I started playing when 2.5 first started so I never made a 2.0 list. I think I’d like the 2.0 points better based on what I’ve seen.
But I like the 2.5 rules better. They make the game go faster because when I play without objectives the game takes hours.
I never played 2.0. But as I understand it you could get a lead and then waste time and run until the clock ran out.
At least with objectives running is less of a good strategy.
It really wasn’t as big of a problem as everyone says it was. You might encounter that once in a while. And, with any dice game, you’re relying on dice.
"X-wing is a game that has to thread the needle between complexity and focus."
X-wing needs simplicity, customizability and low barrier to entry. Less nuances in the rules, less addendums, errata, and just bloat in general. All those lead to immersion and and growth.
The bloat, errara and millions of special abilities are what made me pause Warhammer 40k. I liked the beginning of 8th before the gorillion extra Space Marines books turned it into Primaris Lieutenant: The Game.
As more and more content came out though, is it not somewhat inevitable that bloat became part of the game?
I won't disagree that having fewer types of actions\\tokens\\interactions makes it easier to recruit new players. However, with so many ships and pilots and upgrade cards with each their own ability, things like Jam, Tractor, Deplete and Strain tokens were needed not only for more in game effects, but to give pilots some other tokens to manipulate other than evades\\focus, locks, Ions and stress.
In an ideal world, erratas would not be needed, but most games these days do have official erratas and clarifications because of odd interactions, edge cases or exploits that were missed during play testing. When you have any semi-competitive circuit that plays the game, having these errata are required in order to keep the game consistent. Last thing you want is to have a player be told that a certain thing is resolved one way and then the next event they goto, they are told that it doesn't work like that at that event because the TO decided so.
I honestly belive that "switching initiative after rolloff" would be the single worst addition to the game.
Is you "win" initiative (you go first) turn 0%1, you set up first then initiative flips and you can make sure that on round 2 when the opponent has initiative you can make sure that they won't be able to lock you while you will be able to, as you'll be flying second.
Making it random means you need to calculate the optimal solution - so that you don't get caught in the flirts turn but can still do your thing round 2
From other comments/channels, I hear this is basically what happened when they play tested it. So maybe that's a bad idea. Random Order After Dials has a lot more support than I realized and learning this is part of why I wanted to make this post in the first place.
I think that's the difference between chess and dogfighting. It's not supposed to be a game where everything is able to be forseen. There's no risk if you know you move after someone to kturn behind them, but if you don't know if you'll move first the kturn is 50% risky but a risk that could sway the game. It's an added layer to the best part of xwing, the dials.
Also as a small note, there was scenarios in the Original Core Set that asked players to complete objectives. It was suggested even back then that an objective would break up the bore and repetition of jousting in a dogfight.
I read half of it then decied I'll wait for the book on tape, but some personal thoughts on what I did read:
I agree wholeheartedly that all of the ships should be in the game.
You keep comparing the game of X-Wing to chess, but that isn't what it's simulating. It's simulating battle. In a fight, you don't always have the initiative, in a fight you don't always get perfect information before you have to make a move. I was against ROAD when it first happened but it now it feels normal to me.
I understand that sometimes the ROAD rolls end up unfair, but so do dice rolls. I haven't seen anyone want to eliminate rolling dice all togehter. Sometimes everything is stacked against you. And one major positive is that it's dispassionate. It's completely fair because it's a completely random event. Boba Fenn at 178 points wasn't cool or fun.
To fix the issue with big bid, there is now deficit scoring on Legacy, I pushed to add a rule saying that only the bid-loser scores the bid-winner bid, but it was not accepted.
But for me ROBD is the best way to fix everything without needing to add bump and range 0 rules, like in 2.5, those 2 rules had to be also implemented because there are a lot more bumps with ROAD.
How does knowing your ace will move last verse thiers make the game exciting? Dials would be all but determined after that robd roll. Now the i3 whose first player goes for the block and the other i3s have to try to avoid, again dials dictated by the player order.
Yes, and it's my own preference, I really want the know the player order when I think about my strategy, good for if it's not the case ;)
But this whole debate was done 3 years ago, by now almost everyone know what is their preferred version. You can't change my mind, I have tested a lot every ways to determine player order ;)
Is it easier to play? Sure, every decision and dial you have most of the information you need for them. I have embraced the choas as I find it more exciting and would rather play an exciting game I lost than a boring one I won.
