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Episode 21: The Draft League Strikes Back!
112 Plays4 months ago
A long time ago… in a windy city, far, far away… Your host Nick Sperry is joined by Greg Kash (NCX) to talk about the Draft League and being a core member of the XWA points team! This is the latest installment of 312’s interview series.
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Transcript
Introduction and Hosts
00:00:02
Speaker
You are listening to the 312 Squadron podcast. My name is Nicholas Dashwood Sperry, and I am joined by the NCX draft league czar and XWA points team member Greg Cash. What's up, Greg? Hey, how's it going? It's not Saturday, but it could be.
00:00:20
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's Monday. It feels like Monday.
Episode Context and Humor
00:00:22
Speaker
Today's Monday feels like it doesn't feel like Monday, but also I have to remind myself it is and I get just just depressed because it sucks that it's Monday. But we get.
00:00:33
Speaker
Here we are. Here we are i doing another interview series for the podcast. This is episode 21. We're recording on the end of September. ah Get ready, Green Day. It's time to wake up. You get that reference? I do. Yeah, I was there when they when they released that song that was played on the radio. That might be actually my least favorite Green Day song. It's their least favorite, too, because I went to a three hour Green Day concert and they didn't play it. So I think they ah they don't like play that song.
00:01:02
Speaker
I believe they are they're they're tired of it.
Draft League Popularity and Operations
00:01:05
Speaker
um Hey man, we're we're talking about the draft league and XWA today. sure Lots to talk about. um Some of this might, we've talked about the draft league in a similar sense in the past in terms of just like what it is. But I obviously, I think um as you you know, you are a part of XWA and the league keeps growing. I think it's kind of nice to circle back on kind of why it exists and like what the hell it is for the few people out there who might not know, which is not many. um So like, why did you start the draft league again? Why don't you give us a refresher on that?
00:01:34
Speaker
Well, basically I started because I was sick of asking people to scream on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I was like, well, if they have games that they have to play, maybe they'll do it on their own. Nah, it's just our little fun little league that we got going. Got 20 teams now, 180 players.
00:01:54
Speaker
uh it's nothing it's nothing yeah just a couple couple people definitely never any personality conflicts and it's just going great yeah um how would you describe the draft league obviously it's in the name players get drafted but like what's Like, how does that work? Obviously, you have two separate drafts. There's a captain's draft that happens. Is it what the week before? Yeah. we So like, how does all that work? So the captain's draft is basically reverse order from standings and the captain's pick where they're going to draft players. And there's certain advantages to going first. Like you go first, you have your complete pick of the players.
00:02:37
Speaker
But you go 20th, you get 20 in the 21st pick because it's a stink draft for the players draft. So there's a little bit of strategy there. And some people prefer getting two higher ranked picks. Some people for getting the one high and then the one lower, you know, so just, uh, just a fun little thing that they can, captains can, um, kind of devise their season, how they want to build their teams.
League Inspirations and Management
00:03:02
Speaker
And you're a big football guy, right? So were you inspired by like football in particular, just that, you know, how obviously all major sports have drafts? Like, was that just, you just wanted a sporty feeling kind of X-wing league.
00:03:14
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's it's like a I would say it it probably takes more from hockey than it does football. But yeah, it just like sports leagues in general is a good way to put it. It's like a it's like a sports league for excellent in this season. I mean, with 180 players, it's it's I think yet again, it's like about two months, right? Like not including the playoffs or.
00:03:34
Speaker
Was that right? Uh, yeah. Yeah. So 10 weeks plus playoffs, 14 new and a half months. so nice So it could go like three and a half months. And then I don't, well, we're scheduled for any weeks off right now. I think we've timed it. So we get to like the holidays by the playoffs, not a hundred percent certain.
00:03:53
Speaker
Yeah, we've we've been kind of plugging in our leagues in between like during the offseason to kind of hold people over. So it's been perfect because like I just got done with ours. It was exhausting. I'm like, you know what? Can't wait to play the draft league. Can't wait to not have to deal with any is shit. Greg has to deal with it now. You have a lot of it automated, though. I know that it's probably been kind of a it's been, you know,
00:04:15
Speaker
Is it stressful like now, even though you've been able to automate a lot of stuff? I know James has been able to help you with that from GSP. um like Where are you at now when it comes to like the workload of of managing this whole thing? Honestly, ah so much of it now is automated. Last season, there was still a lot of manual stuff, and like James really helped me. And then this season, almost all of it is automated, so it hasn't been that bad. like I still have to like enter scores and stuff. you know And like in our match-ups and well, match-ups I'll try to just copy over if the captains do the form formatting, right. But yeah, I mean, I would say the workload is just in moderating rather than like keeping track of things.
00:05:00
Speaker
I finally reached a point where i can't I can't read every chat that happens in every team. Yeah, you miss a lot, dude. I i just go in there. I'm like, is anyone talking about me? Anybody got anything to say? Will somebody attack me, please? like It's the same tired playbook, but I'm just like, i you know I'm not going to read 180 messages. like you know What did I miss? What did I miss?
Discord Community Management
00:05:19
Speaker
TLDR, please. Oh, man. Yeah, I mean, your Discord is... is I don't think it's a leap to say it's it's it is by far the most active.
00:05:28
Speaker
X-wing discord that exists. It it it like it just in terms of just of the activity across all the channels in there. I mean, is that fair to say? I feel like that's pretty accurate, right? Like you don't want to toot your own horn, but like I feel like that's true. Oh, like I don't. Congrats to get a cookie. I know. But like, like I mean, what does that mean? Look, I feel like there's like different discourse for people's niche interests, and I've tried to segment our discord off.
00:05:59
Speaker
so that like people can selectively mute things they don't give a shit about. You know what I mean? like yeah So I think that helps because like you can if you only care about X-Wing, you can literally mute like everything else except the X-Wing channels. And then you're not goingnna yeah you don't have to deal with my shitty takes on Buffalo Bills football.
