Hey FFG Forum Folks!

I'll start with a rant, and end with a way to fix this that I think will help make us all better players! Maybe it's my "old age" making me a bit crotchety, but I am getting a little tired of all the "How I think we can fix [insert pilot name here]" or "fixing [insert upgrade name here]" posts, and I am curious if I am alone on this or if there are a bunch of people out there who agree.

My take is, FFG spends an inordinate amount of time playtesting every pilot and upgrade they produce. If you don't think FFG is already playtesting Wave 4 and probably even Wave 5 right now, then you don't know a heck of a lot about what goes into making these games. FFG has some of the top players out there use the new ships along with old ones to see how they work together, and put in countless hours making sure nothing is broken, that pilot/upgrade costs are fair, and that nothing is too overpowered. That's just how these kind of games are made, it's true for almost any game like this.

After all of this, a bunch of people playing the game, who have used a pilot/ability once or twice and fared poorly thinks it is broken? Your single-digit hours worth of experience lets you know better than the hundreds of hours that more experienced players have put in? I really doubt that.

That being said, there is an easy way we can fix all of this. If your experience with a pilot or upgrade keeps ending in disappointment, ask your fellow gamers how you can improve on it. Make posts like "I can't seem to hit with Seismic Charges, any tips out there for making these work?" or "The YT-1300 seems overpriced, how can I make the points worth it?" I think we will all be better off without the "Fixing" posts.

Instead of starting a discussion on changing cards that FFG is not going to implement, you might learn a lot about the game and become a better player. Isn't that why we are on these forums to begin with?

If you made it this far, thanks for reading! Let me know what you think! (also kudos to anyone who caught the Kubrick reference)

You say that, but I know from experience that no company can put the amount of hours playtesting that an entire community can put in. There are always things that sneak through. TBH X-Wing is fairly well balanced a few cards don't get a lot of use. There is only one ship I think that has been more or less proved through tournament, maths and casual play to be really behind the curve, and as the game stands with only 6 ships per faction, it is quite noticeable that the Imperials have less varied builds, partly due to this.

So I lurk these forums a lot. I play a lot of X-Wing. I own every piece, and multiples of most. I am making my first post ever on the forum to say:

Thank you

I hope people take your advice. I agree with you 100%.

Yeah I agree...

But that's gamers for you!!!

Also stop with the "FFG should produce ....."

I find that the more I play a certain pilot/card the better it becomes!

The forum spam can be quite annoying, and generally amounts to little better than wishful thinking. That having been said, I think RM has the right of it. We should consider ourselves lucky that FFG has done an outstanding job so far, because it quite easily could have gone the other direction. Look at Magic - Wizards is considerably bigger than FFG, and much more limited in scope. They create sets years in advance, and have a Future Future League to test the cards. Even with all of their time, money, and manpower, format warping cards still end up slipping through the cracks.

That having been said, FFG has earned my trust... so far. But I would be a fool to pretend like they're incapable of messing up. There are just some things you can't know until the ships, pilots, and upgrades are in players hands.

You say that, but I know from experience that no company can put the amount of hours playtesting that an entire community can put in. There are always things that sneak through. TBH X-Wing is fairly well balanced a few cards don't get a lot of use. There is only one ship I think that has been more or less proved through tournament, maths and casual play to be really behind the curve, and as the game stands with only 6 ships per faction, it is quite noticeable that the Imperials have less varied builds, partly due to this.

FFG may not have put in as many hours as the entire gaming community, but the "fix" this posts never represent the opinion of the whole community. If you think they do all you have to do is read one of them an see that they are al heated debates, if not out right fights.

I am not sure that any table top battle game can be 100% balanced. That being said, I have never played a table top game where game play mattered more and list build matter less than X-Wing. Of course my table top gaming is limited to: Warhammer Fantasy, Warhammer 40K, Warmachine, Star Treck: Attack Wing, Dystopian Wars, Battle Fleet Gothic, Mordheim, Star Wars Starship Battles, Heroclix, Star Wars Miniatures, Silent Death, and maybe a few more than I can remember. Other games that are not table top battle games that are not as well as balanced as X-Wing, D&D 2nd Ed, D&D 3rd Ed, D&D 4th Ed, Star Wars Role Playing, Star Wars Saga Edition, Legend of the 5 Rings, Pathfinder, Dresden Files: Role Playing, Magic the Gathering. I am sure there would be ton more but I don't play MMORPGs.

