Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 33: Conquests, Points, and The Big 50
103 Plays9 days ago
Description
A long time ago… in a windy city, far, far away… Your host Andrew Kouba, joined by recent conquest champion guests Joel Springle and Josh Kalmouni discuss the recent conquest events and MAJOR changes from the XWA! You will want to dig in for this special episode!
Take a look at the changes here: https://www.xwing.life/organized-play
Watch back the XWA Discord Stage on YouTube: https://youtu.be/H2IFCMResqI?si=v2SQ4EfhbiHUcEZa
Conquest Breakdowns:
Bay Area: https://rollbetter.gg/tournaments/2135 (event link) https://www.pattern-analyzer.app/tournament/rollbetter/2135 (insights)
Middle-Earth: https://rollbetter.gg/tournaments/2136 (event link) https://www.pattern-analyzer.app/tournament/rollbetter/2136 (insights)
The 312 Conquest Series is an online qualifier series, one tournament a month, across various timezones. Top 8 players from each event win an invite to the Global Conquest in December!
Link to XWA announcement on scenario changes: https://www.xwing.life/news/announcements
Check out the 312 Conquest Series: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JZpohWBP4cOnN00kQ2Vk1zsEU1fQzmQ4sXtbliTQtc0/edit?tab=t.0
Tickets to the final Alamo Conquest: https://www.ticketleap.events/events/312-squadron
New XWA content has arrived and 312 has exclusive cards and MORE for them! Become the ultimate supporter of 312 Squadron and get awesome perks! Including quarterly rewards like tokens and cards, and MORE! Check out our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/312Squadron
Check out our Merch store: https://streamlabs.com/312_squadron/merch
XWA Site: https://www.xwing.life
Visit the 2.5 Edition Server: https://discord.gg/x-wing
FAQ Link: https://discord.com/channels/627648261456527371/1262114191972503624
Support our partner StrataStrike by using this link and checking out with code “312Squadron” for 15% off store-wide! https://www.etsy.com/shop/stratastrike/?etsrc=sdt
Hey, join the conversation, hop into our Discord! https://discord.gg/xknEegJw67
Like our page on Facebook for updates on future and current things: https://www.facebook.com/Squadron312/
Catch replays and edited content on our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@312squadronChicago
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Hosts
00:00:03
Speaker
You are listening to the 312 Squadron Podcast. My name is Andrew Kuba, and today I'm joined by Joel Springle and Josh Kalinini.
Bay Area and Middle Earth Conquests Overview
00:00:13
Speaker
And we are finally back to talk Bay Area and Middle Earth Conquests with our winners, as well as speculate about some exciting new developments from XWA and what it's like to be a part of the playtesting team.
00:00:29
Speaker
So it's been a while since i we've really gotten to sit down and do these podcasts. We've had two of the Conquest series come and go, and we had a third one this weekend. And Nick is also out today. He's going to be doing some streaming for the finals of the 3-1-2 Team League.
00:00:50
Speaker
ah team league So we have ah pack a summer that's been packed with X-Wing and we've been so busy with life and everything else. So it's finally great to get recording again, get in the studio with our champions.
00:01:03
Speaker
So
Bay Area Conquest Strategies and Experiences
00:01:04
Speaker
we're going to kick it off, starting with the Bay Area conquest where Joel was our champion. So just starting off of there, how was that tournament for you? You'd been in a number of these conquests series before.
00:01:20
Speaker
was pretty sweet because the first two, I lost one game in each and failed to make the cut for the final in December by, by way of losing only one game.
00:01:34
Speaker
Um, the strength of schedule bit me both times. So this time it was, how about if we just win them all instead? That, that seems to be like ah the the way to do it. Yeah.
00:01:46
Speaker
But I remember that. I remember, yeah, you just getting out of the top cut twice. Yeah. The first time, uh, the very first conquest event, I was actually number nine. So when you talk just out of the cut, it was literally just out of the cut.
00:02:01
Speaker
Yeah. I think the next one I was 10 or 11. ah Because a couple of other people with one loss squeaked in between me and where I, for that matter, I think I might've been the lowest person with one loss. So it's like, well, stuff happens.
00:02:13
Speaker
Yeah. Like that can be just kind of some, some of like the rough stuff. If you like lose your first game and then you're like, well, hopefully this doesn't bite me in the end. like Especially if it's the first game, because if that person doesn't go on to win very much, yeah.
00:02:27
Speaker
If you lose later on, you're losing against somebody who's already won some and you're likely not to have your strength of schedule suffer too much. Yeah.
Key Matches and Highlights
00:02:35
Speaker
And then I was going to say, too, with this one, Josh, you were you were flying in this one as well. like How was this tournament overall for you?
00:02:43
Speaker
yeah it it was It was fine. i was paired up. This one was a little bit weird with how many 4-0s were possible.
00:02:54
Speaker
Yeah. yeah So I was in the other match where whoever won that match would have been for and o um But we were, i was playing with Oscar.
00:03:07
Speaker
And before that we even started, we we kind of realized that if the outcome of the other match ended up in two two undefeated players, then our game was not going to really matter.
00:03:20
Speaker
um And i don't think either of us really, and he may have already ah had an invite to the December event at the time, but I wasn't really worried about that. So once I heard that the outcome of that game was not really important or impactful. I i didn't really stress about it.
00:03:39
Speaker
um It was a good game. The overall performance with with my list was fine. It was adequate. um and we We don't need to talk about my list quite yet. It was a slightly different version of my list than I played in the other Conquest.
00:03:56
Speaker
um So I've been on this this archetype for a little bit now, and it's it's a bit fickle. And this was one of the first, I would say, tournaments that I played with it.
00:04:09
Speaker
um So the showing wasn't too bad. um But it was just an interesting tournament of there were three 4-0s and that was a little bit weird. Yeah, yeah. Like once again, too, same thing with ah Joel, you know, being one win away, like getting locked out. And this one was a final cut. So it wasn't like we did like the top eight or top four.
00:04:30
Speaker
um for for this tournament either. But yeah, Josh, you ended up ending up top eight. it It went out so where it looks like Mulfar, who is playing Republic, was 4-0, but then missed the the final table due to the strength of schedule.