00:06:22
Speaker
I think we've seen on both of our discords, yours is is more exponentially. um And again, it's not like a competition or or maybe it is right. You know, Chicago Buffalo. But I mean, we've seen them grow a lot the last I'd just say two years. Right. And I don't know about you, but like with with this this past summer, ours grew like and very quickly in a short period of time that I was pretty much ambushed by it. I was like overwhelmed.
00:06:49
Speaker
did Have you felt that where you're like you went from your discord having like let's say 200 people to having like 500 plus people like do you feel that I know now we're talking about discord But it's just it's just something interesting to think about is like someone who helps like run community x-wing stuff Is that something that crosses your mind and I was like, holy crap. There's so many people here.
00:07:10
Speaker
Uh, sometimes. I think right now I'm looking at it. We've got um maybe like around 550 in the discord, but like not everyone's active. You know, like there's a lot of people or sometimes I'll get like a notification that someone left the discord and like. Like no offense to anyone, but I'll be like, I don't who is I have no idea who that is. Of course they left. Why would I? Who are you? Yeah, I mean, I just left during this call, so.
00:07:39
Speaker
Yeah, I guess you should see that notification come through. Yeah, no, it's I had a little speaking of the draft
Fantasy League and Funding Challenges
00:07:45
Speaker
league, though. I have a little game for you if you if you didn't told me, OK, I have a timer for for 30 seconds. All right. I'd like you to name every team in 30 seconds or less. Be able to. Let's do it. It's going to be hard. Are you ready? Yeah. Three, two, one. Go havoc. Hot shots. Mega Milk Union.
00:08:08
Speaker
Foxes, Order 66, KDB, Shadowcasters, Wolfpack, Fixer's Oath, Star Killers, Berserker's, Brave Crab, Tundishers, Degenerate, Maulers, damn. I think you did, that was almost all of them though, what did you miss?
00:08:37
Speaker
I counted internally. I counted 15. I think I was missing five. Okay. So whatever five teams Greg didn't mention, we care about for particularly much. To be fair, that was more bad time control than not knowing. I think I was on the roll there. Like I know NJO, I know Moncola, I know Firebirds. And then there's, there's two more.
00:09:00
Speaker
They're there. they Yeah, you know, I mean, 20, it's a lot of teams, 20 teams. I think I joined when there were, was it eight, maybe, like dinner guys? There were four. And then the next season, I think there were eight. Yeah. ah So it's season two and three. Took a break for four. Came back for five. Here we over six, six seasons. Do you ever think about doing? Do you ever think like it it doesn't seem like I feel like I know the answer to this question. Sure. I don't see why you would, but do you ever think about pivoting to like a different type of format for a league? Like would you go 20 seasons or 10 seasons or 20s insane? But like, you know, so there is one thing that I like drew up the plans for. And I was like, there's no way I can make this work, but I would love to do it. I wanted to to convert draft league into a salary cap system.
00:09:47
Speaker
where players get like contracts with like numbers and you have to build your team to stay within like a salary cap. Oh, that's amazing. Oh my God. The value, the way you would attribute value would be so biased. Yeah, it'd be, it'd be awful. And like, I think people would feel bad. Like I'm worth nothing. Get the lead minimum over here. seemed okay It also like without any way to actually like.
00:10:11
Speaker
You know, you sign someone to eight or whatever, like without eight actually meaning anything, what's to stop a team from just feeling like, okay, you're two, two, two, two, two, I formed super team. Yeah. So fundamentally it doesn't work, but I do love it.
00:10:25
Speaker
it would be cool to have like fake press conferences where we like now it like a monster signing you know like yeah yeah but you know this season we got big big contract here if everyone wasn in friends with if you if it was like a more of a business like sports it would be way better because you could do something like that. But this one would just devolve into like clicks, which is not great. So I mean, we we would need the NCX Draft League Sportsbook to open up first. We could all just get drunk and bet on X-Wing games. Well, I thought about doing it based on standings, right? And and declaring like the top 10 people are worth 10. The next 10 are worth nine, blah, blah, blah, based on last year's standings. And that's what you have to sign them to. And then you have to kind of build your team
00:11:11
Speaker
through that there was a whole plan in place it just was like overly complicated and the captains are not paid be like listen yeah i understand you all have lives and a job but i'm gonna need you to devote more time to this i mean it there's almost there is a type of dedication i don't know if i'd call it serious that but a type of loyalty and dedication to the bit and like being a part of the league where I could almost see people getting paid maybe like minimum wage but like I just like I can see it uh and it's not recommended because I mean if we ever started like making money like I wouldn't be opposed to it but like yeah I mean okay well uh Lambo dropped a huge donation the other day so that is this is like the first month I'm gonna come up like plus in a while he donated us too he's been just so just so amazingly generous it's it's crazy
00:11:59
Speaker
I mean, dude, it's great. I feel like there's ah people like, oh, you got, for example, just in terms of money when it comes to streaming, like our Zencaster subscription ironically came up and we renewed it, which is so funny because Zencaster has been giving us issues today. And, um you know, Andrew's like, well, we got our Patreon, we can, you know, just pay with that. I'm like, yep. But, you know, it's just one of those things where it's like the if I wanted to just get some stickers printed, it's like, boom, 100 bucks.
00:12:23
Speaker
for like one set of like stickers, right? So it's just, I feel like it's always important. Then what you pay for like the API features, AI, Buster, like server stuff, like boosts, all the things that discord, you have to have and maintain. Like high is Discord, Nitro so expensive.
00:12:40
Speaker
And then I didn't realize it was like an additional recurring subscription cost that they tack on. So it's like you want to boost your server again. Great. That adds $15 a month more to your already existing subscription. So some people pay like $75 a month for their one Discord account and server. It's it's just I just I think it's always good. It just puts it in a perspective like, you know, like somebody dropping a hundred dollar donation on Twitch like blows our minds like, holy crap, that's thank you so much. That's insane. And then it's like, all right, well, I could buy one sticker with that.