Let's just say that maybe X-wing isn't 100% balanced, and I really have very little insight into the inner workings of FFG, but they have produced a game where skill in playing it is way more important than knowing what ships are overpriced and should be avoided and underpriced and should be taken advantage of of you want to "win".

If you disagree I would challenge you to give an example of 1 game where "build" is even part of the game that is MORE balanced that X-wing.

I feel a lot of the forum spam is just how we show love for the game. The game is not quite like Magic: The Gathering where there are literally thousands and thousands of cards and multiple formats to discuss at every moment. We want to stay immersed in something that is fairly static. By this time most people who play a decent amount have had a good chance to try a little bit of everything and don't have that much new stuff to contribute. All the hypothetical forum posts are just a great way to keep talking about the game that we love until something new to talk about gets released.

I feel a lot of the forum spam is just how we show love for the game. The game is not quite like Magic: The Gathering where there are literally thousands and thousands of cards and multiple formats to discuss at every moment. We want to stay immersed in something that is fairly static. By this time most people who play a decent amount have had a good chance to try a little bit of everything and don't have that much new stuff to contribute. All the hypothetical forum posts are just a great way to keep talking about the game that we love until something new to talk about gets released.

I remember when this game first came out I made a personal rule that I would never fly more than 1 Y-wing and never without an ion-cannon. Fast forward a couple of years and Y-wing swarms (without Ion-cannon-turrents mind you) became one of THE lists to play because the were so hard to beat.

More recently as I was analyzing the Marksmanship upgrade I found that it was no where near as worthless as I had originally thought.

I think one of the fun thing about a game is learning new things about it, finding way to use things that I previously thought were not very good.

My advice to anyone who thinks something is broken is two fold. First don't use it, or second, use it a ton, try to figure out how what that thing you thought was worthless actually is really cool. Isn't that far better than ranting to the worlds about how the game rules aren't the way you want them to be in a vain effort to get FFG to change the rules or if not that at least get other people to agree with you that the rules should be changed.

If your not a tournament player then isn't fun the goal anyway. Yes, I know that winning is fun, but winning in a new way is more fun. Ia also find trying things out and finding out that they didn't work at all fun.

If you are a tournament player then trying new things out finding new combinations, or ways to make things work well, that everyone else thought sucked is a pretty good strategy. Well known good combos like Wedge+Biggs, HSF, TIE Swarm, Tycho+PtL or any others that are well enough known to have a name are going to be expected by any experienced Tournament player. They are going to have a plan for that. But until a little while ago no one had a plan for a swarm of Y-wings with no ion cannons. Turns out that guy won the tournament.

My second challenge, make a tournament winning TIE Advanced list (can't use Vader).

My take is, FFG spends an inordinate amount of time playtesting every pilot and upgrade they produce. If you don't think FFG is already playtesting Wave 4 and probably even Wave 5 right now, then you don't know a heck of a lot about what goes into making these games. FFG has some of the top players out there use the new ships along with old ones to see how they work together, and put in countless hours making sure nothing is broken, that pilot/upgrade costs are fair, and that nothing is too overpowered. That's just how these kind of games are made, it's true for almost any game like this.

After all of this, a bunch of people playing the game, who have used a pilot/ability once or twice and fared poorly thinks it is broken? Your single-digit hours worth of experience lets you know better than the hundreds of hours that more experienced players have put in? I really doubt that.

FFG has generally done an excellent job at game balance among the ships. However, they are not infallible. Some of the abilities are of questionable utility, at best. Their employees are working on many different projects simultaneously, they probably have far less time than you might think. But even if they did:

You say that, but I know from experience that no company can put the amount of hours playtesting that an entire community can put in. There are always things that sneak through.

Secondly, it is possible that some in the community have more expertise than they do, in select areas. It is extremely unlikely that anyone at FFG who has been involved with the X-wing project has done as much statistical analysis on it as I have. If this were not the case, then the TIE Advanced would have been released differently, unless they were intentionally trying to make it so that you would only ever fly it with Vader. This is possible, but seems odd for a points based squad building game.