00:04:46
Speaker
Actually, he he made the final table. I don't know. I think the... He did. That's who I played. roll better is a little bit weird with how it's displaying it. yeah i so Okay, so then you ended up playing Mulfar, but yeah, it was just strange how that ah that worked out.
00:05:02
Speaker
Okay, so then tell me about that final game, ah Joel. ah In the final game, um he's got a lot of high initiative, ah some of which can hit pretty decently, and that's the thing that my list worries about because in the process of straining myself, I make my T70s vulnerable.
00:05:21
Speaker
But I also end up with a focus and
Final Game Strategy and Analysis
00:05:23
Speaker
a calculate, so they're really only vulnerable to the first shot, and after that, they're okay. Overall, defensively, If you're willing to spend the tokens, it comes out to one eighth of one result worse than if you hadn't done the strain.
00:05:36
Speaker
So it's not really that big a deal. um It just means the first shot is more likely to connect. Okay, that's, ah yeah, let's, do you want to, you want to break down your list for, for the game? um ah Cause yeah, you were flying resistance in this one.
00:05:50
Speaker
Yep. um Poe and three friends is a staple of mine and has been since 23. Um, um This time around, i had said I had set aside flying Poe and the Falcon for a moment because somebody else flew Rey with Poe. ah I think it was seven-point Poe.
00:06:10
Speaker
No, six-point Poe because they then had two three-point Y-wings against me. And I realized that Poe and Rey together was really potent, but I wanted more firepower from my secondary ships than the two Y-wings could give.
00:06:24
Speaker
So i I dropped it down to Commander Poe and fiddled with it. And somehow I put Temin in there and went, oh, flappy wings. Oh, that hits. Wait a minute. Went back to Poe and the Falcon because he's seven points, not eight, leaving me 13 points for um the T-70s.
00:06:43
Speaker
And having three of them... The math shows that using optics with a focus and a calculate is basically on par. It's within a tenth one way or the other.
00:06:55
Speaker
On par of how having focus lock, but I get to pick who I shoot in the moment. I don't have to predetermine it. Yeah. And with the firepower I'm laying out, it's pretty frequent that the last shot,
00:07:09
Speaker
The target is already dead and I'm shooting something else, but now I'm shooting that something else every bit as hard as the other shots were. Um, I developed a real fondness in 1.0 for lists that are horrifically brutal, even if they bleed.
00:07:24
Speaker
That's fine. So long as I'm doing a horrible amount of damage, I just, I'm just going to do more damage than you do to me and it's going to be okay. That's what this list does and it does it in spades. Um... And one thing I like about Poe as opposed to Ray in the Falcon, first off, you can put Ray on Poe so that it really evens out his offense.
00:07:45
Speaker
um But then the maneuverability, Ray needs to joust and she dies as a result. Poe does not. And he can get into trouble and pretty frequently get back out of it on the other side. He'll get halved, but actually killing him is really hard.
00:08:01
Speaker
um which means his gun is still around and I can still ah bully people with him. In the final, I ran Poe up the left edge along with Temmin and Kai.
00:08:18
Speaker
And I had Ello heading out towards the middle. Poe loves big obstacles because I get to ignore them when I fly over them. I get to use them for trick shot. It's a good time.
00:08:29
Speaker
And with Elo, I just leaned into that. If I'm going to have big obstacles and many of my opponents are going to bring big obstacles, let's do our 5X3 and trick shot. Actually, not trick shot. Excuse me.
00:08:40
Speaker
No, it is trick shot and Mark Sable so that I can hopefully, if everything works right, ah come in behind an obstacle and benefit from trick shot, and then fly over it and Mark Sable you at I-5, where I have a good chance of having that ah strain stick and actually matter.
00:08:59
Speaker
And you have the R5X3, so you can ignore the obstacles, so you're not taking the damage or anything from them. Yeah, incredible. For that matter, I can park in the middle of it. I spend one charge to ignore it while I'm moving and take my action, spend the other charge to still shoot while I'm sitting on it, and I'm done. I don't get to play that game anymore.
00:09:16
Speaker
But that's often enough. It's also a, um, it's a release valve for the spacing. So if I want all the T70s on the same target and my opponent has done a good job of making the obstacles really annoying for me, Elo just says, yeah, whatever, and runs them over.
00:09:32
Speaker
And once that initial annoyance is over, if they're tight and clumped on my side, then they're open on the backside. And he's got room to do his thing after that instead. Um...
00:09:43
Speaker
And this one, I split Ello off towards the middle while everybody else was going up the edge, thinking that I can roll or boost or whatever one way or the other. And I ended up essentially flanking with him and making him a little bit vulnerable. I was a little worried about what was going to come up the middle.
00:09:59
Speaker
But the very first shots, Plo decided that he didn't know what it was to roll and evade, or for that matter, paint. I think the first my first shot, I just halved him.
00:10:11
Speaker
Wow. um And I put him in a really bad spot. And so he's a, uh, Mulfar is immediately playing. Okay. How do I keep things safe and still manage to use things? And he did a move with, um, Anakin that if he had one road, he'd have barrel rolled in front of Poe and created a situation where he was flanking my I-4s and not getting shot.
00:10:38
Speaker
I won road. He couldn't do that. He died. And that was basically game. It was, Plo is a hot mess, Anakin's dead, Ello's perfectly fine coming in on the flank to do horrible things to you next turn, and my ships are all pretty darn healthy.
00:10:55
Speaker
So, it was... It was the perfect combination ah of winning road when I needed to, and his greens doing him
Imperial Aces Strategy and List Philosophy
00:11:05
Speaker
zero favors. My reds were just doing normal things, but my list is built that if you roll anything from just subpar or better, you're going to max out your results every single roll.
00:11:17
Speaker
And that's what I did. And if your greens don't come to play, you're going to have a bad, bad time. Oh, for sure. I mean, we've all been in in games where that's been a deciding factor. Because, I mean, at the end of the day, it is still a dice game, but you're trying to put the odds in your favor, which is something that, like, your list does well. Like I said, having anything akin to a focus lock is going to really take that that luck factor a little more, like, less in the equation.