00:13:09
Speaker
Whoa, let's go. You know, it's just like it's. It's just expensive. I mean, Discord knows what it's doing, right? Because like so many games are streamed on Discord and I want them people to be able to stream it in quality. So like I have to buy Nitro for that. I think there's a lot of like hitting costs. People may not realize with everything. Yeah, I mean, people people understand that there's equipment and everything and time. Yeah, I just I mean, I'm not complaining. It's fine.
00:13:39
Speaker
No, no, neither am i I. I mean, I it's nice. It's nice to be able to do to to have money, to be able to like do things with it for your stream and for the discord. Like, yeah, it might get spent right away and stuff is expensive. But to be able to just do that in the first place and not have to. I just I just dump everything back into it because it's not yeah like what am I going to do? I like I have enough money to like go out to a bar, you know, like I'm not going to.
00:14:07
Speaker
Yeah, speak for your yourself Greg. A lot of martinis with the Patreon money. You guys can clip that if you want. That's that's where it all goes. Just more just the worst martini imaginable. The dirtiest martini. You know, that's that's it. Let's see. What else did I have for you? All right, so I did take um what Elijah asked Buster. So i do want I do want you to answer these questions from
Star Wars Themed Discussions
00:14:30
Speaker
the ah the greatest super real human being that is Buster's Sky Spudger. Sure.
00:14:36
Speaker
And so he's got, yes, he has a few questions here. So Buster's first question. If you could draft any creature from the Star Wars universe to pilot an X-Wing, what would it be? Any creature? So I'm like, draft, draft any creature. I love it. Like, I can't draft what? Wedge is a creature. Are we talking about that guy? Yeah, that might be too that might be a cop out. You know, like, I'd say burgollet has to be like whatever creature the burgollet is would probably be what I would pick.
00:15:02
Speaker
Sure, well I'm going with Salacious Crumb, the Kawakian monkey wizard. He's got the attitude for it. Yeah, he's got the fuck you attitude that I look for in my X1 pilots. And we've seen we've seen um Babu Frick in a cockpit before might not be dry flying, but, you know, like slashes can be there. Let's do it. Why not? Why not? I love that. I love that. ah Let's see. Question number two in a galaxy far, far away. I see what you did there, Buster. What's the one snack you'd smuggle onto your ship for those long hyperspace jumps? Well, we have seen that cereal exists. And if we're willing to go expanded universe,
00:15:40
Speaker
In the original Thrawn trilogy, hot chocolate exists. Lando showed Luke hot chocolate and Luke drinks hot chocolate. So I'm going hot chocolate. As a snack? Yeah, tasty little snack. OK. Space is cold.
00:15:55
Speaker
That's fair. Yeah. I mean, you don't need any substance in your body. You don't need any food. Just hot chocolate. No, no, no. Do you will do you want to have to shit in an x-wing cockpit? Not me. I don't you want to know what that would look like. We'll have to we'll have to do a a animated recreation of that at some point. That's.
00:16:10
Speaker
That's where our money can go. If the force could be hardest to improve one mundane task in your daily life, what would it be? Cutting the lawn. You don't even have to cut the lawn. Mowing the lawn. Hate it. I hate mowing the lawn. I would probably say... You don't have a lawn, so you don't understand. I don't. No, I don't understand. I don't understand. I think it's probably because Chicago's a lot of traffic, foot traffic, traffic in general, vehicles.
00:16:36
Speaker
Just like being able to just like throw stuff to the side to get out of my way. I don't care if this card is like people, people in cars. yeah Yeah, it's just like divert them form a path for me. Yeah, exactly. Because like whenever we we all do this, when we walk into the grocery store, we all use the force to open the automatic door. If you haven't done that, I would like I would like for you to to block me and and never speak to me again, because we all know we've done that before in our life.
00:17:01
Speaker
Like, you know, just thinking about being able to do that to people who are in your way, it would be it would be great. i would i would be I would love that. I'm cutting the lawn. Okay. Imagine a world where droids host a talk show. What's their first guest and what's the topic of discussion? Who are the droids is my main question. Would the droids be K2 is one of them? That's a good question. I think the answer is Tom Hanks and they talk about his robust typewriter collection.
00:17:26
Speaker
Okay, I would think so. I would think the host of the show. So Tom Hanks is good. I think K2SO would probably be like the Conan O'Brien. Like he'd be the main. No, he's the he's the Andy Richter. yeah So who would be the Conan then? If he's Richter, then who would who would come to be of choice? The three feels like not really funny. He's just kind of annoying.
00:17:48
Speaker
First off, K2 is funny. i think Okay. we' Agree to disagree. K2 and 3PO are in some way involved in the talk show, whoever's host. Fair enough. Topic of discussion you you mentioned. What but would you say with Tom Hanks? You talk about what again? His robust collection of typewriters. Okay. That would be very engaging for sure.
00:18:07
Speaker
I absolutely ah if you could swap places with any Star Wars character for a day, who would it be? And what's the first thing you do? OK. All right. I think there's pros and cons to everyone here. Pick out like any time period. Yeah, sure. OK.
00:18:22
Speaker
Great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great. I don't know, man, that's a tough one. For me, it's definitely swapping places to Boba Fett while he's stuck in the Sarlacc pit. That's just nothing better than that. Just chilling? Just chilling, yeah. I think I'm just going to go with Lando while he's on one of his gambling. You do like to gamble, so I could see that. It just seems like that would be pretty fun, and I'd have a much better personality for a day. It'd be great. I don't know. I think Lando and your personality look pretty not too far off adjacent zip codes. OK, sure. I'm just talking about folks. We all know it's true. What do you think the most isolated cantina theme song would be if it were a 1950s jazz hit Jesus Christ 1950s. OK, perfect. You answered that immediately. I'm like, I don't know how to answer that question at all. Moving on.
00:19:13
Speaker
If Ewok started a band, what genre of music would they play and what would their debut album be called? So in the chat here, give me your ideas as well. I'd love to hear from you. OK, well, obviously they're death metal. It would be called. I want to say like Into the Woods.
