I played a tournament recently where my opponents were using the app instead of dice.

Seriously FFG? You really selling this and making tournament legal? For a long time I wasn't clear what was going on. Tapping on the screen, putting virtual dice out, rolling, replacing dice, adding dice. What the heck? And it all takes a long time. Pick up some dice and roll them. What is wrong with practicing that ancient art. It's fun.

What do others think?

Why not? What's wrong with the app?

It's okay that you prefer dice, but why ban the app just because someone does not like it?

The only thing i could imagine is that he didn't show you what he was rolling, that of course would be cheating, but else i dont see any reason not to allow it.

I have never seen anyone use it, but I could see how it would be advantageous for some squads to take forever and a half to use the app.

When playing with friends, we have stopped using it mostly because we found compared to using physical dice, the app would roll a miss/evade more often, so our games were dragging on forever. Plus we are preferring the feel of physical dice compared to an app.

I have to agree…I like the feel of actually rolling dice…and when it comes to modifying or re-rolling…the app can't touch the speed of just grabbing the dice. I have it…but have never used it in a game…and probably never will.

I understand that the app is a physics based program but honestly I texted this kid I used to teach chess and asked him if he could crack it. He said "Better question, what do you want it to do?"

I know I could get this app cracked to roll lots of pictures. Not crits, just focuses cause then it wouldn't be so obvious. I also noticed some people playing with the app that weren't showing it to everyone they were playing. I don't know. The app is cool. For a tourny, you should have to roll physical dice or allow for the opponent to say sorry no app if they are not cool with it.

For a long time I only had one core set's worth of dice, so I downloaded the app and used it extensively. It was a lot of fun, and worked smoothly; no hang-ups or slow-downs. Plus, the sound effects got everybody in the shop feeling the Star Wars vibe. It was great fun!

Another plus, is that you never have cocked dice. I had this one opponent who kept rolling his dice onto asteroids and ship bases (even on different nights!). He would try to balance another die on top of it to see if it was cocked. Is it just me, or is it pretty obvious that D8's are hard to stack on top of each other even if they aren't cocked? He'd roll all blanks, and then have to check a couple of them, and inevitably reroll evades. Frustrating and time consuming. The dice app doesn't have that problem.

Nevertheless, I have a second core set now and, have made the switch to real dice…mostly becaues real dice won't run out of batteries half-way through a tournament.

I know electronics feel untrustworthy, but the dice app is going to be more accurate than normal dice. It's programmed to give each result exactly 1/8 of a chance of occurring. Real dice are machine tumbled, giving them inaccurate sides and edges, hence "lucky" dice. You could certainly hack the app, but it would be just as easy or easier to load the dice or otherwise cheat. Id be suspicious if it was some obscure app, but there is only one X-Wing dice roller app and it's put out by a reputable company. As long as they let you see their dice results upon request, there really isn't anything wrong.

That said, I like having physical dice. But that's a personal preference.

Also I doubt that FFG will ever ban the app from tournaments. Why? Because no one who played X-Wing would buy it again. And banning it would only give further credence to non-tournament players that don't like it, meaning that virtually no group would completely accept the app anymore.

Found a short article on pseudo-random number generator used in programming:

http://www.howstuffworks.com/question697.htm

Anywho, I like the traditional way of rolling dice. I can understand FFG for allowing dice app since they have vested financial interest in it and may be appealing to the new gen youth who are more in the electronic age. Though if allowed in tournaments, I think there should be guidelines. Where the person has to place the app visible to all before generating the rolls.

The biggest problem for tournament use is that it's a time sink.

My group actually tested the app this evening, since people tend to think that the app rolls more faces instead of blanks on a consistent level. We rolled about 30 times, using 3 of each die. We ended up with 7 blank faces total. I'm not going to say this proves the program is goofed, but it raises an eyebrow.

I don't trust dice rolling apps. The chanes of it being truly random is slim to nil. I agree this should be banned from tournaments, I don't allow them in friendly games.

To me using a "dice rolling app" would be like bringing the flight stands minus the models… sure you can still kinda play the game but are you just missing the point of a miniature game that you, a person is playing, where 3 dimensional models and dice are used.

I am not a fan of it. If an opponent tried to use it without me being able to see it clearly then I would call shenanigans on it. Because of this, I feel it will always take more time to use it. Seriously - just use dice.

i would also try and veto the app, but if the opponent will fight to use the app in a match, then i would roll my dice using his app as well.. to even the playing feild if anything has been tampered with; there will be no disadvantages on either side this way

qwertyuiop said:

I just did 3 evade dice, 30 times on the app. I ended up with 39 blank results and 51 focus or evade. 30 times is not even enough. You need to do it about 1000 times to start to see equal distribution. Truly random means each result is just as likely every time. Rolling the same thing 12 times in a row is still random.

Before I got my second core set (and before my friend and I realized the sequence of roll attack, modify/reroll attack, roll agility, modify/reroll agility, compare), I used the app for all rolls in our games. It worked out alright. You can put a bunch of dice in there and just roll the ones you need. Its a lot faster if you know how to use it.

I think the app is fine as long as both players are using it. Both use the app or both use dice.

I don't trust the app, on the same hand, i don't trust a machine to roll my dice for me.

That being said I have seen the app wiff, and i have seen it do some amazing rolls. Just like i have seen all blank results on 5 evade dice. App or dice crazy things happen. But like i said, I roll my dice, not my phone. And if my opponate uses it, he better be visably shoing me what he's doing.

for me it is too easy to reroll a bad roll and cheat.

Wow people are such whiney *******…. if someone has the app let them use it, as long as they are showing what results they are getting.

I found the dice app to be REALLY slow during a game. My opponent accidentally double tapped the screen a couple times re-rolling. It was pretty awful, so we put it away and shared my dice for the rest of the match.

In my circles, I have found the app is only used by persons of exceptionally low character and poor hygiene. BAN IT

I have the app, though prefer the actual dice. I will say the app is WAAAAAY better on my tablet (droid) than the phone.

As far as the time it takes…You can save differnt die Presets to make the rolling faster. I have a preset for both Attack and Defense 2-4 dice each.

Since the dice expansions are hard to find the app is a nice alternative to have (albiet a little on the expensive side for a dice app, imho).

I use the app all the time. I actually prefer it to the dice.

I've gotten used to it as well, so I can roll dice on it faster than you can roll your dice that you just misplaced.

It IS allowed by official tournaments so at this point there are only 2 things you can do if you go to an OFFICIAL tournament and people are using it.

1. Nothing

2. Like it

thanx for playing!