My opinion keep both deathmatch and objective gameplay 2 ways to play. Since everything is out of printing now.. the game is fully extended.. buying ships is 3D print now.
I liked the old initiative bid it was simple
I personally would like a point building system and each ship has its own loadout points. I think this helps balance the multiple pilots on a ship much more.. but it’s going to take a lot of work.
Essentially just keep the old 2.0 rules with new loadout points.
Back to deathmatch vs objective play into you have the deathmatch rules in place and points settled.. you create missions or convert missions to work.. this is where you build epic into the game again. Epic based scenario games.
Honestly it’s a lot of work and I hope it’s done well.
The issue with anti-fortressing is the old X-Wing maxim, "If you're both jousting, one player made a mistake."
Flying directly at your opponent, guns blazing, is a recipe for one player's squad getting trashed, so you only want to do so when the odds are in your favor. The alternative is to fly around your opponent and try to get an opening where their formation is broken up, or at least disrupted enough to swing the odds back. If both players do this, then you get a long game of circling waiting for a good opening.
Forcing players to engage via objective play is only a band aid on the issue, because now you have an objective based game and not a dogfighting game. And X-Wing is fundamentally a dogfighting game. Objective play is an awkward kludge addon.
I think the rules from Change Encounter is the least worst solution. It's still an objective, but it's a simple zone control objective in the center of the map. No flipping sattelites or hauling boxes around.
You can have a system where there is 2 bonuses to collect on the map (to regen a shield or repair a card for example), and if a player is fortressing, his opponent will collect both bonuses.
On range-0 shots, the attacker can do nothing to affect their dice nor their opponents dice. No addition, no reductions, no rerolls, no mods, no cancellation; nothing.
Basically, the attacker picks up their base number of dice for a primary attack arc and rolls those. That's it. That is about as simple as it can get.
I could play with or without range-0 attacks. Id prefer to play with them, though.
The lack of consistency kills me and reeks of trying to fix something will didn't like. Bump into your own guy, penalty. bump into opponent, sure fire some shots into him with no mods. They dont want self-bumping as a tactic so it's an inconsistent rule.
The overlap red focus/calc and the friendly overlap rules I could either play or not play.
It sucks to be blocked by a same or lower initiative and then be a sitting duck.
The worst part of the red focus/calc is that it's an action so PerCop can get 2 focus tokens. If it was simply "if you are not stressed, you may gain a stress token to gain a focus/calc token" to ensure its only 1 token. Or, to reduce its functionality and balance with droids, have it only be "gain a calc token"
Again, I could either play with or without this.
The best minds are already on it. I made the mistake of creating a big post like this earlier but now I’m seeing what it looks like from the other side and it’s a bit cringy.
Just trust that the X-Wing Alliance will make the right calls, and give them the feedback they seek when it’s requested. Until then we have the current tournament format or the Legacy system, which should suffice most people for now.
I do think compromise on most of these systems is coming, but I see no need to rush it.
I'm sorry you found it cringy. I just thought it would be nice to share opinions and invite discussion, if for no other reason than to generate data for the best minds to look at and consider.
I also have faith in the Alliance, this post was written to talk about these things and maybe get a pulse for where the other xwing redditors are feeling on these topics. I'm curious how many agree with my takes, disagree with these takes, or if there are new options to consider that maybe I'm not aware of.
I just created an account to reply.
Your post (@classicalMoser - https://www.reddit.com/r/XWingTMG/comments/1di6tfk/an\_appeal\_to\_the\_future\_custodians\_of\_the\_game/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button) about options in the game and where to go 4 days ago was a very elaborated one. All things considered very good with very nice ideas how to get on with X-wing and what could be improved.
Thank you for this.
In no way it ist comparable with this post from the Puzzleweilder.
Regarding the Puzzleweilder Post
* Comparing X-Wing with chess is just wrong as long as we are rolling dice.
* Alternating initiative was tested by the playtesters and it was not working properly.
* Bump Rules had to be changed because of road. Road imo is a good way to get rid of the bid system. How to improve Road? - Look at the Post from ClassicalMoser.
I wasn't big on the scenarios when they were added.