00:19:32
Speaker
Into the Woods. Yeah. ah Stormtrooper Body Bag. I don't know. Stormtrooper Body Bag is a good band name. but It's a really good band name. It's a good band name. All right, so Ewoks, the Stormtrooper body bag has just released their album, Into the Woods. A legion of my finest men. I love it. Yep. Didn't work out. sort That's great. I love that. i Number, let's see, we're on number eight. In an alternate universe, what would the Jedi Order's version of a sports draft look like? I mean, Luke's the number one pick, clearly.
00:20:07
Speaker
Yeah, is Anakin Anakin a captain? Does that make Anakin a captain? I think i think i think like the the different galactic governments are the ones drafting. I'm assuming this is expanding the universe where we actually got a Jedi Order. The question is who becomes pick number two? I think there's three candidates. There's Mara Jade, Kip Duran,
00:20:26
Speaker
Horn horn. Hmm. I think you have to go kip to who would my my second my my second pick. Well, the name Jane on Anakin. Oh, no, this could throw a whole thing in there. Are they are they draft eligible for this? Oh, this is all work.
00:20:43
Speaker
How does this work? What's the name of the ah the the guy um the in the pod racer that? The Bulma. No, it's the the guy who never gets off the ground. He's my number two pick. He's not a Jedi. Oh, we're only doing Jedi order. It doesn't matter. He's force sensitive. Did you see the way he hit that pit droid?
00:21:05
Speaker
There's definitely some force that floats there for sure. That's how the force works. I've decided. man My Jedi team would kick the shit out of your generation. Mace Windu would probably be my... Yes, it would. Mace Windu would be my number two pick. In all, in all seriousness. Well, if we're going back, then I mean Yoda's gotta to be number two.
00:21:22
Speaker
Why wouldn't you go Yoda? Mace is Mace knows Yoda would kick his ass. That would be a tough fight for Mace, for sure. If you had to choose a Star Wars vehicle as your daily ride, which one would it be? And how would you handle parking daily? Right? What's my favorite ship? All the Falcon was my favorite ship, pretty much.
00:21:40
Speaker
man that's tough because i find so much i think i want like a bigger ship so i can like walk around and shit like i don't want to be stuck in a cockpit you know so i'm gonna go with a yt 2400 because it's a little bit smaller than the falcon but plenty of room and it's i think it looks cool uh a lot of you would expect me to say e-wing A lot of you said, can you say E-wing? I'd say Java's sail barge would be my ride. And you can't be high would anywhere like Exactly. I'm gonna, what I'm gonna do is because it hovers, I'll park it over every other car. It rains one time, everything in it starts getting moldy. That's what the service staff is for. They're all paid on there. Don't worry. It's
00:22:22
Speaker
It's like a giant party bus you take wherever you go and you just park on top of all the normal human cars ah that my backup choice would be the the cloud car because it just seems stupid. And I love it. Like we if we if we could get that an excellent. You can't fly that alone. One attack. You always need a buddy to fly that with you.
00:22:45
Speaker
Uh, I, what, uh, we just get a, like, ah I'm sure Tesla would make one. I have like a self-driving like co-pilot. Okay. It all makes sense. Don't, don't question any of my logic. What's the, what's the one, what's the one piece of advice you'd give to a Java looking to break into the X-wing draft league? It's just a Java specifically, apparently.
00:23:06
Speaker
ah geni that pretty much saw i I'd say, I'd say, listen, your eyes are creeping people out. If you want to be able to lick your opponent in the eye, you're going to need to get colored contacts. I wouldn't judge them based on appearance and I'd just take them for the player that they are. But I guess that's just us here at Nickel City X-Wing.
00:23:26
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Three one two is a little bit more pretentious, apparently. But that's our brand, right? We've decided this collectively. And yeah, absolutely. You're ready to switch gears really quick. Talk about the way for those of you guys that didn't know Buster Sky Spudger is Greg's like amazing.
AI and X-Wing Alliance Management
00:23:46
Speaker
Like what would you describe is an A.I. sideline reporter for the draft league? But you could just ask him. He was meant to be a reporter and it's gone too far.
00:23:55
Speaker
see And he's been every time somebody tags tags him, you spend like a couple of cents, right? Yeah. it's God, too thanks a lot. Well, appreciate it, buddy. It's gotten way too far. So, yeah, you guys you guys you sub to Greg and then you ah use if you use Buster, he just doesn't get any of that money back. He's got to double the subs twice the pride, double the fall. Was that the gear shifting we were doing?
00:24:21
Speaker
No, I just I just forgot to mention at the top of the questions, like what who Buster was because people might know. I don't know. Yeah, that's what that's on me. That's on me. He was supposed to write articles summing up that week's draft league action. It's got too fars gone too far, too far.
00:24:36
Speaker
Oh, so XWA. Yes. You have been a lot busier than I have been, I think, on a daily basis when it comes to the X Wing Alliance, just because maybe like a month ago, like, yeah, I mean, now it's easier. You're just kind of waiting and seeing like how things are going and evolving. Right. I mean, but let's be fair. Like, I mean, point being a part of the points team is like not easy when it comes to just like, especially when it came to you guys actually creating and testing and and and iterating the the beta points that we
XWA Points Complexity and Adjustments
00:25:05
Speaker
have now.
00:25:05
Speaker
So, like, what is it like being a part of the points team? You work with Dale Cromwell, Catherine Nyxera, and Ollie Pocknell as the lead. Like, how how has that been? It's been good. A lot of, like, you you would not believe the amount of things that come up, you know? Like, so much more complicated than you think.
00:25:25
Speaker
when you start you know you're like okay so points here and then you like touch one upgrade and you're like oh my god this is gonna impact everything in these thousands of factions like dear lord it's insane the amount of like i don't know what the word is but like It's insane how much like one little change reverberates throughout the whole system. So it's something you always got to consider. And then like, and then you'll you'll be like, Oh, this is a common sense change. And then someone points out, but like, Oh, that enables this combo. And you're like, Oh my God, no, we can't have that. It's like, there's so much that goes on, but it's fun.
