AMA about SW Destiny - 30+ Games Played, 10 Videos Made

[TinyGrimes 13]

Hello there all. I've been enjoying the game so much that I bought TableTop Simulator and played over 30 games with the spoiled cards. I've also made a pile of videos on my Youtube channel here: 

 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyGXHChyrL8tOKEwlQrq3bg

 

So I thought I would open myself up to any questions you might have about Star Wars Destiny. Let me be clear, I'm not asserting that I am an expert on SW Destiny. I'm simple willing to offer up my experiences with the games I've played so far. Finally, I have not played the game in person so I cannot answer questions regarding how the dice feel, etc.

 

With all that being said fire away with your questions.

[ScottieATF 2,867]

With 30 card decks and the increased efficiency of constructed over starter how many rounds have your games been going?

I found the starters a little pillow fisted outside of certain combos.

[TinyGrimes 13]

With 30 card decks and the increased efficiency of constructed over starter how many rounds have your games been going?

I found the starters a little pillow fisted outside of certain combos.

 

The games have been varied. But I will say that winning through decking is exceptionally rare. I have decked someone twice, and in both games I chose doing it over regular damage. There are some archetypes that can get very strong positions quickly if they roll well. Luke and Jango certainly have the possibility of killing a character quickly. However, I'm finding that even in these scenarios the other player can use tricks to extend the game for several turns. I guess if I had to put a number on it I would say that rarely games end before turn 4 and most end around 5-6. It's an interesting tradeoff. Decks can hit a lot harder than they do in the starters, but they also have more mitigation.

[ScottieATF 2,867]

Given that game length do you expect a best of 3 tournament format?

[TinyGrimes 13]

Given that game length do you expect a best of 3 tournament format?

 

Originally I was sure there would be time for best of 3. But games are taking much longer now. Lots of games go about 40 minutes. There can be a ton of actions and back and forth on each turn. So while the amount of turns might be low, the amount of time taken is not always low. However, as people get better at the game, I imagine the game will speed up. So final answer is maybe, but I am guessing bo3 won't work out.

[Inquisitorsz 334]

Do you find the games snowball when one character dies?
If Kylo + Dooku kill one of Rey + Luke .... it seems like the person with 2 characters (and thus probably more dice) has a significant advantage. 

I haven't played any games yet so I'm only speculating. 
Is it common to come back from behind or is it pretty much over if you lose one character? 

[TinyGrimes 13]

Do you find the games snowball when one character dies?

If Kylo + Dooku kill one of Rey + Luke .... it seems like the person with 2 characters (and thus probably more dice) has a significant advantage. 

I haven't played any games yet so I'm only speculating. 

Is it common to come back from behind or is it pretty much over if you lose one character? 

 

Generally speaking, once a character goes down the game is fairly lopsided. But that is because there is usually a big dice disparity. However, I have had several games where the game remained quite close because the character that died either had redeploy weapons or the other character(s) had upgrades. In those instances the dice were still more even. However, if you load up Jango Fett with Jetpacks and he dies on turn 2, you probably have lost the game. 

 

That being said, it is tough to kill a character early. There is so much mitigation in the game with shields and events that it takes some killer rolls and some suspect draws/plays/deckbuilding to get a quick kill. Jango is the main culprit for these early kills because his character ability breaks the rules of the game.

[Inquisitorsz 334]

I thought of another question. 

of the characters that we've seen, how balanced do you think the 30pt limit is?
I know that's a tough question since we haven't seen most of the cards yet. 

 

But here's an example.

You can take elite Kylo and elite Jango. That's 29pts. 4 Dice and two pretty strong offensive characters with 21 health between them

Meanwhile

Something like Vader + Dooku, neither of them can be elite as the regular version come to a total of 27 points. You get 23 health and arguably better synergy with blue cards and only Melee damage. But only 2 dice. 

 
Would you consider this match up (27 vs 29pts) even remotely fair? 