00:11:45
Speaker
One thing that I really like about the the the optics calculate focus I don't normally put optics on things with with three ah attack dice because it comes up so rarely.
00:11:58
Speaker
Because you're always like, okay, I got a focus and a blank. Which one do I spend it on? It doesn't matter. yeah But to calculate, you can do both. But also, if you're spending a lock, you don't actually know the result you're getting. You're hoping you get something out of it.
00:12:12
Speaker
With this, when I spend a token, it's for a result. I know exactly what's happening to my dice. And I get to make more informed decisions as a result. but Yeah, that's fantastic.
00:12:23
Speaker
I mean, that was also thinking back to like some of the previous archetypes when when you were looking at that, like that's what made Kylo Ren so popular. yeah um Yeah. Towards the end of it is, you know, it's always going to be paint.
00:12:39
Speaker
Yep. It's also the perfect knowledge of it. Same thing with Kylo with um instinctive aim and optics. You know the token you're spending is getting you a result instead of getting you a chance at a result.
00:12:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:55
Speaker
By the time the list I'm flying, by the time I get around to taking locks, it's because I'm not shooting this turn. I'm confident. I don't really care if you shoot me or not because I'm fine. And I'm just investing in the future.
00:13:07
Speaker
If I'm taking locks, basically the game's already over. Yeah. So I would say from like, a like, despite the the final game, was there any takeaways from this this tournament that either of you had? Or were there any interesting games or lists that you saw when you were like playing to like this day that we wanted to kind of call out?
00:13:29
Speaker
Sevwals list, Ketsu, taking my already strained ships and reducing their agility one. um That's an instant way to lose a ship. Fen coming in at I6, especially since it's it's the SL Fen, if I'm yeah winning slash losing road at the moment that's inappropriate for me, that spells bad news because, I mean, he can um almost have Poe in one shot.
00:14:02
Speaker
And if anybody else glances at Poe that turn, bam, there's a lot there's a chunk of points. Also, he's got nothing in the list lower than I-4. If you have anything in your list that's I-3 or less, I'm just picking what it is I'm going to initiative kill because something is dying and never shooting back at me.
00:14:19
Speaker
I can't do that with his list. I'm not going to... I cannot count on two-shotting even cad. With the three agility, no, you don't count on that. um Oh, yeah. there's two different cats.
00:14:31
Speaker
Cad Solus might be two shottable, but with three agility, that's really hard. Cad Bane, there's seven health. There's no way you're two shotting that. um Which means I can't count on initiative killing anything and all those shots are going to come back at me and that's when I lose a ship on the close is when all the shots return.
00:14:48
Speaker
Yeah, and also, too, Sevwal is a Conquest Series champion already. So yeah going into this tournament, yeah, he already had his invite, too. So it's, I mean, tough competition way that you cut it.
00:15:01
Speaker
But yeah, that was a great call for his scum list. ah Josh, anything stand out to you about the the Bay Area Conquest? My round three was against Andrew.
00:15:16
Speaker
Andros is what he goes by on Rollbetter. ah he's He's an excellent player. played with him before and and and know him. So that that was a very close and interesting game, engaging game.
00:15:30
Speaker
That one stood out to me. Without going into the details of of my list, it's it's really just, I'm not worried about too much. I guess I don't joust.
00:15:44
Speaker
with any of my lists and that's something that we can talk about later but like for like the design philosophy behind my list but yeah um just going back to the comment that joel made with winning road ands and such is it's like well that's a situation that i would hate to be in because i i don't want to have my whole game plan fumble just because i lost a road roll and and now i can't joust you correctly or something like that um from the perspective of the the opponent, not from Joel.
00:16:16
Speaker
ah and And so matchups, to me, it's it's more of about how can I adapt to the the current player ah more so about the current list. And and that's something that's very different from 1.0 and even 2.0, which I think is a good thing.
00:16:35
Speaker
No, for sure. I completely agree with that too. Honestly, I think that's a really good segue. I think we can now like switch from talking about the Bay Area Conquest to the one that you won, Josh, and and start talking about your list, the changes you made between the Bay Area Conquest, which was back in August. so it's you know I love that you guys remember so much about it, but in into the Middle Earth Conquest that you had won if you want to yeah talk about your list, your experience for your championship winning ah tournament.
00:17:09
Speaker
Sure. ah So my list is effectively Imperial Aces. I hadn't played aces i hadn't played Imperials at all until XWA.
00:17:21
Speaker
And I've been playing this game for on and off for close to a decade now. So this is the first time I ever played the bad guys. um which Which is wild, because this was also during a meta where Empire was considered to be the weakest at the time.
Death Rain's Role and List Control Elements
00:17:38
Speaker
Maybe that's why I was drawn to it. Yeah. Like, honestly, I don't know. But I i can tell you that when Endor Soontir came out in AMG, I was tempted even back then because he's he's basically the ultimate A-Wing, right? Oh, my God. and I wish they released an Endor Jake.
00:18:01
Speaker
ah That was more of like an AC version of Jake and less less supportive. But anyway, that's... And Soontir was that. When I started playing him in XWA, it was very... it was just fun.
00:18:15
Speaker
And i basically, all of the barriers for... That existed for for me to not want to play ah Empire just sort of fizzled.
00:18:27
Speaker
And so I paired him with... Vader, just because it's a he's he's an obvious choice. He's not my favorite to fly. he's He's relatively simple, but he's extremely good. He's extremely consistent. He's just good.
00:18:41
Speaker
Yeah, and if you lose an ace, you have the other ace to to close out games. And I think that's important because, the you know, Soontir can die from effectively any shot in the game.
00:18:53
Speaker
um Basically, any two-dice attack is... plus uh can can he is just like a five percent chance to to just die well every three attack yeah every soon to your player knows probably feels like it's more than a five percent chance um oftentimes yeah i i fly soon to you're like i'm gonna lose him or you're gonna get half points on him anyway yeah and sometimes you you you Don't plan for it because the shot is just so unlikely. And then and then now you have to scramble to make for those five points that you just lost. and And I think that's part of the balance for him, right? I think he's extremely good.