00:26:06
Speaker
It's fun. It's a little stressful. it was It was more stressful when we were testing every day because we had like a month to test a whole, you know, game's worth of changes. Sometimes we were making like two to three changes a day, but now it's kind of just like collecting data. and A brave in games and just making notes. Do you think that even though it's a just it's just a beta, um you know, right now it's we're in beta points land. Like, would you think you could have used more time before the the beta points or are you happy with, you know, a month is not a lot of time. I mean, sure. Yeah, of course. You could always use more time. How much how many people leave the game? How many people are are playing something that they're they're kind of bored with because we hadn't got changed? like We didn't know that AMG was going to do the ah the points update, right? like we didn't No one knew that was coming.
00:26:59
Speaker
so like As far as we knew what you had was what was going to be for the rest of our lives. So like we had already kind of seen, and again, I don't know the cost. I don't want to speculate the cost, but we had kind of seen interest dropping a little bit and it felt like getting it out sooner was the correct choice. Like now or never. Yeah. Not, not even now or never, never just like now or how many people leave and we're never able to get them back.
00:27:27
Speaker
So you felt like there was just almost like a duty of urgency to just like, Hey, like the the urgency, the urgency I felt was also the boredom I felt. I mean, I can talk to a lot of people and I'm sure a lot of people feel the same way, you know, between me and you, we probably watch more X-wing than almost anyone here, really. And I don't know. I just, I was bored of seeing the same stuff all the time.
00:27:50
Speaker
what the triple arcs and assault wasn't ah scratching that itch for you anyway and like i can't even like hate on the people flying it it's the correct thing to fly we figured it out it's the correct thing yeah so like but like how long do you want to be in that you know if you have the power to to change that up a little bit i think you have to kind of do it And, you know, yeah, I mean, it's so far so good, but, you know, maybe there's a revolt coming. I don't know. Oh, gosh, I don't know. Well, as far as I know, not yet. Yeah, I don't think they're going to tell us before they revolt. They just do it. You know, they just that's up. There's going to be a revolt on Friday. You know, brings next. There's going to be a lot of luck before got the hot chocolate to bring that hot chocolate and hot chalky.
00:28:35
Speaker
ah ah Yeah, um how do you guys like work together like I mean, you don't obviously you know, we're pe peeling back like a tiny bit of the curtain ah We don't believe in like secrecy but also like it's important for the integrity of our operation and not like to say Everything we're doing but like, you know, what what roles have you seen like Dale take on? How is Catherine helping you working with Ollie and the three of you coming together with him? Like what does that kind of look like? I So Ali has a final say in it, but he's very good and gracious about listening to everybody. And I can straight up tell you that there anything he's like overruled me on, it's been after he's given me ample time to present my argument. And then he's given his like counter argument.
00:29:24
Speaker
and then just been like, I feel like this and like, okay, lost that one. But there have been plenty where he's felt a way and I felt another way. I've given an argument and he's been like, that's a good point. And he's gone how I felt or how Catherine felt or or how Del felt, whatever. So it's very it's very collaborative, but Ali does have the final decision. Like I can't just like go in and be like, this is changing.
00:29:49
Speaker
You know, like yeah I feel, but I feel like it's good because I have to come at him with a change. but If I come at him with a change, it has to be, I have to back it up. You know, it can't just be like something I feel. You know, I have to actually be able to like present like this is happening. This is happening. Check out this. Check out this.
00:30:12
Speaker
and you were playing a lot of games too and testing stuff right like during internal testing like you were a part of i mean you guys were all te testing yeah i mean it's um it's the most excellent i've probably played in yeah forever How did that go? like what would I mean, that's exhausting, but like ah let's say your 15th game in, like where you still like were you excited by the prospect that you were like you were a part of this process or you know was there a lot of fatigue when it came to just that cause? Honestly, I'm not someone who likes playing the same thing like twice a lot, but like for me, it was just more work. I kind of approached it as more of a, I'm researching right now, this is not me playing the game for funsies. Yeah.
00:30:50
Speaker
And we had, we did have a playtest team internally, like 50 or so people. So we got a lot of data from them. And then, you know, when the, when the new, when the new ships come out, I was like, well, we're going to have to put these points in because I don't want people. Oh yeah, that sells. the point yeah but Yeah. When the new gumbo's come out. So I played.
00:31:10
Speaker
probably 20, 25 games and watch like 50 others with them because I mean, that's, you take a job, right? You gotta, gotta be as prepared as you can be for that job. I had to know how they feel to fly. I had to watch them in other people's hands, including like much better players than me, you know? So it's just like, in a, in like a week, I probably got like 50 to 75 games worth of, oh my gosh.
00:31:35
Speaker
Yes, I'll experience literally just every night. I was just watching game after game after game after game because it's just you you have to write like you you have to you can't just sit there and guess like you have to put in a little bit of work. Yeah, a two follow up questions to that. So the first one is the, you know, again, we've we have our our more emotional response or feeling to this, but like the the criticism that maybe um the X-Wing Alliance points team doesn't favor or doesn't like. Well, it's just that instead of saying hate, this doesn't. Sure. For SLS, right?
00:32:12
Speaker
i Whereas there are plenty that are more playable now than they were before. Like, what is your kind of general response to that if it's not someone that's totally just trying to troll? Sure. First off, I think the only yeah SLS that went up were ones that were dominating. And I mean, we're we leave. OK, so SLS by their nature raised the power level of the game under under AMG's like construction.
00:32:42
Speaker
they raised the power level of the game. Even even if we wanted to like reset the power level, so like, oh gosh, how do I explain it? All right, so we figured the top SL card was around 150, 160% of the power level of the game. So it was like so over over half, maybe 60% more efficient than the power level of the game.