I know Vader is strong but if roughly double Kylo + Jango results (since 2 dice each) they seem to come out on top. 

 

Actually, even an elite Vader can only be pared with 1 stormtrooper ( currently). Does a 2 dice vader + stormtrooper compare at all with any other 2 hero team? Especially an elite 2 hero team like the one above.

 

I get that having a few 7pt stormtroopers could be interesting as meat shields but some 2 hero team seem much stronger than other 2 hero teams....

Edited October 14, 2016 by Inquisitorsz

[TinyGrimes 13]

I thought of another question. 

of the characters that we've seen, how balanced do you think the 30pt limit is?

I know that's a tough question since we haven't seen most of the cards yet. 

 

But here's an example.

You can take elite Kylo and elite Jango. That's 29pts. 4 Dice and two pretty strong offensive characters with 21 health between them

Meanwhile

Something like Vader + Dooku, neither of them can be elite as the regular version come to a total of 27 points. You get 23 health and arguably better synergy with blue cards and only Melee damage. But only 2 dice. 

 

Would you consider this match up (27 vs 29pts) even remotely fair? 

I know Vader is strong but if roughly double Kylo + Jango results (since 2 dice each) they seem to come out on top. 

 

Actually, even an elite Vader can only be pared with 1 stormtrooper ( currently). Does a 2 dice vader + stormtrooper compare at all with any other 2 hero team? Especially an elite 2 hero team like the one above.

 

I get that having a few 7pt stormtroopers could be interesting as meat shields but some 2 hero team seem much stronger than other 2 hero teams....

 

Definitely have to give the caveat here that we only know part of the card pool and some of the characters. But let's first look at other games. Is it ever the case where every faction or faction combo is perfectly balanced?

 

Now to answer your question. Here is my ranking of character combinations in this very limited pool. Even this might be wrong because I haven't explored everything.

 

1.) E Kylo and E Jango - This is an amazing combo. Jango and Holocron are the two best cards in this limited environment. Therefore, it's not shocking they would be best.

2.) Dooku Phasma Stormtrooper - I might be wrong here, but this lineup is my favorite. There are so many high skill plays to be made. I love guardian.

3.) E Luke Rey - This is an interesting deck that can be a rush deck or a combo deck depending on how the dice fall. 

4.) E Han E Rey - This is a fun ramp deck. Han can do a lot of damage or push resources to get stuff like Falcon out. As more ambush cards get spoiled this will move up

5.) Finn Poe - This is a crazy fun deck that is pretty RNG heavy.

 

Those are just the lists I have focused on. I've seen a ton of other interesting lists such as Vader and 2 Stormtroopers, E Jango 2 Stormtroooper, pretty much everything 2 Stormtroopers. While the characters aren't completely balanced right now, and most likely wont be when the full set is out, there are a ton of interesting decks that have different playstyles. That's what is important to me more than everything being even, which is not realistic. As more cards are spoiled these different archetypes and playstyles will most likely become more diverse and differentiated.

 

Bottom line is that I think the character balance is off to a great start.

[Rogue30 60]

From my experience what's important that all characters are tournament playable (maybe except Vader and Luke, but I might be wrong). 4 non-unique most probably won't work, but that's a good thing in my opinion.

Destiny tournaments will be amazing - so many team options and still 10 characters to be revealed.

Some of our games took 60 minutes, so it seems proper limit for a tournament round. And you never should give up, generally, loosing one character, doesn't mean automatical loss. That makes this game super exciting.

[Tromsicle 71]

 

Given that game length do you expect a best of 3 tournament format?

 

Originally I was sure there would be time for best of 3. But games are taking much longer now. Lots of games go about 40 minutes. There can be a ton of actions and back and forth on each turn. So while the amount of turns might be low, the amount of time taken is not always low. However, as people get better at the game, I imagine the game will speed up. So final answer is maybe, but I am guessing bo3 won't work out.