00:19:32
Speaker
i think the scoring changes hurt him a little bit with ah how often he can use his ability. It's twice per game, but with the scoring changes, i think games last a bit longer. So you're more likely to use both charges.
00:19:45
Speaker
um over the course of the game. And I think that's actually interesting and good. Yeah. You know, it's healthy because now I have to choose between the evade and just like spamming his ability all the time. So ah he's extremely fun. and Vader is is what I would say is is just like a necessary i six for the ah for the archetype.
00:20:06
Speaker
And I like to put fire control system, ah brilliant evasion and afterburners on him. I know a lot of different, there are quite a few different builds that that people like to do, and and that's also a sign that it's relatively healthy um for his build options.
00:20:23
Speaker
ah Personally, I go for Afterburners because I think that's the most acey thing you can do on him. It's it's you extremely flexible for both running and ah pursuing.
00:20:34
Speaker
Yeah, and I like the Brilliant Evasion just because the the build your own version of Vader, if you're not going with hate, it's he's going to be force starved. So you don't want to put yourself out in a situation where you have to spend that resource.
00:20:47
Speaker
Yep. so So fire control system and brilliant evasion effectively just um increases force economy, like per force, it just goes a little bit further. um So yeah, that's those those are basically just substitutes for hate.
00:21:04
Speaker
um And then Grand Inquisitor was ah pretty obvious choice. for I mean, there there are quite a few good, what I would consider good Empire choices at four ah with that exist within the four-point band. um there's There's Echo, there's plenty of Reapers that are really strong.
00:21:23
Speaker
um a lot of people love the the Scimitar bomber. Scimitar 1, I think, ah that you know double modded Proton Torps. But again, like this this is an ace archetype.
00:21:36
Speaker
um So I felt like Grand Inquisitor is just almost a little ridiculous defensively for four points. um If you bring him for offense, there are better options.
00:21:49
Speaker
um but But with the... force evade plus you just never get range one bonuses against him that's super strong so again he has brilliant evasion to make his force go a little bit further um and ion missiles because ion is really strong and at i5 against one agility ships for example especially if they're small base i can just shut off your ordnance sometimes or just control you so that my aces can have an easier time um etc so yeah Especially if you're if you're bringing a force ship list, which we're seeing a lot a lot more of now, but having the the force user on there too to get your objectives to keep you protected while you're you picking up crates or pushing buttons, I can see that just being a ah really important piece.
00:22:37
Speaker
yeah Yeah, I used to have Karsabi in this archetype before the scoring changes. um and before Grand Inquisitor was changed to four points. but And then I had Starter Pack Vader.
00:22:52
Speaker
But I felt like it was it was worth the downgrade from Starter Pack Vader to Custom Vader to to get Grand Inquisitor because, as you say, he's basically the objective taker as well as a distracting piece, as well as just ah a really nice pocket ace.
00:23:09
Speaker
um So going back to... like I was drawn into Empire through Soontir, for better or worse. But I was also drawn into the archetype because i <unk>ve I've been playing enough of this game that I just wanted to really, especially with the the announcement from AMG, ah really wanted to focus on the movement of the game. That's my favorite aspect of this game by far. Rolling dice, you know maybe I might get some hate for this, but like rolling dice is is the most boring part of this game to me.
00:23:41
Speaker
um And there's no game on the market that i can think of, at least for tabletop gaming, that has such a cool system of dials and maneuvers and trying to play this cat and mouse game. So this is why I hate jousting personally.
00:23:57
Speaker
i love moving around the board and being flexible. um So normally I would play Falcons and A-Wings. ah That was my normal archetype. But moving to Empire...
00:24:09
Speaker
i it it's it's It almost asks the question, well, what if my A-wings can actually do damage to you well while moving around like really like just the same way? ah so So yeah, it's been that was my goal philosophy for this list was I wanted to maximize movement and fun and engagement.
00:24:30
Speaker
yeah um So normally I wouldn't go with a four ship list um because I think five ship lists, or or they just tend to be safer. The crux of the list, the heart and soul of the list is Death Rain.
00:24:42
Speaker
and And I think he is the surprising... ah Well, I don't know if he it surprises me that people don't play him but as much, but I would argue he is perhaps the most complex ship I have played in this game.
Tournament Play Philosophy and Strategies
00:24:59
Speaker
um And he is arguably the best ace in this list, too. if If you define ace as... an unpredictable maneuverable ship.
00:25:10
Speaker
yeah He has boost barrel roll, medium base with an actually ah pretty amazing dial. um And he can, he can move twice during the system phase or at least, you know, perform two actions um just in the system phase and he gets around.
00:25:27
Speaker
And i so, so he's, he's an ace first in this list. But he also fills a role that I think is missing in a lot of Empire lists, which is the control element.
00:25:40
Speaker
um I know like the traditional Imperial Aces list would be probably Vader, Soontir, Whisper, and then some sort of coordinator, right? So like Psy or the Reaper.
00:25:54
Speaker
um And these are you know you know tried and true archetypes. But i I think they struggle, or at least for how I wanted to play the game, they struggle in controlling the battlefield. Like the the shuttle will never be unpredictable.
00:26:09
Speaker
I, no one's going to ever be surprised by what the shuttle does. I yes i don't think so. Now, even if you put like a trajectory, or I mean, if you put a, God, what's the the upgrade? collision detect Yeah. Yeah. like if you put Collision Yeah.
00:26:26
Speaker
Right, and so Psy can't even do that, but like you can do Kagi or something and and try to do something similar, but yeah, it's the dial is just so limiting. it's ah It's a good ship, don't get me wrong, but it just plays in in a very different way.
00:26:38
Speaker
The Reaper does this a little bit better. It's a bit more unpredictable and flexible. It can be somewhat of a control piece through you know Seventh Sister and jamming, um and it can also coordinate occasionally when you need it, but Deathrayan leans extremely into the area denial and control.