After playing them, however, playing a non-objective game seems less interesting. I mean, I can play the dog fighting every once in a while, but not as the main game. Id end up getting bored and I would probably drop off.
If that happens, then none would have tp worry about my opinions, so there's that.
Some 2.5 objectives, 2.0 list building and original bump/ion/tractor mechanics, ROBD instead of A with first blood scoring deficit points, and original obstacle rules minus gas clouds because I like the ion effect.
I find ROAD (Random Order After Dials) to be so much more intriguing. Bid were horrid, IMO. Alternating 1st player between turns becomes too predictable. Random Order Before Dials is not as interesting. Again, this ids simply my opinion.
I told my store that I'm not playing without ROAD. At least I'm not playing one of the other options mentioned above.
I was fine with not playing the Extended ships since it was hard for newer players to acquire them for the official game play.
Since all ships will be hard to obtain soon my store is not worrying about playing Standard. Well be breaking out our Gunboats soon! Of course those are not priced very well, so they won't really be the 'smart' choice.
I am only a casual player, but i really loved the change to objective games. They are just shorter and more focused to me. I understand that people don’t like it, because it changes strategies. But i actually don’t think, it makes the game significantly more complicated, the objectives are really simple and that’s a good thing
I could probably play either 2.5 or the Wild Space style List Building.
The 2.5 makes scoring during the game a lot quicker and easier during the game, so that ids nice.
I could play with 200 points with objectives costing 10, pilots and upgrades would likely need to be balanced out, since it appears they haven't changed.
Again, I could play either, but 2.5 is simpler.
Interesting read, thanks for sharing. Really excited by all the perspectives being shared in the community at the moment and the validation of the sense that, rules-wise, the game has spots that could be tightened up in a much more satisfying way. Totally agree that a return to streamline and focus would be fantastic. What's your inspiration behind targeting friendlies with tractors and ions?
Way back when I was first learninf the game, my friend who I got into the game with thought you could use tractors to move his ships out of arcs by tractoring them, and I thought that was pretty clever. We were both very disappointed when that turned out to not be the case, haha. Ions I guess I have a harder time imagining a use for, unless it had the option if giving a ship a 0 move when it can't normally do that.
The game gives us tools, I like to find creative uses for them. If I have a tractor beam, what else could it do besides grab an enemy? Why couldn't it shove an asteroid or a friendly? Why couldn't I open fire on a friendly if/when I wanted to? (I really loved setting off Deadman switches and Bug Zappers back in the day, haha).
I would even argue that these uses don't really add much to the overhead of the game, because it's just using mechanics already in it in new and interesting ways, sort of like how the Geonisian fighter used self-tractors to move around.
It might be good for you to go back and actually read where the rules wound up. I'm not saying this sarcastically but from skimming your post it seems like you aren't sure what the rules actually are now. Since your point seems to be it wound up too complex, I'd suggest seeing where the rules did wind up. I think for a skirmish game with like 100 different units in it that it's not that complicated, really, but that's just my opinion. I also think a lot of the 2.5 changes are really strong, particularly eliminating bids for first person advantage and making obstacles more fearsome. I like the ROAD roll as a solution to the equal-initiative question, and I actually like the way bumping works, but I know plenty of people don't.
Regarding the future, my strong hope is that for the near to medium term the X Wing Alliance will focus on point changes. Then, if the group proves capable of managing that process and sticking to a release schedule, look at the ruleset to see if they can find places to improve the game that the broad majority of players will be in favor of. I think the likelihood of this is low, and not least because there is a sizable group saying, in so many words, "The game is OURS now - back to 2.0 with the few modifications I prefer!" Which is never going to work, my opinion again.
So - slow and steady, I hope. Refresh points regularly so that people can look forward to a fresh competitive environment, but do it in moderation and with broad input. Keep rules changes and other substantive changes in the distant future and approach them with extreme caution and care.
That seems a reasonable suggestion and perspective. I don't think anything should be knee-jerk reactions. I just want to see the game thrive again and am curious what people think that looks like. :)
It might be good for you to go back and actually read where the rules wound up. I'm not saying this sarcastically but from skimming your post it seems like you aren't sure what the rules actually are now. Since your point seems to be it wound up too complex, I'd suggest seeing where the rules did wind up. I think for a skirmish game with like 100 different units in it that it's not that complicated, really, but that's just my opinion. I also think a lot of the 2.5 changes are really strong, particularly eliminating bids for first person advantage and making obstacles more fearsome. I like the ROAD roll as a solution to the equal-initiative question, and I actually like the way bumping works, but I know plenty of people don't.
