over ten rounds, that's 100 pts. So then killing about 1/2 of the enemy, plus getting half the score objectives, over even less than the limited time will award the 'complete' win.

And I don't know if all that would work in the end for you. But for a first go, that's where I'd start at least.

I have been pondering about how to get the epic ships into normal games. I am thinking something like instead of obstacels, you put down your epic ship. It does not move in the game, maybe have weak turrets or missile arcs, just something to get that big ship feel on the board as I never have the time for epic.

12 hours ago, 5050Saint said:

Forgive me then, I thought you meant defense has gotten stronger solely in the context of 2nd edition. My brain doesn't live in the 1st Edition headspace anymore. In anycase, more ships on the board seems a bit of an odd point as more ships equals more offensive power, as well.

To counter some of your points, as much as attack power has decreased, defensive power has decreased, as well. Stealth Device now breaks when suffering damage not just when defending. Evade tokens do not add an evade to the dice pool but rather just change a result. Lightweight Frame no longer exists (the biggest nerf to QD). TIE Defenders are limited to 2 in a list and have to fully complete their maneuver AND be able to perform the evade action to get an evade. Palp only turns eyeball results. Soontir is weaker/more situational. Autothrusters don't exist (nerfing every 3 die ace). Most three agility aces don't even have a mod slot to buff their defense. Vader and Kylo don't have the evade action. TIE Phantoms don't get to cloak immediately after they shoot. Lowwhrick's ability is super bad now. Reinforce allows hits through. Rex's condition goes away when anyone shoots him, not just the recipient of Suppressive Fire. R4-D6 doesn't exist. Concord Dawn only works in the front arc and only changes a result to an evade instead of adding one. But more important than anything...

...infinite regen existed.

There was a rather infamous final where two players, being unable to put any damage through their regen, played Loopin' Chewie on stream to runout the clock rather than try (even with TLT) to put through damage.

I have no qualms with your assertion that offense has declined since 1st Edition, but your assertion that defense is much better than what it was is way off. They both have declined.

Sorry but that's plain wrong. The costing of hull and defensive value is much more aggressive now, and its more common to see 2 die attacks vs 3 defense. Also, you have a point about defense being harder too via upgrades, you aren't accounting for the most powerful increase in defense which is value of hull and agility dice.

You have a point about regents, but that's barking up a different tree.

Either way, afaik, more tournament games are going to time and cannot be completed in 9 rounds. So there's another piece of discussion that you've forgotten.

They have both declined, but attack has declined more, and the results show that.

Scoring in X-wing is an issue because game length is always an issue. its just a slow game. you can argue about wether red or green dice buffs will fix that, but really we need a complete mechanical overhaul that isnt coming until 3rd edition.

On OPs topic here are some of my format ideas. They all require playtesting and tweaks but they might be a fun way to gloss over the sameness of the current game.

#1) Secret Santa(of death!):

4+ players, the more the merrier. 100 points each, or however many points you prefer. Each player is randomly and secretely assigned a player as their designated enemy. you win the game if all your enemies ships are dead before anyone elses. Basic mayhem with an incentive to go all out. you dont know whos after who till its happenening, so it has some politic potential as well.

#2) Invader:

any odd number of players, with 2 attackers for every defender. standard 200 points per person. lower points if many players. play on a big board, say 3×6. Defending team choose up to 10 obstacles or mines, then place those obstacles or mines on their half of the board as they choose. Defenders win the game if they still control a ship on their half of the board after 15 turns.

in theory attackers are forced into a murder gauntlet against an outnumbered but prepared enemy. could be fun.

#3) Canabal King:

any number of points, any number of players, any size board. players may select only generic ships when squad building. Classic deathmatch, except every time a pilot kills another ship, its owner chooses 1 of the following:

A) Upgrade the ships generic pilot to a named pilot who flies that ship. (for example Red Squad to Wedge)

B) steal an active upgrade from the ship they killed, regardless of legality. (for example a TIE could steal an illicit. maybe ban turrets cause most ships lack indicators)

If a named pilot kills another named pilot, they gain that named pilots ability in addition to their own.

I guess it could be very artificially be made short by making a 150 pt format... 🤷‍♂️

Again, as another format not an overhaul...