00:33:08
Speaker
So if we thought, okay, let's bring this down to a hundred, then the the cost of those ships would have to be like, like Jenin would be nine. you know, Suunty would be eight. it did It'd be unplayable. Like they would forever just be basically, basically points banned, you know? Like you're not gonna, Colonel Jennings is really good, but he's not half your list good. So we decided on 130 and that was specifically so we could keep SLs in the game. So to me, that criticism is a little wonky because, you know, we, we like made concessions
00:33:45
Speaker
to keep them in the game. And I get it. Like I totally get that there are a lot of people that just love flying an OP p ship and like a ship that does everything, gets a shield upgrade, sort of like just does everything. It's kind of like, God, what's the game? With Starkiller, the force unleashed, right? yeah It's close like you're just like completely like oblivious to like the reality of Star Wars or whatever and it's just like but and that's fun and I get that and there's nothing wrong with liking that in my opinion. I i don't think anyone would criticize anyone for enjoying that kind of thing.
00:34:25
Speaker
But for a game you're trying to balance, and I know we'll never get balance 100%, right? But we can strive to, we can try. just It's not healthy to like have those kind of cards be the dominant card right in the game. I mean, somebody somebody would almost argue, like that the the counter argument to that that I don't buy into is like, well, you know other players against that person were using the same thing. So the power level would, you know at least in tournaments, so would be, you know, even or close to even, um you know, you'd be bringing the Tomax against in death, fire against Triple Arc, SSC arcs or whatever. And it's like, OK, but the problem is every match for me that everybody is bringing the same archetypes per faction. And it's the same. as your No, there's no balance in the game like.
00:35:11
Speaker
Okay. And again, like, I think only one SL card is more than one point more expensive than the AMG points. I could be wrong, but I think that's true. And it's just, uh, it's the new whisper. Cause AMG has it at five. but all What SL? What SL is? Went up. Oh, but did it go up more than one point?
00:35:33
Speaker
Oh, oh, you're saying by more than one point. I got you. I'm sorry. I missed that. Yeah, I i ah heard that wrong. um Yeah, I don't I don't recall anything being a plus. um I think it's only a whisper who is. Yeah. Two points higher. Everything else that went up is one and some didn't go up at all. You know, like mouse is still sitting there. ah Everyone keeps telling me how great mouse is. I played with.
00:35:58
Speaker
Some stuff went down. Aiden. So is at four. I'm not sure that's down or up. I don't know if that actually went down at all. He was five before. See, I fought for Aiden to be at four. I kind of regret it now.
00:36:13
Speaker
because he's super good now that people are playing it. I didn't realize that. I guess I like underestimated how much lower initiatives were going to be back in the game. Isn't that amazing to say out loud? Yeah, well, I like I knew some low initiatives were going, but I thought like maybe that like the floor being I-5 was going to move to I-4. I didn't think we were going to see so many I-3s, I-2s, I-1s in the game. So like when I looked at Aiden, I was like, he's an I-1.
00:36:43
Speaker
He might get too defensticed, but like, how long is this viewing actually going to last? And then it turns out that people really were, um, not star starving is the wrong word, but wanting to play a lot of these lower initiative ships and finding good combos in these lower initiative ships.
00:37:00
Speaker
I would have noticed with Aiden, I've played maybe half like half a dozen games with him is that if he gets if people just ignore him and I feel like it's always hard to gauge the power level of a piece that is is efficient at its price, but just gets ignored. Because if you're not shooting at it, how do you gauge like how good or bad it is when it's not defending enough? Yeah, it is. And it's like just like through the last like four years, five years or whatever, we've just been kind of like trained to ignore lower initiative ships.
00:37:29
Speaker
Like, it's just how the game is gone. And we've like gotten in that habit of being like, all right, this I want is not a threat to me. And then it turns out that that I was just not worth it. Yeah, it's a threat. and It's like, yeah. Well, like how often Greg, when you playing AMG points, when set trigger happy fly boy, poe how often were you actually taking shots at him unless he was the only shot you had? Like you have other targets like because he's. Unless you got a kill box on him, you just don't bother and he's seven points and he's worth the points, but.
00:37:55
Speaker
their their version leads you to a different line of thinking and target priority. And so like, if you if you port that over to these points, you kind of maybe aren't doing it correctly, you know, like correctly in quotes, because like,
00:38:12
Speaker
play however you want, like max efficiency or whatever.
Role of Draft League in Gameplay Insights
00:38:16
Speaker
but yeah Yeah. So there's plenty of SLS and like and the thing is in draft league, Republic is dominating. And I'll tell you what, every game we've streamed, there's been SL arcs in there, even though, you know, two of them went up. ah We've had plenty of SL arcs in draft league, but SL everything in draft league being played that I've seen so far.
00:38:36
Speaker
Yeah. Let's, so ah let tying into, I had a question written down about the draft league and XWA points. So i I wrote out here. um What are your thoughts on how everything is looking so far as it pertains to the draft league and why is it the draft league important when it comes to data? Well, I mean, the draft league is our biggest source of data. I mean, like it's 70 games a week. I don't know where else. I mean, like.
00:39:00
Speaker
I'm sure you're getting at least 70 games else, but not, I'm at least recording the results of 70 games a week. And I have the faction data and faction versus faction, how each faction is doing, et cetera. It's our biggest, most consistent way to kind of get that data other than the, you know, the, the play test form, which, you know, it's kind of subject to people wanting to fill it out.
00:39:22
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's you're right. Seventy games a week is it's that that's a lot. Do you feel like you're able to digest that in ah enough? Like, are you do you do you take that and be like, you know, what I'm doing with this data is helpful or do you feel like you could be doing more? Because obviously there are limitations to what you could just do. You're you're by yourself. There's this. There's a lot to consider with draft like, right? Like right now, F.O. and draft league is the faction that has the worst record. Republic has the best record. FO has the worst record. But there's a lot of things to consider that too. So like first order, the average the average draft position of the Republic player is 68. But the average draft position of a first order player is 90. And that doesn't always mean that first order players are worst players or whatever.