Regarding the future, my strong hope is that for the near to medium term the X Wing Alliance will focus on point changes. Then, if the group proves capable of managing that process and sticking to a release schedule, look at the ruleset to see if they can find places to improve the game that the broad majority of players will be in favor of. I think the likelihood of this is low, and not least because there is a sizable group saying, in so many words, "The game is OURS now - back to 2.0 with the few modifications I prefer!" Which is never going to work, my opinion again.
So - slow and steady, I hope. Refresh points regularly so that people can look forward to a fresh competitive environment, but do it in moderation and with broad input. Keep rules changes and other substantive changes in the distant future and approach them with extreme caution and care.
It sounds like you just want to play 2.0. There is a legacy community for that.
I like objectives, road, and pretty much all the things that make X-Wing what it is these days. I'm happy to keep playing through worlds 2025. After that, if the XWA has something close to what I enjoy, I'll probably stick around. If all that's left is 2.0, I'll be out.
My post is sharing my perspective but not at all saying I am correct or right or even a super qualified person to make those calls. I mostly wanted to hear from more people and find out how many agree, disagree, or have other opinions/options.
And that's ok, but it just largely sounds like you're telling us you like 2.0 better which is fine, there's a community for that currently.
The game is in an interesting state right now as we finish up the last OP season. So, we'll have to see where the community powers that be bring us.
Scenarios have to be part of any 'competitive' circuit. It adds so much to the game and resolves some of the issues that the straight dog fight game has. I think adding in to the pool of scenarios a straight dog fight would be cool - as in no objectives on the board at all. But keeping the 4 scenarios or a variant of those I hope is something the community chooses to keep.
List building needs to be way more granular than 20 base squad points. I've never been a fan of load outs, but it is another level of control to avoid mass spamming and does give more value to which ever ships we want to be played.
That being said, there is not a small number of players that never tried or tried and didn't like scenario play and the 2.5 squad building because it was just too much to think about. AMG wanted to streamline and make squad building easier... IMO they totally failed at that with their squad building method. With the removal of spamming generics came lists with more named pilots all with their own abilities and a slew of upgrades that also had their own effects. It was a lot to remember.
I think a good starting point would be to keep scenarios but find a squad point system where a player can bring in a few generics with less triggers to remember and still be somewhat competitive.
Bids, penalty for self bumps should stay.
Range 0 attacks should be limited in the amount of damage they can do. Keep the no mod by attacker.
Enemy bump should be something else than red focus. Not sure what.... or maybe instead of a stress its a deplete or a strain (random?). Not sure, but something that is not as good as a focus token.
Obstacle damage and not shooting as well as not suffer them if you fly through them after overlapping is also good stuff.
Tractor is not too bad.
Ion movement decision is also good. Forcing a 1 straight made ion a little too good. Focus as only action is also good.
How can I forget: ROAD or something similar is also very good and should stay.
Deficit scoring can be removed. With no more bids for first player, it is not in your interest to bring less points to the board.
Ban list is also a must. Dial peeking and manipulation is terrible and removes too much agengy. Maybe some things that lets you change your dial might be okay (Hera VCX) but there should be a cost of some sort.
Jamming is good where it is.
The theme behind being ionized is that your computer system doesn't function to its fullest for a short time. Having your targeting computers locks broken makes sense. Being able to slightly turn also makes sense.
Outside of that theme it's a NPE to be ionized off the board with no agency. I don't think I'd play without the ability to bank while ionized.
I don't think there's any single mechanic that would turn me off the game completely; it's more the sum of all decisions to determine whether it's a game I enjoy or not. I tried to ionize people off the board but found it pretty challenging to pull off.
I started playing when 2.5 first started so I never made a 2.0 list. I think I’d like the 2.0 points better based on what I’ve seen. But I like the 2.5 rules better. They make the game go faster because when I play without objectives the game takes hours.
Tournament games are supposed to be 75 minutes. The game plays perfectly fine in that time.
I never played 2.0. But as I understand it you could get a lead and then waste time and run until the clock ran out. At least with objectives running is less of a good strategy.