00:27:01
Speaker
And so the the overall philosophy of this list is ah his role is to shut down major parts of the board so that my aces can effectively surgically dismantle and isolate a piece or several pieces and then go from there and just like pick apart uh pick apart uh the any any list that i'm fighting against um because i don't really have that much firepower so i really need to control space uh and i find it i mean it it it's very finicky to to get started with uh because death rain i've lost death rain in you know two shots i know joel joel said cad bane doesn't die in two shots he has two agility so that's fair
00:27:45
Speaker
um death rain has one agility on nine health uh sometimes he he takes a lot of shots and sometimes he just never takes any shots because he's like arc dodging everything at i4 weirdly um and sometimes he just falls over ah so he he he can die very very fast if you don't make a a good call But his his area of denial is actually kind of insane.
00:28:08
Speaker
You know, as much as you don't want to joust, it kind of helps protect against the joust in in the same vein. It's interesting that, yeah, that, you know, one of the true aces in your list is at I-4. In a field which, like, looking through some of the tournament, you know,
00:28:24
Speaker
A lot of initiatives are I-5 and everyone's you know rolling with one I-6 too on such a vulnerable ship. But yeah, it is interesting list. So so as you you're exactly right. like he He is my anti-Joust piece.
00:28:38
Speaker
um And I think Joust heavy lists really struggle against Death Rain because they don't they don't know how to react to effectively something that really actively punishes a block or a formation.
00:28:51
Speaker
um And I used to, so in the Bay Area Conquest, I used Ion Bombs. So you I guess I didn't explain his actual build, but um yeah so he gets to perform an action every time he drops or launches a device.
00:29:06
Speaker
And obviously that means that he's going to have Trajectory Simulator um so that he can launch a device at 5 forward. I throw expert handling on him. I find it very important, but there are other interesting and funny options that you can do um just to improve his his action economy is quite high, especially with thermal detonators.
00:29:30
Speaker
um So you could throw something like debris gambit or squad leader. um they're they're They're interesting choices, but I find expert handling to to really lean into the ace gameplay, but it also line helps him line up um further bombing ah lanes, which is really nice.
Middle Earth Conquest Recap and Strategy
00:29:46
Speaker
And as I said, so he's got thermal detonators, so he gets to drop two devices or launch one of them um and perform actions in between each of those drops. And then In the Bay Area, I had Ion Bombs and Delayed Fuses.
00:29:59
Speaker
And the the you know the concept behind Ion Bombs is just further control. if you land on and If you get Ionized, it's you can't escape my aces, or you can't pursue my aces, or you can't perform scenario objective or action. So um either way, you're you're super controlled at that point. I can probably continue to drop bombs on that same area.
00:30:22
Speaker
um I've done that to a lot of people. Large base scum lists really struggle, ah have struggled in the past against this list, just because, especially the Ion version, ah because i can shut down Ketsu.
00:30:37
Speaker
You know, it's very difficult for Ketsu to avoid an Ion bomb because she doesn't have boost ah or barrel roll. Yeah. um And so when when my five pointer is shutting down 10 points, you know, half your list, like it just, now my aces get to just isolate the other aspects of the list and, and basically kill ah one thing at a time and, and be so relatively safe while doing that.
00:31:04
Speaker
Um, I still think Ion is good, but I moved from, from Middle Earth. Uh, there were a few reasons why, so Middle Earth was the first time I even tried Blazers.
00:31:15
Speaker
Um, and i but I wanted to try Blazers because they, one of the aspects of Death Rain is that was interesting is if, He's very good at beating you the first time, but not the second time, because he's just so awkward to play around the first time.
00:31:33
Speaker
But you you you know many good players will learn and say, okay, well, i'm not going to... What if I just ignore Death Reign, which is a very viable strategy, and just go everything, you know send everything at the aces to put heavy pressure on them.
00:31:49
Speaker
Um, he, you know, there's some counterplay to that for, ah for my perspective, but it's blazers go just a bit further. um one, because they, they're, they're actually slightly elongated. i don't know if, um, if people have looked at the, the blazer bomb, but the, the, the actual bomb itself is slightly elongated and then it also drops that obstacle.
00:32:11
Speaker
Um, so I can shut down lanes for multiple turns for, for each blaze drop or launch. Um, And whereas with ion bombs, you you can pretty much just you know do moves or or ah reposition through barrel roll or boost to avoid them.
00:32:29
Speaker
So when he is actively ignored, I find blazers to be more effective. um And when he's actively pursued as well, blazers just do, they they not only do they deny area in the same way,
00:32:45
Speaker
and They also threaten chip damage, um which was also pretty relevant in in my games through throughout the Middle-Earth conquest.
Playtesting Challenges and Feedback Importance
00:32:54
Speaker
And and when when ships get chipped, one, they they threaten to just give up half points just from the bomb.
00:33:03
Speaker
um But two, and I think more importantly, it leaves those ships at like just you know just enough like threshold to be really scared of double-I-6 shots.
00:33:14
Speaker
um like now your your seven health ship is at five health and like well that's pretty likely that my i6s can now just initiative kill you whereas before like without that chip damage maybe not yeah right can change the game right there also i mean Boy, if you talk about building a list where your opponent just has no good options on who to attack.
00:33:38
Speaker
Because if you're not going after the aces and the aces are coming after you, if you're not going after Death Reign, Death Reign is also shutting down lanes and and really making your life hard on that too. And if i'm if I'm playing well, sometimes I don't, but if i'm if I'm playing well, then my aces are trying to be aces too, right? Like they're aces first, they're damage dealers second. So...
00:33:58
Speaker
If you put heavy pressure on the aces and I'm savvy of it, you know I'll do my best to not die with them too. um So in theory, I think it's a very strong list. And in in the team league, I went undefeated with it in and used both versions.
00:34:16
Speaker
um And in this conquest, obviously, i had a good run with it too. um It is absolutely capable of losing. And I've won some very close games too. So it's not like those are, you know, it's like a breeze or a walk in the park.
00:34:32
Speaker
um But I think it's, it's the the reason why i bring all that up is is I think it's a list that has, well, one, it solved what I really wanted, which is it has an extremely high ceiling that I will never meet.
00:34:45
Speaker
um And that's super engaging to me. Like as as a player that this this late in the game, I would say, um I like to be engaged in the movement of the game. um And so it's it's really... if if you were to look at the decision tree for Death Reign in many options, it's not outrageous for me to say that he has probably 10 real choices through through his decision tree.