 

 

Keep in mind you're playing on TTS which is significantly slower than playing with the physical game. If a game is lasting an average of 40 mins on TTS, I would imagine it would take closer to 20 - 30 min on the table. Which puts you in a funny spot cause it might be tight to do a best of 3 but seems to short for a one off. From a tournament stand point best of 3 is a way better option so I hope they go with it. 

[Amanal 2,557]

Say you are playing Friday Nights, is best of three over three games at 1 hour per, going to be as good as 6 games against 6 opponents with 30 minutes for each game?

[TinyGrimes 13]

 

 

Given that game length do you expect a best of 3 tournament format?

 

Originally I was sure there would be time for best of 3. But games are taking much longer now. Lots of games go about 40 minutes. There can be a ton of actions and back and forth on each turn. So while the amount of turns might be low, the amount of time taken is not always low. However, as people get better at the game, I imagine the game will speed up. So final answer is maybe, but I am guessing bo3 won't work out.

 

 

Keep in mind you're playing on TTS which is significantly slower than playing with the physical game. If a game is lasting an average of 40 mins on TTS, I would imagine it would take closer to 20 - 30 min on the table. Which puts you in a funny spot cause it might be tight to do a best of 3 but seems to short for a one off. From a tournament stand point best of 3 is a way better option so I hope they go with it. 

 

 

I'll have to disagree a bit with the slower on TTS. At first it was much slower, but now it is nice and quick. It might be a hair faster in person, but then again it might not be. I would think bo1 with 45 min. round times would be good. I played in a few bo3 Dice Masters tournaments and they were disasters. Against quick players like myself it worked fine. However, I got timed out a few times by people thinking a bit. Also, I just had what seems to be becoming more the norm a nice long 8 round match that took well over an hour, and it didn't feel slow.

[TinyGrimes 13]

Say you are playing Friday Nights, is best of three over three games at 1 hour per, going to be as good as 6 games against 6 opponents with 30 minutes for each game?

 

30 minutes is probably too fast. 45 seems ideal.

[TinyGrimes 13]

From my experience what's important that all characters are tournament playable (maybe except Vader and Luke, but I might be wrong). 4 non-unique most probably won't work, but that's a good thing in my opinion.

Destiny tournaments will be amazing - so many team options and still 10 characters to be revealed.

Some of our games took 60 minutes, so it seems proper limit for a tournament round. And you never should give up, generally, loosing one character, doesn't mean automatical loss. That makes this game super exciting.

 

Did you feel like the 60 minute games were caused by inexperience, lots of difficult decision points, or number of turns?

[Rogue30 60]

Those were close games, 7-8 rounds, when both players had equal luck (or equal bad luck) and had necessary defensive cards.

@Tromsicle: I don't use TTS, but I watched video - it might be a little cumbersome, but not significantly slower than playing with the physical game.

I use my "hologameboard" and I think it's a little faster than real game (because you don't have to move tokens, shuffle cards, return dice to corresponding card, etc.)

I think best of 3 is not possible - 20 minutes per game that is average 3 minutes for both players' actions per round. This game is so intense, sometimes you think long.

Also, some players use paper proxies and real dice with stickers, I guess they can confirm.

We still have 100 cards to come, including Thermal detonator and ATST, so who knows, maybe the game will speed up. But at the same time we will have more defensive tricks, more shields generation, Field medic etc.

Also, I think that losing a Destiny match because of time limit would be heartbreaking for a player.

[Venryk 1]

An hour for this game sounds a lot like analysis paralysis.

[Squid89 86]

Thanks for the input and great answers in this thread. It's nice to see some real data, albeit limited, rather than pure conjecture on game play. It seems like there is plenty of bablance and room for expansions without having one or two combos dominating the field.

As for tournament times, I would not want to see it get too rushed as that might scare off more inexperienced players as time goes on and they ar eneeded to keep the game alive. A balance between welcoming newer players and allowing veterans the most games ina night is ideal.

