How to really fix this game and make it more skill based

[How to really fix this game and make it more skill based]

3 hours ago, enigmahfc said:

I seriously cannot wait until these amateur, arm-chair designer topics about 'balancing' and 'fixing' the game stop.

Are you a game designer?

[What would need to be banned/rotated to make this game great again?]

34 minutes ago, Xerandar said:

Whining

 

4 minutes ago, Smutpedler said:

I would personally ban threads like this from the forums. I think seeing a lot less negativity about how broken the game is (which happens cyclically) would make the game great again. 

Seems you both can't tell the difference between constructive criticism and whining/negativity.

And the only way forward for you is to whine.

Let the grownups talk.

[What would need to be banned/rotated to make this game great again?]

I think squad-building for tournament play should be much more tightly restricted. Leave the anything-goes 100-point matches for casual play if people really enjoy that sort of thing. In the real arena, I want players to know that they can't hit below the belt.

I wouldn't ban anything.

I'd nerf some power cards like Zuckuss (can't use it if stressed) and Palpatine (only works at Range 1-3).

I'd make some stuff unique: Push the Limit and TIE/x7 are good candidates.

I'd set a limit of 1 turreted ship per squad, counting primary weapon turrets and [turret] upgrades.

Everything else (pilots and upgrades) should be limited to 2-of-a-kind maximum.

[Once the C-Roc is out should Huge ships be a requirement in Epic formats?]

Yes, should be required.

Generally, I'm in favor of more "musts" and "cannots" in FFG's tournament formats.

[Questionable situations at Lothal Open]

It's a low quality video from an angle that prevents us from seeing exactly what was happening. The "flick" was post-placement, just nervous fingers I'd assume, and the other player didn't question it. This looks like the usual sort of accidental slippage that happens all the time on giant mousepads.

[If Imperials got a small based turret primary/secondary ship...]

19 hours ago, Razgriz25thinf said:

Considering that no such Imperial ship exists.

Raider-class ship on the scopes, Captain. FFG has done some crazy stuff with this game.

 

20 hours ago, Warlon said:

I just want Rebels and Scum to truly FEEL how annoying TLT is.

"You cannot equip a [turret] upgrade costing 6 points or more."

You just know it.

[If Imperials got a small based turret primary/secondary ship...]

19 hours ago, Razgriz25thinf said:

Considering that no such Imperial ship exists.

Raider-class ship on the scopes, Captain. FFG has done some crazy stuff with this game.

 

20 hours ago, Warlon said:

I just want Rebels and Scum to truly FEEL how annoying TLT is.

"You cannot equip a [turret] upgrade costing 6 points or more."

You just know it.

[Local Play Environment]

The best (only) local option is a large stock room for a comic book shop which doubles as a game room. The bathroom is always out of order, there are puddles indoor when it rains, and it smells of primates and mold. It's actually pretty much like what I imagine a Rebel base would be like.

I try to make up for the low quality of the space by organizing fun events and a friendly attitude.

[Dealing With 3 TLT + Bumpmaster]

Watch and learn m8:
 

 

[Releasing a Ship(s) with multiple factions]

6 hours ago, DailyRich said:

The most logical conclusion is that there's something in their licensing that prevents them from doing so.

You're speculating about things neither of us have a way of knowing. 

It took years for FFG to offer plastic bases and pegs for sale. What's the most logical conclusion you can come to about why that took so long?

My assumption (which is really all we have) is that it's mostly a matter of finding the right time to do things, and probably not at all about specific licensing terms with regard to packaging models and their cards together. Most Wanted is evidence that FFG has (at least) some ability to do this with X-Wing. And we know they can do it with Armada.

But of course what FFG has done in the past isn't a reliable indicator of what they'll do in the future. Remember the confusion about Wave 5 being the first two-ship wave? We seem to accept the ARC-170 as just another ship in the game now, but it's a prequel ship and we weren't supposed to have those. I'm not complaining, just giving some examples of things that were unprecedented or seemed unlikely at some point.

[X-wing: Galactic Civil War edition]

I recommend some broad squad-building controls to try to keep turrets, spam and swarms from ruining an otherwise fine format.

Maximum 1 turreted ship per squad, counting any primary weapon turret or turret upgrade. This gives aux-arc ships like the ARC and Firespray more utility, but does make swarms more effective. This forces players to choose whether to use a turret ship for support or as their main hitter, but not both. This way you probably won't have to ban TLTs.