00:35:14
Speaker
and And all of them can be equally good. Some of them can be equally bad. um and they can all... dramatically changed the way that the the game is played so if we were to go to the the final for for that um tournament i was against ah a republic list that had anakin in the seven b
00:35:44
Speaker
ah Let me look it up, actually, because I don't remember fully. I have it in front of me. Anakin in the 7B, Wolf with Veteran Tail Gunner, Daredevil, Juke, Rick, SoC version of Axe, and Broadside.
00:35:59
Speaker
Yeah, so that's... um Honestly, it looks like a pretty solid list. And my my strategy for that list was you go into Death Rain, he's going to bomb you.
00:36:13
Speaker
You go into the Aces, they go slow, and Death Rain will will cut you off. right like These are my plans. right I'm not trying to say you know this is what's going to happen in an absolute term.
00:36:24
Speaker
um But like my plan is if they invest heavily into the Aces, then Death Rain will readjust and um
Scoring Changes and Community Engagement
00:36:33
Speaker
intercept. If they go into Death Rain heavily, then he's bombing them and running, and then my Aces will flank.
00:36:40
Speaker
um This was on salvage, I believe. So I i basically just sent Grand Inquisitor at at a box. That was my plan anyway, and just have him hold the box.
00:36:52
Speaker
That isn't what actually happened. But i wrote i the the road rolls were interesting that game because he was winning a lot of them. But I also... question the relevance of them, um which like I know that there was an I-6 overlap, which is like is super important. but So turn zero, with Death Rain already being deployed at I-4, I don't think Anakin was ever going to be deployed across from Death Rain. right like i like Rick was already there, and I don't see a reason why. like If he deploys Anakin across from Death Rain, he's just opting into being bombed, and I don't think that was reasonable for him to do that.
00:37:33
Speaker
um So I think he was always going to deploy on the other side, which is where I was going to put my aces to. um So i' I don't think road really matters in in the turn zero setup. I think we we both were sort of locked into where we were going to place our our ships after I-4.
00:37:50
Speaker
In turns one and two, we didn't engage each other at all. I went slower with my aces to try and and readjust with ah basically react to what he was going to do. And I think rightfully he chose not to engage with Death Rain.
00:38:05
Speaker
um And so I tried to, I wish I could show you, but I had a ah ah rock in the center and then a rock just above the center, basically just to create a lane.
00:38:19
Speaker
um And my goal was to shoot a blazer in between those two rocks to sort of shut off that lane, um which I was able to do. when he used Wolf and Broadside to to try to back up his his his ace, his Anakin and Axe, which I did.
00:38:42
Speaker
But then I saw the the the way that the game was going, it it seemed like he was investing a lot into the aces, but he was engaging with Anakin and Axe before his support was really there.
00:38:57
Speaker
um And positionally, both of the boxes that were left were on the opposite side of the board. um And so that's when I decided, okay, well, i'm going to actually probably send Death Rain to grab a box, the center box, and turn towards that side of the board so that he can control that whole area with bombs. So if anyone tried to come into that area to pick up a box, um he would bomb them.
00:39:24
Speaker
And then 4K, for example, so that he can then threaten ah you know trajectory bombing and escape route for one of my aces. Yeah, that was where just having that coverage was just so important in that area of control. Yeah, yeah so it was it was just like a classic case, ah I feel, of like, well, I guess I'm just going to lean into the objective play. Even though the objective play is is pretty capped, it just this is part of the ace gameplay of like, I don't have the firepower to to get through broadside and and wolf reasonably.
00:39:57
Speaker
Um, so I, I, I need to hit something and then, and then leave. Um, I got lucky in the sense that he, he made some mistakes and bumped himself. So that was it that, the, the turn where I think road really mattered was the turn that he bumped himself.
00:40:14
Speaker
Um, and so I was able to, to sneak some, some good damage through. i didn't expect to kill him and I didn't, um, he ended up ah bumping himself again on on the next turn i think on turn four and then anakin died but the thing is even even if anakin had survived he would be on one health on two agility so it basically threatened by any bomb that i could launch at him but also any stray shot is also pretty threatening to him so i i really liked the the approach and and what
00:40:48
Speaker
Blazers could do for me in terms of shutting down a lane and also doing some extra chip damage so that my aces, if they need to, can pounce on something. But really, Death Rain was not... In that particular game, Death Rain didn't do a whole lot um because he was relegated to um area denial for for the objectives and basically just holding onto a crate, which shuts out all his fun, right? Like he doesn't need to boost her peril, but sometimes it's necessary. And of course, Grand Inquisitor is an excellent crate carrier,
00:41:18
Speaker
Um, but if, if no one's looking at death rain or or willing to engage death rain, if you know, or anybody for that matter, they're going to be good crate carriers too. Um, so it wasn't really a final that shows off the power of death rain, but, uh, I guess it shows off the the power of aces. Uh, you know, if, if, if you can't catch them or if you're not in a position to, um,
00:41:44
Speaker
continue to pursue them, which Death Rain, you know, to be fair, was threatening some of the the pursuing lanes. Like if Wolf chased Vader down the top board of the edge, the ah the the top um part of the map, I should say, at least from my perspective, then he would have run into more Blazers or at least Thermals. And i don't know, it would have been, it would have been difficult for him to continue to chase him.
00:42:09
Speaker
Yeah. Well, and that's just, I mean, sometimes even the threat of, of dropping the bomb can be enough. Yeah. And, and it's there as a piece if you need it in the late game.
Playtesting Philosophy and Diversity
00:42:20
Speaker
It's similar to reapers where the, the burden is, or even like something like echo ah where the burden actually more on the opponent than it is on me.
00:42:33
Speaker
ah They have to consider my moves um more than I do. in the sense that they may go down this this very deep rabbit hole of where they think Death Rain will go or where they think Reapers will go, for example.
00:42:48
Speaker
um And then they tell you, like oh, I thought you were going to do this. It's like, yeah, that's cool. I didn't even consider that. I'm happy that you had to deal with that and not me. but so there's there's ah and And it's very difficult to quantify the effect of that in a game, right? Because it's it's like, well, Death Rain's not contributing much in terms of offensive output.