Edit: I have been slowly building up a list of "House Rules" to try and balance a few minor issues for casual play. It's all purely personal preference.

Guys we need to fix these topics about having to fix the topics about fixing cards!

My second challenge, make a tournament winning TIE Advanced list (can't use Vader).

I would really like to see that list too.

Some people like to fix things. it's in their blood, they are just driven to think about how something works and try to think of ways they can improve it, sometimes even if it doesn't technically need "fixing."

Now of course there is such a thing as baseless whining, and it does happen a fair amount, but the very fact that there are people on the forums discussing and analyzing the game to the extent that we do means that, for as many whiny rant posts as there are, there are an equal or greater number of players who really like the game and will take those threads and make a more thoughtful analysis on the subject.

Discussion, even if it is seemingly baseless criticism, is healthy for the community. "What if" threads and "what ships will/should they release in future waves" threads are healthy for the community. Even if some of us who browse the forums a bit more often get tired of seeing them, people talking about the game is a good thing. Sure there are some bad eggs here and there but discouraging people from voicing their opinions or discussing their thoughts, however well researched and informed they may be, helps nothing. Discussion is good. Even in the worst whiny threads with the biggest dumb arguments someone can still come away thinking about something that had not occurred to them before, or thinking abut things in a different way.

Part of it is just the lull before new info comes out. Once FFG starts releasing info on the new formats and the new ships, things should hopefully shift toward discussions in those areas.

And really, it is always fun to play designer. As long as it is just for fun, I don't see the harm. The trouble is that people seem to take their "fixes" really seriously.

My take is, FFG spends an inordinate amount of time playtesting every pilot and upgrade they produce. If you don't think FFG is already playtesting Wave 4 and probably even Wave 5 right now, then you don't know a heck of a lot about what goes into making these games. FFG has some of the top players out there use the new ships along with old ones to see how they work together, and put in countless hours making sure nothing is broken, that pilot/upgrade costs are fair, and that nothing is too overpowered. That's just how these kind of games are made, it's true for almost any game like this.

After all of this, a bunch of people playing the game, who have used a pilot/ability once or twice and fared poorly thinks it is broken? Your single-digit hours worth of experience lets you know better than the hundreds of hours that more experienced players have put in? I really doubt that.

FFG has generally done an excellent job at game balance among the ships. However, they are not infallible. Some of the abilities are of questionable utility, at best. Their employees are working on many different projects simultaneously, they probably have far less time than you might think. But even if they did:

You say that, but I know from experience that no company can put the amount of hours playtesting that an entire community can put in. There are always things that sneak through.

Secondly, it is possible that some in the community have more expertise than they do, in select areas. It is extremely unlikely that anyone at FFG who has been involved with the X-wing project has done as much statistical analysis on it as I have. If this were not the case, then the TIE Advanced would have been released differently, unless they were intentionally trying to make it so that you would only ever fly it with Vader. This is possible, but seems odd for a points based squad building game.

Edit: I have been slowly building up a list of "House Rules" to try and balance a few minor issues for casual play. It's all purely personal preference.

I would doubt that you have done more statistical analysis they they have. I am sure they have done an aweful lot. I am sure they have analysed all the dice combintations and percentages to death. I am absolutely sure that they set the cost of the ship you are referring to what it is for a very good reason. Possibly because they found at lower cost it got overused, but whatever the reason is they surely have one.

I feel a lot of the forum spam is just how we show love for the game.

This makes me sad.

When I like stuff, I dont spend my time complaining about it.

If this is tha case, I feel sorry for your boy/girlfriends:(

@MajorJuggler

I'm a math guy too and I have really enjoyed your mathematical analyses on other threads I found them very enlightening and helped me in my own planning and tactics for this game.

But your certainty that you know better than the game designers is a little arrogant. You yourself admitted that things like barrel-roll weren't included in your calculations. I no math well enough to know that when it come to the application of math to the real world there is no "one best" way to do it. Different applications are based on different assumptions. Granted some assumptions are accepted as industry standards, but I don't think that is the case with game design and point values.

I am not even saying there is anything wrong with you saying that you think that the TIE Advanced or any aspect of the game is over/under priced. The problem comes when we decide to try to fix it. Sure one gaming group could get together and possibly come to a complete consensus about how you want to change the game, but that pretty much closes off your gaming group from everyone else. Because even if your game fixes are 100% the best thing for the game, you need every one else who ever plays with you to agree. Because once you change the rules your aren't playing the same game anymore. One little change no matter how small will have ripple effects that will effect (however subtly) every other aspect of the game.