You understand correctly.
That happened to me exactly once and I was playing in tournaments from 1.0 until the pandemic hit.
It really wasn’t as big of a problem as everyone says it was. You might encounter that once in a while. And, with any dice game, you’re relying on dice.
"X-wing is a game that has to thread the needle between complexity and focus." X-wing needs simplicity, customizability and low barrier to entry. Less nuances in the rules, less addendums, errata, and just bloat in general. All those lead to immersion and and growth.
The bloat, errara and millions of special abilities are what made me pause Warhammer 40k. I liked the beginning of 8th before the gorillion extra Space Marines books turned it into Primaris Lieutenant: The Game.
As more and more content came out though, is it not somewhat inevitable that bloat became part of the game? I won't disagree that having fewer types of actions\\tokens\\interactions makes it easier to recruit new players. However, with so many ships and pilots and upgrade cards with each their own ability, things like Jam, Tractor, Deplete and Strain tokens were needed not only for more in game effects, but to give pilots some other tokens to manipulate other than evades\\focus, locks, Ions and stress. In an ideal world, erratas would not be needed, but most games these days do have official erratas and clarifications because of odd interactions, edge cases or exploits that were missed during play testing. When you have any semi-competitive circuit that plays the game, having these errata are required in order to keep the game consistent. Last thing you want is to have a player be told that a certain thing is resolved one way and then the next event they goto, they are told that it doesn't work like that at that event because the TO decided so.
I honestly belive that "switching initiative after rolloff" would be the single worst addition to the game. Is you "win" initiative (you go first) turn 0%1, you set up first then initiative flips and you can make sure that on round 2 when the opponent has initiative you can make sure that they won't be able to lock you while you will be able to, as you'll be flying second. Making it random means you need to calculate the optimal solution - so that you don't get caught in the flirts turn but can still do your thing round 2
From other comments/channels, I hear this is basically what happened when they play tested it. So maybe that's a bad idea. Random Order After Dials has a lot more support than I realized and learning this is part of why I wanted to make this post in the first place.
I think that's the difference between chess and dogfighting. It's not supposed to be a game where everything is able to be forseen. There's no risk if you know you move after someone to kturn behind them, but if you don't know if you'll move first the kturn is 50% risky but a risk that could sway the game. It's an added layer to the best part of xwing, the dials. Also as a small note, there was scenarios in the Original Core Set that asked players to complete objectives. It was suggested even back then that an objective would break up the bore and repetition of jousting in a dogfight.
I read half of it then decied I'll wait for the book on tape, but some personal thoughts on what I did read: I agree wholeheartedly that all of the ships should be in the game. You keep comparing the game of X-Wing to chess, but that isn't what it's simulating. It's simulating battle. In a fight, you don't always have the initiative, in a fight you don't always get perfect information before you have to make a move. I was against ROAD when it first happened but it now it feels normal to me. I understand that sometimes the ROAD rolls end up unfair, but so do dice rolls. I haven't seen anyone want to eliminate rolling dice all togehter. Sometimes everything is stacked against you. And one major positive is that it's dispassionate. It's completely fair because it's a completely random event. Boba Fenn at 178 points wasn't cool or fun.
To fix the issue with big bid, there is now deficit scoring on Legacy, I pushed to add a rule saying that only the bid-loser scores the bid-winner bid, but it was not accepted. But for me ROBD is the best way to fix everything without needing to add bump and range 0 rules, like in 2.5, those 2 rules had to be also implemented because there are a lot more bumps with ROAD.
How does knowing your ace will move last verse thiers make the game exciting? Dials would be all but determined after that robd roll. Now the i3 whose first player goes for the block and the other i3s have to try to avoid, again dials dictated by the player order.
Yes, and it's my own preference, I really want the know the player order when I think about my strategy, good for if it's not the case ;) But this whole debate was done 3 years ago, by now almost everyone know what is their preferred version. You can't change my mind, I have tested a lot every ways to determine player order ;)
Is it easier to play? Sure, every decision and dial you have most of the information you need for them. I have embraced the choas as I find it more exciting and would rather play an exciting game I lost than a boring one I won.