00:43:09
Speaker
But for the the mental gymnastics, he's contributing more than than any other ship probably. I mean, Soontira probably has a similar effect, but ah maybe not quite as high. and And the thing is, people will avoid bombs, right? Good players will avoid bombs.
00:43:25
Speaker
Yeah. But in doing so, they're they're playing positionally. you know in a less optimal way. I mean, they're more they're optimal in relation to the bomb, but they're you know if they didn't have to deal with bombs, they could be in much stronger positions. um so So I think the impact of Death Rain for how I want to play the list is is much more valuable to me than a coordinator.
00:43:53
Speaker
Everyone loves you know contingency plans and for for like having that clutch coordinate when you need it. um But I find shutting down the board state is is really more impactful for for at least these aces.
00:44:09
Speaker
um Because it's like 90% of the time, Vader doesn't need the action. And Soontir is actually kind of hard to coordinate because he's often stressed in the in the system phase.
00:44:21
Speaker
And Grand Inquisitor is just kind of a nightmare tank on his own. And he's four points, so if you kill him... he's He's my cheapest ship. So it's it's like, I don't like losing any ship, but if you kill any ship, I'm hoping it's Grand Inquisitor.
00:44:38
Speaker
I mean, you know, it's X-Wing, so you're you're bound to lose a ship or two here or there. True. But yeah, so I would first off, i thank you both for continuing the ex or the Conquest series trend where we've had a different faction win every Conquest.
00:44:57
Speaker
So we started off with Scum won the first one, then CIS, then Rebel, then Republic, and then Joel. You brought Resistance into the winner's circle, and then ah Josh, which was considered, at the time, it got a little bit of a boost, but yeah, then ah Empire.
00:45:15
Speaker
So FO is now the only faction to have not won a Conquest series. Well, now I know what faction I have to run next time. Yeah, exactly. Right. So it's ah that bounty is out there. I didn't I didn't know that. That's actually pretty cool.
00:45:30
Speaker
Isn't that wild? Yeah. Like we've had it's been the the distribution has been um pretty even, which I think we can use as ah as a good soway segue to our our next topic.
00:45:42
Speaker
You know, XWA when it. first was established, kind of made a big splash hit at fostering this game that we all you know love so much. I love it that it's ah it's a community of players and, you know, for players.
00:45:58
Speaker
I feel very fortunate that both of you are members of the playtesting team as well. And I think this could be like a great experience, even just, you know, for me, um but for our listeners out there, you know, on what it's like to be a play tester and what are you are you looking at in considering if you can, you know, just go into that broad detail on that.
00:46:23
Speaker
What I generally do in lieu of instructions of we're looking at this, we're looking at that. I grab my favorite pet ships and start with them and see, does this feel solid um or can I just flat out break this?
00:46:43
Speaker
then it's they'll they'll send things and say hey we're looking at this combination uh is this too broken um and there were a couple early on in the process a year ago where uh things were
00:47:03
Speaker
definitely broken that we tried it out early on. and there There were two times fairly early on where I did a test and my partner and I both put in things that said, please, God, no, never let the sea the light of day.
00:47:19
Speaker
And i think one of them the next day was changed and the other one took a week. Yeah, I think I heard legends of the the den car that possibly was too crazy.
00:47:31
Speaker
Actually, for me, at least, it was dash. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Dash. That's what I meant. Dash. Not done. I beat because of what was possible, I managed to one shot an interceptor three turns in a row.
00:47:44
Speaker
And we sat down and did the math afterwards and found out that it was roughly a 70 percent chance that that was going to happen. Not each individual time. Total. Yeah.
00:47:54
Speaker
So it was like 90% chance each individual time. And we were like, this is, this is not right. You cannot let this, this happen. This is not competitive.
00:48:05
Speaker
um For sure. And that was not allowed to happen. There's also been things that I want changed that enough other people don't, that they think it's already good enough. They think it's comfortable with it.
00:48:20
Speaker
Or they don't think it's broken, that it was just, you know, a perfect firestorm that I ran into or caused. um I haven't, I absolutely have not gotten every Christmas present I've ever asked for.
00:48:32
Speaker
But I've also definitely seen reactions to some of the stuff I've done and and that other people have talked about that I know were being listened to.
00:48:44
Speaker
Yeah, so the then the playtesting team too, I mean, it's a pretty diverse team. Like, how how big is it? and um And then I guess, yeah, what has been, ah Josh, what would be like your experience too if it matches like Joel?
00:49:01
Speaker
ah Yeah, so it it has 20. 12 groups, I believe. Joel and are both. I'm pretty sure that's what I saw too most recently. Yeah. Yeah. We're both playtest leads. So we both lead our own groups.
00:49:15
Speaker
Okay. and And each group can have, I don't even know how many ah players. I don't think there's like a a limit or anything, but it's it's probably a hundred players, ah give or take.
00:49:26
Speaker
um And i I think this is good. But I also think, you know I guess I would ask the question of how many global players do we expect to have playing X-Wing?
00:49:40
Speaker
um Is it 400? four hundred Is it 500? Is that too much? Is it 200? I mean, it's probably more than 200. um So I would argue that the playtest group is, you know, it's it's a it's a fraction of the global population and that's like to be expected.
00:49:58
Speaker
I think we have a good distribution of players in terms of different types of players and and from from all over the the globe. ah But i I am weary of it being a randomized, it's not randomized, ah but representation of the global community.
00:50:19
Speaker
So yeah I'm not convinced that everyone is being represented. um and And this is why I'm actually happy that the points changes are going to be released to to to to the public because i i want public engagement with these points. I want the data to to be ah recorded and analyzed from from a public point of view so that everyone has their their voice heard.
00:50:47
Speaker
um So like Joel, my experience was basically just you know testing things that were happening asked to to test some of my frustrations have been i don't really know what your design philosophies are or you're balancing because everyone has their own ideas of what the game should or shouldn't be um but in order to properly evaluate
00:51:11
Speaker
the what's in front of me the you know the the the list building um to your methodology. I need to know your methodology and I need to know, you know, the rationale behind it. And I, I have a lot of conversations with Ollie. He's a, he's a great guy and he's, he's a good friend.