8-ship swarms can chew up a clock, and it's dreadfully boring when a block of ships moves at a single Pilot Skill. To prevent swarm abuse, set a maximum of 2 copies of any card that isn't unique. You can still manage a 7 ship swarm, but it'll be a mixture of Pilot Skills, being much more sporting and interesting.

[Releasing a Ship(s) with multiple factions]

1 minute ago, DailyRich said:

That there's a reason for them not doing so beyond, "Eh, we just don't like money."

And what is that reason?

[Releasing a Ship(s) with multiple factions]

6 hours ago, DailyRich said:

It's based more on the fact that FFG has had four years to do it and hasn't yet.

Tell me what that means to you, without speculating on FFG's inner workings.

[Releasing a Ship(s) with multiple factions]

1 hour ago, Marinealver said:

Except for they are not having card only expansions. It goes against their business model for X-wing. You might say well Armada had a card only expansion but Armada has a different business model.

Sorry, there will be no card only packs outside of organized play.

It's so silly to me that anyone is trying convince me that my hypothetical product would never be made, based entirely on speculation about FFG's inner workings. Go ahead and beat up my drawing of Sasquatch with your drawing of a leprechaun.

[Releasing a Ship(s) with multiple factions]

40 minutes ago, Marinealver said:

Hiring new designers may not be in FFG's best financial interests.

I don't think they even need to hire new designers to squeeze in new X-Wing card-only expansions. FFG apparently has the flexibility to create entirely new games without dropping older games, so I'm assuming that card-only expansions for little old X-Wing wouldn't require a massive reallocation of resources.

[Releasing a Ship(s) with multiple factions]

On 2/23/2017 at 11:56 AM, Blue Five said:

What is repeatedly forgotten is that FFG's resources and funds are finite. If you choose to develop one product then you choose not to develop another. The resources put into developing the Corellian Conflict were not put into developing more ships for Armada. The resources put into developing the Scum C-ROC were not put into developing a second rebel ace pack. If FFG develops a rebel ace pack after the C-ROC then they're not developing a Scum ace pack.

You continue to speculate about what FFG can and can't do. Your argument is spurious, and it's like it's never occurred to you that FFG can hire new designers if a game line's workload becomes greater than their ambitions for it. 

7 minutes ago, Blue Five said:

But I can't see any reason why the margins would invert.

Tell me what the margins are, if you know.

I'll wager you don't.

[Releasing a Ship(s) with multiple factions]

On 2/23/2017 at 11:56 AM, Blue Five said:

Everything comes at an opportunity cost: you can only develop so much at once. Why would they make a card only Aces pack that takes more development time and sells for less when they could make something like Rebel Veterans instead?

Different products with different aims. I don't see this sort of thing replacing Aces-style expansions, which may be the assumption behind some of the criticism. But Aces packs are self-contained, which limits their ability to address more than a couple of ship types at a time, just once or twice a year. 

I don't think design and playtesting sweat are nearly as expensive as you seem to. Paper and card printing certainly is cheaper and less complicated than plastic model manufacturing, like by an order of magnitude or two. There's an article by Christian T. Petersen about the X-Wing models manufacturing process that might be enlightening, if you want to track it down.

At this point I think it makes sense to release some card-only packs in between the long production periods on new expansions with plastic models, because the backlog of ships in need of some help is growing faster than the plastics seem to be keeping up with. I think card packs would be super popular if they promised to revive several classic ships at once, which Aces packs can't do (but Most Wanted sort of did). Driving sales on existing products can be profitable, because one way to save money on design is to design things that encourage players to buy more of the things you've already designed. Give them an excuse to buy that second or third E-Wing, to fill out their A-Wing swarm, and for a Rebel-only player to buy an Imperial Lambda.

They might get other profits in less direct ways. These could encourage players to put their classic ships back on the table more often, which will also show up on Twitch and YouTube, which will help to bring in new players who see the more familiar ships being played, which might sell core sets. If they also included something novel like Chewbacca in a stolen Lambda shuttle, it would be hard for casual players to resist. Heaping a lot of love on Waves 1-3 in one easy purchase might bring lapsed players back into game, especially if they prefer classic ships.

[Releasing a Ship(s) with multiple factions]

4 hours ago, Blue Five said:

If it were more profitable to release packs with a large amount of new design work but no plastic models then why doesn't FFG do it?

Do you know if FFG is developing a cards-and-cardstock expansion for X-Wing right now or not?

I'll wager that you don't know. If you're honest, you have to admit that it's entirely possible that FFG is currently proving you wrong.

[Releasing a Ship(s) with multiple factions]

5 minutes ago, Blue Five said:

Why would they do a card expansion when putting repaints in means less work for more reward?