00:40:11
Speaker
just typically if you're drafted later you're you know probably you know not known in the community you know so like there's just plus you get to know the faction or you get to know who you're playing the faction and the scenario so you gotta get to tech for that scenario in draft league so you have to consider all that but it's also good to see like everything coming in but this is why i want so bad for those uh all those tournaments happening to like, or meta wing to put in like an XWA filter or whatever, because it was so good seeing in like the non GT, the guys that pulled out the Polish one pulled out from being a GT.
00:40:52
Speaker
It was so good seeing the data and then having like, I think it was like six factions in the top eight and then all seven in the top 10. That was awesome. Yeah, that's great. That's, that's a good sign. All this, all this data is, it's never definitive, but it's helpful. It can never like.
00:41:08
Speaker
Like, I can't say that first order is by far the worst faction, but I can say that, oh, hey, I see they're clipping along a little lower than everybody else. Maybe there's something we can do there, you know? Maybe that's something we have to look at.
00:41:23
Speaker
Yeah. And I mean, and this is a faction where, for example, you know, you you brought Kylo down from seven to six with less loadout, but like Silencer Kylo being cheaper, you know, just ah less choices for first order list building. Well, there's there's eight ships total in the whole faction, which you would think like makes it easier. But it's significantly harder because there's not a lot of ships that can do like they have a lot of great interceptor ships, but they don't have a lot of great, you know,
00:41:49
Speaker
They don't have like a a comparable to an X-wing really. You know what I mean? Like there's none of that. No, no base fighter ship. Yeah. Closest thing to it would be like an SF. Yeah. But the SFs don't boost or anything like that. You know, it's, they're a little bit more clunky. I mean, SFs are pretty good, but I think I would still take an X-wing.
00:42:09
Speaker
um Yeah, that's interesting. though What else has stood out to you so far as ah as a member of the points team, you know, looking over draft league data or just maybe in general, not just specific to draft league, but extending to like the Polish tournament and just in general? I guess the the variety of things we've seen. I really want to know if this is like a honeymoon phase or if this is something we're going to keep seeing.
Performance Surprises and Monitoring
00:42:33
Speaker
You know what I mean? cause like It's very possible that people are playing a wide variety of things right now. And then in a month, like the meta kind of emerges and it, it slows down on the variety. And there's no way to know that unless, you know, there's no way to know that until we know it, you know, that, and I guess, um, CIS being super, super viable. Cause everyone's very like on release day. I can't tell you how many like Reddit posts and like podcasts videos on the internet. I watched that were like.
00:43:04
Speaker
Man, CIS is dead in the water. And then it goes out and wins two tournaments. It's one of the top performing factions. So like car it kind of took me off guard. How do people read? Like they look at something and they just decide like objectively, this is the way it is. And and even when you see all of the things that they can do now, like bombardment drones with peroximines, for example, which might get nerfed at some point.
00:43:26
Speaker
It's because it's so hard to take things in overall context when you're reading a PDF and you just see green or red. Of one faction. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. I have experience with that. Yeah. It's impossible to be like see red and be like, oh, that's actually a buff because this went down, this went down, this went down, but you're not looking at it. You know what I mean? Or like context man or like you see something unchanged.
00:43:50
Speaker
And you're like, but if the power level went down and this remained unchanged, that means it's better. That's actually a buff. It's just hard for people to, and it's like, it's hard when you're creating it too. Like I said, like of the unintended consequences of a one change, so a point thing. And then like two weeks later, you're working on a completely different faction and you're like, Oh, well now this loadout has to change because we did this two weeks ago.
00:44:17
Speaker
I don't know. Are you guys all kind of focusing on specific factions to try for the workload? And just like, you know, like you might just be looking more at, I know what draftly you're looking at everything, but are you divvying up kind of what you're hyper focusing on because there is so much nuance and so much volume of stuff to keep track of, or you just know, it's pretty much, we just kind of right now have a list of like things to watch.
00:44:41
Speaker
So like no decisions have been made for update number beta update three. Right now it's just like, all right, this could be a concern. This could be a concern. This could be, let's just watch this to play a few games with this, try to get that out, you know, like see if it's an actual problem or if it's just something that's good. Cause I mean, you can't like everything that ends up being good, you can't just like immediately take it away. Like, you know, it's like, all right, this faction is allowed to be good every once in a while. Like. it's Yeah, just because it's good doesn't mean it needs to be nerfed, right? Yeah. i mean right
00:45:14
Speaker
With how long the draft league is going, if you were to ballpark a number of additional updates we might see to the beta points, what do you think? You think it might change twice over the course of the season? Two more times? I mean, obviously, this is not set in stone. What Greg says is not the final. I have no idea. That's not definitive. Yeah, but you could see it changing again at least one more time. I could see one more. If anything new comes through development, and I don't have any information, I don't know what's happening there.
00:45:44
Speaker
But if anything new were to come through development, then that would be a good excuse to make a couple changes. Just kind of like the SLS. That'd be like good timing, you know, cause you don't want to do like multiples if you can avoid it. So like I could see one more, but I can't really guarantee it.
00:46:02
Speaker
I don't really know. i To be honest with you, I don't really know. No worries. Once the GT circuits ended and we have all the information from from the the the GTs and then all the other tournaments that are not GTs and then, you know, we have a little more draftly data and like way more play testing, we'll we'll have a better indication of things. but If it were up to me, we'd make one every week and just keep slowly getting it right. I know that that's not feasible and not how anyone wants to do it. but That would be wild. That would be wild. My last question before we wrap up, Greg, is like what was like one hill you just had to die on when it came to internal
Critical Moments and Internal Debates
00:46:44
Speaker
testing? Like ah like a ship or something? Yeah, a pilot or some sort of combination. Absolutely. We can't have this.
00:46:50
Speaker
Dash comes to mind as an example I've heard in the past that I want to say. Okay. So Dash's title, the Outrider title was a rotted. It's not a new title like Slave 1. So there's not both available. It's a rotted, meaning Custom Dash with the four natural dice could take that title. And then even without Jan, just with a simple trick shot.