[Venryk 1]

In my experience, long rounds tend to scare off newer inexperienced players far more that short rounds. New inexperienced players spend a lot of time sitting around doing nothing in games with long rounds instead of just getting to the next game.

[dewbie420 1,632]

I like these videos... but I cannot wait until FFG releases an official video tutorial (like X-wing). The GenCon demo videos I've seen, seem to have so much mis-information. And most of the YouTube vids on how-to-play are not easy to follow: The cards are flashed so fast (sometimes over and over for a millisecond- which doesn't help), nearly all the subtle happenings in the game are not even mentioned, play terms are swapped or not called by the actual names...

 

My questions:

What is the hardest thing to remember during a round of  play?

What is the one game effect/rule that took the longest to learn?

Edited October 15, 2016 by dewbie420

[TinyGrimes 13]

I like these videos... but I cannot wait until FFG releases an official video tutorial (like X-wing). The GenCon demo videos I've seen, seem to have so much mis-information. And most of the YouTube vids on how-to-play are not easy to follow: The cards are flashed so fast (sometimes over and over for a millisecond- which doesn't help), nearly all the subtle happenings in the game are not even mentioned, play terms are swapped or not called by the actual names...

 

My questions:

What is the hardest thing to remember during a round of  play?

What is the one game effect/rule that took the longest to learn?

 

Interesting questions. I think the hardest thing during a round of play is considering all of the cards your opponent could have. It gets pretty easy to start putting plans together. But most people struggle with playing around what cards you could have in hand. I think this skill will improve with experience, it certainly has for me.

 

The rule that takes most the longest to fully get is overwriting upgrades and only paying the difference. This is huge. You can play a 2 cost upgrade turn 1, and then pay 2 next turn for use for force next turn overwriting the old upgrade. Other crazy tricks are things like overwriting cards with comlink for rerolls. Then overwriting comlink with something and getting it back with the Graveyard battlefield. 

[Back5 69]

How competitive will this game be? I.E. will I need to dedicate oodles of time to researching lists, cards, strategies etc? I liked X-Wing and IA skirmish because you could do well with being able to visualize the board, which was more of a shoot-from-the-hip play style and not performing tons of research behind the scenes. 

[Inquisitorsz 334]

It's more deck building than Xwing/IA. You're going to need to know your cards, your opponent's cards and the meta. I feel it's similar to X-wing at this stage. There's so many upgrades and so many different ships that's it's difficult to be competitive without knowing a lot of the game. Even if there's only 3-4 "top meta" lists, you still need to know your stuff. IA is still small enough that local metas vary a lot and knowing all the units isn't too hard. 

IA is certainly a bit more strategy and "chess like" but writing a decent list is still important and it's important to be familiar with other command cards to know what tricks your opponents can have up their sleeve. 

 

I think regardless of the game you still need to dedicate a lot of time and research to be properly competitive. I'm very deep into IA and I'm comfortable that I know everything about it, but I've stopped following X-wing closely and I know I'm not competitive there simply because I'm not up to date with every upgrade and every meta list.   

That doesn't mean I can't go play in a tournament with an older list, but I definitely don't expect to win it. 

 

Kind of depends what you consider "competitive" I guess. That word means different things to different people. 

Edited October 17, 2016 by Inquisitorsz

[Harmonica 39]

This is an elegant game for a more civilized age.  You will need to put your time in to it if you want to be more than casual.

[TinyGrimes 13]

How competitive will this game be? I.E. will I need to dedicate oodles of time to researching lists, cards, strategies etc? I liked X-Wing and IA skirmish because you could do well with being able to visualize the board, which was more of a shoot-from-the-hip play style and not performing tons of research behind the scenes. 

 

There is a big difference in these games. At least with IA much of the information is on the table when you start. However, for myself I have been studying IA quite a bit to understand what command cards my opponent might play, what lists are popular, and how certain matchups work. With card games this is amplified because less information is on the table. You need to know what cards your opponent might be using and based on the meta what cards are likely to be used. Having said that, with just the first set, this shouldn't be too daunting.