The truth is there is no such thing as a perfectly balanced game. But what do we do with those imbalanced real or not that we perceive. I believe that Cpthalfbeard is suggesting that instead of trying to fix the game and make 100% perfect which is really doomed to failure, both because no game is perfect, and because we don't get to make official rule changes, instead would it be better if we spent our energies in a more productive way. The Easiest thing to do is just avoid those things that aren't worth it. But we could also embrace them, try to find a way to make them good. Maybe we will discover something that the game designers already knew, or maybe we will finally have the best proof (at least for ourselves) that the things aren't that good. Again I point you back to the Tournament winning list of Y-wings.

I am not saying that you are playing the game wrong if you play it with house rules, or that you are using the forums wrong to discuss them. I just think there might be something better, more fun, (and less contentious) way to proceed.

I would doubt that you have done more statistical analysis they they have. I am sure they have done an aweful lot. I am sure they have analysed all the dice combintations and percentages to death.

That would be a very interesting question to ask FFG in an interview. Right now, we have zero evidence one way or the other, we can only infer their internal process. The only indirect evidence we have is the stats and point costs on the ship.

If A then B.

not B, then not B.

In this case A = performing a thorough statistical analysis

B = reasonably point balanced TIE Advanced

Arguably they didn't extensively play test it either, otherwise they also would have caught that the TIE Advanced is under powered by experience. But some level of that is to be expected when the community has thousands of hours more play testing capability than they do in-house.

Basically, my point is that there are many people out there that know a lot more about statistics and their application than FFG. Anyone who has a PhD in statistics, especially having done any work with combinatorial statistics, for example. I don't have a PhD in statistics, but I am probably further towards that end of the spectrum than "random guy off the street" or "random guy at FFG". In the end the final product is the only thing that matters, and generally they have done a very good job with the ships. The Advanced is the outlier that they would have caught if they ran the numbers, in my opinion.

In the scientific / engineering / etc literature there is "peer review". Just because you get first dibs on an idea doesn't mean you are infallible. Same principle here.

@MajorJuggler

I'm a math guy too and I have really enjoyed your mathematical analyses on other threads I found them very enlightening and helped me in my own planning and tactics for this game.

Thanks.

It is true that you need to contort non-statistical measures (barrel roll, movement templates) into statistical form to fit Lanchester's laws, so the degree of uncertainty increases as it becomes a reductionist argument. That's why I also ran some numbers specifically on evade and barrel roll in the fixing the TIE Advanced thread, to see what would be needed for the X-wing vs TIE Advanced damage numbers to equalize. It is a long thread so you probably missed it. Heck, I might have a hard time finding it now. Bottom line, evade is worse than focus if you have more than 1 ship, and it's virtually impossible to use barrel roll to make back the damage deficit.

Actually.... the numbers are not at all unfavorable to the Y-wing, even naked Y-wings compared to naked X-wings. If anything, I would argue that although Y-wings were generally out of favor in the initial meta game, their use is now converging closer to what you would expect from their "figure of merit" that you can derive from Lanchester's Laws. I have always been a closet fan of Y-wings.

I would be highly surprised if they don't have a statistician around, they make games and games use rather a lot of stats.

Also what is with the fascination with Lanchester's law? Surely the Salvo Combat model is more appropriate for this game? We are absolutely in a discrete time situation with attack power high relative to number of shots and we have defensive firepower. Try running the algorithms in that situation. I think you might be surprised

I would be highly surprised if they don't have a statistician around, they make games and games use rather a lot of stats.

Also what is with the fascination with Lanchester's law? Surely the Salvo Combat model is more appropriate for this game? We are absolutely in a discrete time situation with attack power high relative to number of shots and we have defensive firepower. Try running the algorithms in that situation. I think you might be surprised

Yeah, I have run salvo simulations as well, using the expected damage numbers from the dice + actions + focus fire. I haven't gone so far yet as to get the probability density function for damage after each round of firing, but it's on my eventual to do list. I doubt it will happen in the next few months though, too much else going on, what with working full time and simultaneously finishing my degree.