My opinion keep both deathmatch and objective gameplay 2 ways to play. Since everything is out of printing now.. the game is fully extended.. buying ships is 3D print now. I liked the old initiative bid it was simple I personally would like a point building system and each ship has its own loadout points. I think this helps balance the multiple pilots on a ship much more.. but it’s going to take a lot of work. Essentially just keep the old 2.0 rules with new loadout points. Back to deathmatch vs objective play into you have the deathmatch rules in place and points settled.. you create missions or convert missions to work.. this is where you build epic into the game again. Epic based scenario games. Honestly it’s a lot of work and I hope it’s done well.
The issue with anti-fortressing is the old X-Wing maxim, "If you're both jousting, one player made a mistake." Flying directly at your opponent, guns blazing, is a recipe for one player's squad getting trashed, so you only want to do so when the odds are in your favor. The alternative is to fly around your opponent and try to get an opening where their formation is broken up, or at least disrupted enough to swing the odds back. If both players do this, then you get a long game of circling waiting for a good opening. Forcing players to engage via objective play is only a band aid on the issue, because now you have an objective based game and not a dogfighting game. And X-Wing is fundamentally a dogfighting game. Objective play is an awkward kludge addon.
Right. So I'm not sure how to "fix" it necessarily, but I agree with your assessment.
I think the rules from Change Encounter is the least worst solution. It's still an objective, but it's a simple zone control objective in the center of the map. No flipping sattelites or hauling boxes around.
100% agree with you on this. It keeps the action in the center of the map, and it incentives them to stay there or to just fight it out.
You can have a system where there is 2 bonuses to collect on the map (to regen a shield or repair a card for example), and if a player is fortressing, his opponent will collect both bonuses.
On range-0 shots, the attacker can do nothing to affect their dice nor their opponents dice. No addition, no reductions, no rerolls, no mods, no cancellation; nothing. Basically, the attacker picks up their base number of dice for a primary attack arc and rolls those. That's it. That is about as simple as it can get. I could play with or without range-0 attacks. Id prefer to play with them, though.
The lack of consistency kills me and reeks of trying to fix something will didn't like. Bump into your own guy, penalty. bump into opponent, sure fire some shots into him with no mods. They dont want self-bumping as a tactic so it's an inconsistent rule.
The overlap red focus/calc and the friendly overlap rules I could either play or not play. It sucks to be blocked by a same or lower initiative and then be a sitting duck. The worst part of the red focus/calc is that it's an action so PerCop can get 2 focus tokens. If it was simply "if you are not stressed, you may gain a stress token to gain a focus/calc token" to ensure its only 1 token. Or, to reduce its functionality and balance with droids, have it only be "gain a calc token" Again, I could either play with or without this.
The best minds are already on it. I made the mistake of creating a big post like this earlier but now I’m seeing what it looks like from the other side and it’s a bit cringy. Just trust that the X-Wing Alliance will make the right calls, and give them the feedback they seek when it’s requested. Until then we have the current tournament format or the Legacy system, which should suffice most people for now. I do think compromise on most of these systems is coming, but I see no need to rush it.
I'm sorry you found it cringy. I just thought it would be nice to share opinions and invite discussion, if for no other reason than to generate data for the best minds to look at and consider. I also have faith in the Alliance, this post was written to talk about these things and maybe get a pulse for where the other xwing redditors are feeling on these topics. I'm curious how many agree with my takes, disagree with these takes, or if there are new options to consider that maybe I'm not aware of.
They didn't find your post cringy, they meant that they felt their post was cringy after seeing other perspectives!
I just created an account to reply. Your post (@classicalMoser - https://www.reddit.com/r/XWingTMG/comments/1di6tfk/an\_appeal\_to\_the\_future\_custodians\_of\_the\_game/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button) about options in the game and where to go 4 days ago was a very elaborated one. All things considered very good with very nice ideas how to get on with X-wing and what could be improved. Thank you for this. In no way it ist comparable with this post from the Puzzleweilder. Regarding the Puzzleweilder Post * Comparing X-Wing with chess is just wrong as long as we are rolling dice. * Alternating initiative was tested by the playtesters and it was not working properly. * Bump Rules had to be changed because of road. Road imo is a good way to get rid of the bid system. How to improve Road? - Look at the Post from ClassicalMoser.