I don't think any of us can say if that's true, in terms of cost-effectiveness. What if it costs a lot more to manufacture a repaint than it does to develop cards for existing ships and playtest them?

[Releasing a Ship(s) with multiple factions]

1 hour ago, Blue Five said:

12-16 new pilot cards? That's three to four ace packs in one go.

What's the problem with that? Heroes of the Resistance has 8 new pilot cards. It really isn't that hard to develop new pilots for existing ships.

In terms of materials, a booster-pack worth of cards is certainly not a problem to produce.

In terms of playtesting, FFG does this all the time.

[Releasing a Ship(s) with multiple factions]

16 hours ago, Blue Five said:

I think it's less can't and more won't. Stick a model in the box and the perceived value goes up. They wouldn't be able to sell a card only expansion for the same price as if they stuck a repaint or two in there and doubled the size of the box. Compare and contrast Netrunner expansions for the price FFG believes the market will bear on card only releases.

If we can bring other FFG games into this discussion, let's consider the cards-and-cardstock Corellian Conflict expansion for Armada. I find it very hard to believe that X-Wing can't have something similar.

Probably not one big box, but three smaller packs, one per faction, for $15 retail. I'm thinking 12-16 new pilot cards (example: a couple each for X, Y, A, B, E, HWK) , 24-32 ship base tokens, about 24 upgrades (lots of duplicates of fixes, a few exclusive new general-purpose upgrades), new mission or mini-campaign.

For $20-$25 I would consider packing in other things like a new ion storm obstacle token, Range 1 and Range 1-2 rulers, reminder tokens for temporary and once-per-round effects (C-3PO, Palpatine, R2-F2, Kallus), and a Force Awakens Damage deck with faction-specific artwork on the backs. I would also consider adding Force mechanics this way, including a plastic window in the package so you can seeeee the yellow twelve-sided Force die that works with the new Force upgrade type introduced for the new Force-sensitive pilot cards in these packs which you will definitely be buying now.

[Would You Have Started This Game If It Was Not Star Wars]

I would be into a Crimson Skies FlightPath game if the production quality matched X-Wing, so it's not just Star Wars.

[Releasing a Ship(s) with multiple factions]

2 hours ago, DailyRich said:

Sure, they've released dice packs and game mats, but nothing that was cards only.  Most Wanted still contained ships, even if it had cards not represented by models.  That doesn't mean they could do cards only if they wanted to.

Doesn't mean they can't. The only thing that could possibly be standing in the way would be licensing, and none of us know those details.

Remember when we were told FFG couldn't make Star Wars board games because of conflicts with Milton Bradley or whoever? Hello, Rebellion.

I think the only thing stopping them from producing card-and-cardstock packs earlier was because there wasn't much of a need. Now it makes sense.

[Releasing a Ship(s) with multiple factions]

22 minutes ago, Force Majeure said:

If anyone plays SW: Imperial Assault, you'd be aware of the "Temporary Alliance" cards. These cards allow Rebel and Mercenary (Scum) characters and Imperial and Mercenary (Scum) to work together. But not Imp & Rebs.

I think an upgrade card similar to this would be more likely and more easily implemented rather than "same ships, different pilot from another faction."

I suspect that sort of thing would have to be implemented on a ship-by-ship basis, and probably on a pilot-by-pilot basis, to avoid the playtesting headache of trying to see how broken Manaroo will be alongside Rebel ships (etc.).

The approach FFG took with Sabine's TIE is probably the way to go, which was to create new pilot cards from the appropriate faction.

But maybe something like this would work:

(unique) Mercenary Contract: 2 points; title; You can equip this title to a Scum ship. Once equipped, treat this ship as a friendly Imperial ship (instead of Scum). You may equip 1 additional title upgrade to this ship.

[Releasing a Ship(s) with multiple factions]

3 hours ago, benbaxter said:

Would you like to [see] ships released with cards for multiple factions, and if so what ships do you think would be good candidates?

Yes.

I'd like to see more Scum-Imperial crossovers. The Bebullab-22 might work for that. Could be mainly a Scum ship (1 generic pilot, 3 uniques) that also includes a mid-PS unique mercenary for Imperials to hire.

I'd like to see some more differentiation between Scum and Rebel Y-Wings, though. So in the "opposite of what you asked for" category, I would add Armored Y-Wings and make them Rebel only, but treat them exactly like ordinary Y-Wings so they can take all the same titles, Bomb Loadout, etc. And maybe give the same treatment for Z-95s, but make them more of a Scum ship while stiffing the Rebels.