Yes. I might get around to this at some point. Rather too similar to my day job for real enthusiam though...

Also would be interested in building a Monte Carlo model too. 100 Tie Adv vs 100 X-wing (same points value). What is the prob of victory for each side assuming a number of different options:

Range: 1, 2, 3

Fire Order: Simul, X first, Tie first

Action Use: Defensive Focus, Offensive Focus, Target Lock, Evade, Barrel Roll (hmm hard - some % chance of being out of arc?)

Target Decision: Opposite number, weakest enemy, strongest enemy, focus fire, spread fire etc

Then vary numbers to get 50% victory chance for each... Barrel roll and dials are hardest to evaluate here.

There are 2 sides to the "fixing" coin. There are those who just lament that things are not going well for whatever card/ship/pilot they really like and want to rant/or home brew. Then there are those that see an imbalance and look at ways to change that imbalance, improve game play and enjoyment, and learn a whole lot about the game as you go.

I really dislike the first and I am certainly one of the latter. Seldom am I content with "this sucks"; I learn a lot about the game and how it works by seeing how changes improve or disrupt game play. In play testing I also get to play with a different purpose than just "wining".

So be content in your games and leave the alterations in the good hands of FFG (they really have created a fantastic game) and don't read the posts you don't want to; some of us are going to keep tweaking, exploring, balancing, and designing. We're making the game better even if you don't think it needs to be better.

There are 2 sides to the "fixing" coin. There are those who just lament that things are not going well for whatever card/ship/pilot they really like and want to rant/or home brew. Then there are those that see an imbalance and look at ways to change that imbalance, improve game play and enjoyment, and learn a whole lot about the game as you go.

I really dislike the first and I am certainly one of the latter. Seldom am I content with "this sucks"; I learn a lot about the game and how it works by seeing how changes improve or disrupt game play. In play testing I also get to play with a different purpose than just "wining".

So be content in your games and leave the alterations in the good hands of FFG (they really have created a fantastic game) and don't read the posts you don't want to; some of us are going to keep tweaking, exploring, balancing, and designing. We're making the game better even if you don't think it needs to be better.

But your not making it better. Your just talking about making it better. And that talking often turns into fighting. I am not telling you to stop coming up with "fixes" but rather suggesting a better alternative.

I am making the game better. You might might not agree.

The fighting usually ensues when 2 or more persons state one is wrong. Discussion should follow, and usually does. There is often personal attacks soon after. Typically that person gets called out and it's done, but sometimes the person getting called out resorts to "thiz iza da interwebz, I say what I want. You should expect that on the Internet" mentality and things don't go we'll from there.

It's not a "fixing" issue, it's a people issue.

Notice that I could have opened with "I am making the game better, for me and anyone else who I play with, and for anyone who reads one and thinks- yes, awesome, etc..." It comes off differently. But then I open myself up to "why do you think you know better", "your ideas suck", other such posts that don't actually have anything to do with what we're talking about.

So again, I am making the game better. You can disagree. I can tell you you're wrong. People can support either side.

The thing to remember is

a) FFG are not statisticians, the way that most companies handle balancing is they point models so it feels right, then throw it out to playtesting, most of the time this works but things slip through, normally obscure interactions (see MTG).

b) The only way they can know that something has slipped through is if it's brought to their attention, they do read forums, they do watch tournament results.

c) If you feel something is unbalanced it is best to discuss it, you might be wrong, people might show you something you hadn't spotted, but it's out there for people to see. And as a game developer it's useful to go through a thread and see what peoples opinions are.

d) Playtesting does not stop when a model goes out the door. That is why we have FAQs and Erratas

I'm in agreement with the OP.. these beed to stop.. I also feel the "fix it" threads are whining about a card that someone just can't figure out, or they are looking to find a way around it to not have it effect them.. and I have seen these threads, though some may see them differently.

I've been saying from the start that the game designers made the decisions they did for a reason.. I am amused by the thought that all the statistic guys just don't have the same math equation and this is why you all think things are under/over costed... bottom line, I just feel they have their reasons for every decision in the game... who are we to question them when we don't know the criteria used to make their decisions.. play the game, have fun... house rules only work when everyone agrees with them... and if you aren't having fun, find something that you will have funmplaying..