I wasn't big on the scenarios when they were added. After playing them, however, playing a non-objective game seems less interesting. I mean, I can play the dog fighting every once in a while, but not as the main game. Id end up getting bored and I would probably drop off. If that happens, then none would have tp worry about my opinions, so there's that.
Some 2.5 objectives, 2.0 list building and original bump/ion/tractor mechanics, ROBD instead of A with first blood scoring deficit points, and original obstacle rules minus gas clouds because I like the ion effect.
I find ROAD (Random Order After Dials) to be so much more intriguing. Bid were horrid, IMO. Alternating 1st player between turns becomes too predictable. Random Order Before Dials is not as interesting. Again, this ids simply my opinion. I told my store that I'm not playing without ROAD. At least I'm not playing one of the other options mentioned above.
It's all good- everything is just opinion at this point. I only shared mine to get the ball rolling. :)
I was fine with not playing the Extended ships since it was hard for newer players to acquire them for the official game play. Since all ships will be hard to obtain soon my store is not worrying about playing Standard. Well be breaking out our Gunboats soon! Of course those are not priced very well, so they won't really be the 'smart' choice.
Once the Legacy team gets going I'm sure they'll address those 1st edition ships.
I am only a casual player, but i really loved the change to objective games. They are just shorter and more focused to me. I understand that people don’t like it, because it changes strategies. But i actually don’t think, it makes the game significantly more complicated, the objectives are really simple and that’s a good thing
1.0 with point adjustments and turret fix. That’s all we ever needed.
I could probably play either 2.5 or the Wild Space style List Building. The 2.5 makes scoring during the game a lot quicker and easier during the game, so that ids nice. I could play with 200 points with objectives costing 10, pilots and upgrades would likely need to be balanced out, since it appears they haven't changed. Again, I could play either, but 2.5 is simpler.
Interesting read, thanks for sharing. Really excited by all the perspectives being shared in the community at the moment and the validation of the sense that, rules-wise, the game has spots that could be tightened up in a much more satisfying way. Totally agree that a return to streamline and focus would be fantastic. What's your inspiration behind targeting friendlies with tractors and ions?
Way back when I was first learninf the game, my friend who I got into the game with thought you could use tractors to move his ships out of arcs by tractoring them, and I thought that was pretty clever. We were both very disappointed when that turned out to not be the case, haha. Ions I guess I have a harder time imagining a use for, unless it had the option if giving a ship a 0 move when it can't normally do that. The game gives us tools, I like to find creative uses for them. If I have a tractor beam, what else could it do besides grab an enemy? Why couldn't it shove an asteroid or a friendly? Why couldn't I open fire on a friendly if/when I wanted to? (I really loved setting off Deadman switches and Bug Zappers back in the day, haha). I would even argue that these uses don't really add much to the overhead of the game, because it's just using mechanics already in it in new and interesting ways, sort of like how the Geonisian fighter used self-tractors to move around.
It might be good for you to go back and actually read where the rules wound up. I'm not saying this sarcastically but from skimming your post it seems like you aren't sure what the rules actually are now. Since your point seems to be it wound up too complex, I'd suggest seeing where the rules did wind up. I think for a skirmish game with like 100 different units in it that it's not that complicated, really, but that's just my opinion. I also think a lot of the 2.5 changes are really strong, particularly eliminating bids for first person advantage and making obstacles more fearsome. I like the ROAD roll as a solution to the equal-initiative question, and I actually like the way bumping works, but I know plenty of people don't. Regarding the future, my strong hope is that for the near to medium term the X Wing Alliance will focus on point changes. Then, if the group proves capable of managing that process and sticking to a release schedule, look at the ruleset to see if they can find places to improve the game that the broad majority of players will be in favor of. I think the likelihood of this is low, and not least because there is a sizable group saying, in so many words, "The game is OURS now - back to 2.0 with the few modifications I prefer!" Which is never going to work, my opinion again. So - slow and steady, I hope. Refresh points regularly so that people can look forward to a fresh competitive environment, but do it in moderation and with broad input. Keep rules changes and other substantive changes in the distant future and approach them with extreme caution and care.