00:47:12
Speaker
would have a six dice primary attack with Duke. I don't remember what several calculated it out to you, but like, I think he was saying it was like a 30 percent chance of one shotting an X-Wing. Like, it was just insane. Just an insane thing today. And like, I was I was getting ready to throw the riot pill if we weren't going to take the title away from that outrider or that custom dash, custom lebo, because like,
00:47:42
Speaker
i i'm I'm big on like ships that should have the title having the title. Like 066 gets the title back because 066 flew that ship should have the title. But man, I was like, there's no other way to mitigate this besides making them 58 points or making this title not applicable to this Fordyce Dash. like it's just It just couldn't, the the new title is way too good. Yeah. That sounds like miserable. Like that's just shouldn't exist. Like literally game breaking stuff. I mean, there was a lot of, a lot of stuff about Jan too. Like even three points made Jan like just way too survival because she needs to have a weakness. Like we know she doesn't get played at six points. Like we know that from, from AMG's pricing. So if she were going to be in the game at five.
00:48:33
Speaker
And I I did. I mean, I don't love it about myself, but I floated. I was like, should we give her the title is not giving her the title, the kind of like a nerf that makes her well balanced. And I still think it might be, but like it's also Jan. like Yeah. And at five points without the title, it's it becomes difficult to for some people to make the argument to take. Right. Yeah. But also it's like it's like Jen. It's like the one thing she's known for.
00:49:00
Speaker
It's early. Yeah. Yeah. It's literally the multicrow is her ship. Yeah. I know. Well, that's so when I was doing three, one, two points before you guys were doing the the beta points, like people are like, why do you just remove the title? And I'm like, Jan Ors is not losing the title. Like it is her ship. It that literally makes no sense. It's it's just there's just some lines where you're like, I don't know. And I'm happy where we ended up with her. I think the no load out thing was a good idea that actually And it has worked in making her somewhat like such. She's not hard to kill. She's not hard to kill. Yeah. But she's still worth it for a rebel squad to pump up the pump up the damage. Oh, absolutely. Like for sure. It's nice to see her get played for sure. I mean, yeah, Jan's fun. But they were jan's great for a streamer as well.
00:49:46
Speaker
There were just like a couple things where, you know, like I felt strongly that Grievous shouldn't lose impervium or should always be able to take impervium just because that was kind of Grievous' thing. Oli convinced me about the ah title because we made the title nine points and then outmaneuver nine points.
00:50:05
Speaker
So you kind of have to choose which flavor of Grievous you want. But I fought really hard for those two extra points for Impervium either way, because it just like that to me like defined Grievous as the pilot, you know. Yeah. Yeah, because otherwise I think I think he'd be really easy to kill. Yeah, he's he's he's a cupcake.
00:50:23
Speaker
Pretty much he does get the defensive reroll and it does like help, but like he's he's not exactly killing it. That's not why the CIS is performing. Yeah, I mean, I don't have any insight on this and I don't think I should, um but it's cool to hear about it. ah Just kind of how you guys are operating and like what some you know some examples of things you guys were deliberating on.
00:50:45
Speaker
before we got to where we are now. Overall, is like from the PR perspective, like the the ah feedback has been pretty, the reception has been pretty pretty strong and the in favor of like positivity. um It's the same usual folks who are you know saying the same usual things that are negative. I know that critiques and criticism is expected, and obviously we we should embrace that, but in the right kind of faith is is just the most important factor, just that people are are coming at us um with ideas and helpful data
00:51:19
Speaker
filling out the playtest form if you do. Don't suggest or demand things. Just say, this seemed good. This seemed bad. This is how it went. That's the best way to, in an unbiased way, deliver data to the people who are going to use it for ah the right reasons, right? So um if you are getting games in with the beta points, you can fill out the playtest form. um We blasted the link or all around the discords. um I can also really quickly drop it in the Twitch chat, it'll be in the description for the podcast as well. So let me let me pull up that up. While I do that, Greg, is there any like last last words on the topic for we kind of close outs? I mean, let you think those play test forms are like being read. We read them all.
00:52:08
Speaker
Literally like half the time my arguments to Ollie are like just quotes from the play test forms where I'm like, well, this is what people are saying.
Feedback and Public Reception
00:52:17
Speaker
This is how they feel about it. Like, I mean, they're, they're important. I understand not every game you play, you're going to have time to fill out a play test form, but try to, can yeah, it'd be great. Yeah, exactly.
00:52:32
Speaker
All right, so let's do our little outro here. Live from New York. It's Saturday night. Not live from New York, wouldn't ah ending the live from New York. Thank you, Greg, for your work with the XWA points team and running the draft league. Season six has just begun. We're in week three. So be sure to watch Greg's streams Tuesdays and Thursdays. He's doing three games on each of those days right now. So definitely support him.
00:52:58
Speaker
I join his channel or his discord if you haven't already, which I'm sure you are in his discord. Subscribe on YouTube. All that. I'll put all those links in the description. um Make sure you follow us on Twitch. Catch us live. You can watch edited replay content on YouTube like us on Facebook and join our discord. And thank you to all of our patrons here at three one dollar sign for making this possible and just allowing us to be able to do more. We streamed an event in South Bend the other day, a live event. It's awesome doing in person. Excellent. We hope to do a lot more of that next year.
00:53:27
Speaker
with the XWA beta points. And that is gonna do it. Thank you all so much for listening. My name is Nick. I'm Greg. Are we? Ah, there it is. That's just what we do. We just say our names for some reason. Nobody knows who we are. It's not part of the rundown you gave me. And thank you all so much for listening.
00:53:54
Speaker
Speaking of, my cat is destroying my leg. Yeah, get him! Get him, that's Dutch! I can't just kill Dutch! she She's just like clawing at the Y-Wing. That's great. I can't kill Dutch! Still an empty space over here from where the A-Wing was because she knocked it over, even though I've like taped the stands down and everything. She found a way to knock it over, which is cool. So I was in the middle of playing a beta points game casually when that happened. It was just a massive explosion in my room. I'm like, I'm going to have to step away for a second. Pause the timer. but Sorry. Solid, solid, solid.