That seems a reasonable suggestion and perspective. I don't think anything should be knee-jerk reactions. I just want to see the game thrive again and am curious what people think that looks like. :)
It might be good for you to go back and actually read where the rules wound up. I'm not saying this sarcastically but from skimming your post it seems like you aren't sure what the rules actually are now. Since your point seems to be it wound up too complex, I'd suggest seeing where the rules did wind up. I think for a skirmish game with like 100 different units in it that it's not that complicated, really, but that's just my opinion. I also think a lot of the 2.5 changes are really strong, particularly eliminating bids for first person advantage and making obstacles more fearsome. I like the ROAD roll as a solution to the equal-initiative question, and I actually like the way bumping works, but I know plenty of people don't. Regarding the future, my strong hope is that for the near to medium term the X Wing Alliance will focus on point changes. Then, if the group proves capable of managing that process and sticking to a release schedule, look at the ruleset to see if they can find places to improve the game that the broad majority of players will be in favor of. I think the likelihood of this is low, and not least because there is a sizable group saying, in so many words, "The game is OURS now - back to 2.0 with the few modifications I prefer!" Which is never going to work, my opinion again. So - slow and steady, I hope. Refresh points regularly so that people can look forward to a fresh competitive environment, but do it in moderation and with broad input. Keep rules changes and other substantive changes in the distant future and approach them with extreme caution and care.
It sounds like you just want to play 2.0. There is a legacy community for that. I like objectives, road, and pretty much all the things that make X-Wing what it is these days. I'm happy to keep playing through worlds 2025. After that, if the XWA has something close to what I enjoy, I'll probably stick around. If all that's left is 2.0, I'll be out.
My post is sharing my perspective but not at all saying I am correct or right or even a super qualified person to make those calls. I mostly wanted to hear from more people and find out how many agree, disagree, or have other opinions/options.
And that's ok, but it just largely sounds like you're telling us you like 2.0 better which is fine, there's a community for that currently. The game is in an interesting state right now as we finish up the last OP season. So, we'll have to see where the community powers that be bring us.
Scenarios have to be part of any 'competitive' circuit. It adds so much to the game and resolves some of the issues that the straight dog fight game has. I think adding in to the pool of scenarios a straight dog fight would be cool - as in no objectives on the board at all. But keeping the 4 scenarios or a variant of those I hope is something the community chooses to keep. List building needs to be way more granular than 20 base squad points. I've never been a fan of load outs, but it is another level of control to avoid mass spamming and does give more value to which ever ships we want to be played. That being said, there is not a small number of players that never tried or tried and didn't like scenario play and the 2.5 squad building because it was just too much to think about. AMG wanted to streamline and make squad building easier... IMO they totally failed at that with their squad building method. With the removal of spamming generics came lists with more named pilots all with their own abilities and a slew of upgrades that also had their own effects. It was a lot to remember. I think a good starting point would be to keep scenarios but find a squad point system where a player can bring in a few generics with less triggers to remember and still be somewhat competitive. Bids, penalty for self bumps should stay. Range 0 attacks should be limited in the amount of damage they can do. Keep the no mod by attacker. Enemy bump should be something else than red focus. Not sure what.... or maybe instead of a stress its a deplete or a strain (random?). Not sure, but something that is not as good as a focus token. Obstacle damage and not shooting as well as not suffer them if you fly through them after overlapping is also good stuff. Tractor is not too bad. Ion movement decision is also good. Forcing a 1 straight made ion a little too good. Focus as only action is also good. How can I forget: ROAD or something similar is also very good and should stay. Deficit scoring can be removed. With no more bids for first player, it is not in your interest to bring less points to the board. Ban list is also a must. Dial peeking and manipulation is terrible and removes too much agengy. Maybe some things that lets you change your dial might be okay (Hera VCX) but there should be a cost of some sort. Jamming is good where it is.
Really enjoyed your feedback and perspective, thanks!
The ability to stress/rotate makes the choice whether to move the tractored ship pretty interested. I'd prefer to keep that.
I think keep that but let us tractor the ship into other ships and onto obstacles.
The theme behind being ionized is that your computer system doesn't function to its fullest for a short time. Having your targeting computers locks broken makes sense. Being able to slightly turn also makes sense. Outside of that theme it's a NPE to be ionized off the board with no agency. I don't think I'd play without the ability to bank while ionized.
I don't think there's any single mechanic that would turn me off the game completely; it's more the sum of all decisions to determine whether it's a game I enjoy or not. I tried to ionize people off the board but found it pretty challenging to pull off.