00:51:28
Speaker
um But I, I, you know, and I'm, and I'm really happy that I can dissent from him in terms of, you know, opinions most of the time, but still have like a quality conversation with him and and respect each other. Like this is obviously, we're both both adults. This is how it should be. Yeah. um Working on like a hobby, you know, exactly that yeah that we're all. and Everyone's passionate about the game. Everyone has their own ideas. And like, so like I really do support the XWA in that regard, um but I don't necessarily see eye to eye with every decision or, or um you know, even,
00:52:05
Speaker
ah with with their their methodology. But basically what I want to know when I'm as a play tester, I want to know what's the framework I'm trying to, you know, tailor everything to, and then I can evaluate under that framework.
00:52:19
Speaker
And I think some of that is there and some of it may be missing or maybe I'm missing it. You know, it's not like it's um entirely on on anyone in particular.
00:52:30
Speaker
um the The one thing that I'll say though is
00:52:39
Speaker
I think any change that results in the net loss of players at at this stage of the game is the wrong one to make.
00:52:51
Speaker
um Even if that change feels better for the game, if that makes sense. Yeah. Because, and again, this is totally my personal opinion, but...
00:53:03
Speaker
the the The community is so small and new players, getting new players to stay in the community is, is I mean, I don't even know if there's data data on that. Like how how many players do we think we're getting?
00:53:16
Speaker
um i think on a year to year basis, we're probably losing players on the global scale. Yeah. I would be shocked to see if that was different than we're actually gaining players. I hope so. And I hope that there could be some years where we're actually gaining players, more players than we lose.
00:53:34
Speaker
um Yeah. so like Sorry. No, you're you're fine. Yeah. This is like the blind spot that, you know, that we have with the, you know, we're not being corporation. We don't have like the sales data or anything to yeah look at. Yeah.
00:53:47
Speaker
and And I think you you're going have a ah pretty dedicated core you know group of you know probably several hundred players or like maybe 200 players, whatever, um that that are that are pretty unwavering and they'll they'll probably keep playing the game as long as people are around to play with, which is great.
00:54:07
Speaker
um But you know I think basically like now more than ever, the the community needs to be unified. um and And I'm not i'm not suggesting XWA is not doing that, but I do think like even the scoring changes, like that was a big deal. And I think not everyone likes it.
00:54:28
Speaker
um and some people love it. And I think that's totally fine. and And as, as an individual, I can adapt to, you know, I've been playing the first edition with harpoon missiles and ghost fen and all that. Like I've been through some stuff, you know, as everyone else has. yeah So it's, it's like we can all adapt.
00:54:46
Speaker
And as an individual, I love this game enough to, to do that. I didn't love 2.5 when I first got back into the game and experienced, you know, objectives. And then I've come to, to enjoy them as a secondary win condition and i like the complexity that objectives bring in the sense that now you have basically effectively two schools of strategy to achieve a win um and you can mix and match those as you see fit and like tailor them to your play style and um the new scoring kind of hinders that a little bit but that might be that that is part of the goal for xwa to to really focus in on on
00:55:28
Speaker
um you know, the dog fighting aspect of the game again. Yeah. I mean, I'll say personally, i think it was a necessary change. Not ah to interrupt, but i'm just what you were talking about before we we got away from it. i and Like i went when 2.5 came in, I was a huge stan. I mean, nothing like a a core rules change really divides the X-Wing community like that.
00:55:52
Speaker
Like, I think that's just kind of the story of X-Wing is anytime there's been a major change, it's 50% love it, 50% hate it. And yeah, it's hard, you know, to to make those calls when you know that something like that, you know, can happen.
00:56:05
Speaker
Agreed. Yeah. So I don't envy them, ah the XWA. I don't envy their position. i don't wish that you know I was in charge or anything like that. I think it's a tough... um um I'm happy to to help and offer my input, but it is a tough call um for everyone.
00:56:22
Speaker
the The thing that I would just say is i I really strongly encourage everyone to engage in those feedback forms. um or at at the very least, talk to to members of of the XWA just to make sure that they're not going unheard um as as a as their voice and and as a population.
00:56:45
Speaker
Yeah. And I want to interject right there. I'm taking notes on things I want to respond to, but this one I think I need to do timely. 100% agree. Get in there in the feedback forums. You don't have to be a play tester to get heard.
00:56:59
Speaker
And if you play five games with something to try to get better at it and everyone, it gets worse. Put the feedback in. You've pointed out that the playtesters, we're doing what we can, but the community is larger. And in a month, they could do more than we do in six months.
00:57:18
Speaker
So put your feedback in. You don't have to be you play a playtester to do that. Okay, yeah, I mean, that's that's key, especially, you know, one of the biggest complaints when you know when it was ran by like AMG was that they weren't listening to players. Now we have a direct avenue for your voice to be heard, which is, that's one of my favorite things about XWA.
00:57:39
Speaker
But okay, yeah, Joel, you said you had some other stuff, though. couple of things yeah yeah A couple of things I'd like to react to. um With the objective points change, I think to to summarize, and Josh, let me know if I'm getting this wrong, but your position was that in changing list building, which any structural change like that will, what it actually did was limit variety What I feel from my personal standpoint is that it increased my variety because now I don't feel obligated to make sure I have something in there that will take care of objectives.
00:58:11
Speaker
I can do that if I want, but I don't have I think I was being ah like even less specific about it. I think what I want to maintain is the mixing of two strategies for, for a win condition.
00:58:28
Speaker
I think that's an interesting thing to maintain. Yes. Um, I agree. I don't, I don't inherently lean. Like I don't, I don't think that you should take a seven ship list and just win by flying forward on the board, spread out and you just win because you, you're controlling every objective in the game. Like, I don't think that's healthy for the game. That's not increasing complexity. That's not increasing engagement.
00:58:53
Speaker
Um, but neither is I just want to joust you and you just want to joust me. Let's both ignore objectives. you know So like I'm saying the extremes are are not super helpful for the game.
00:59:05
Speaker
you know i don't want to go too into like my personal take on you know whether the scoring is good. or like it it it it helps I would not be playing my list. Actually, that's not true.
00:59:17
Speaker
I think Death Rain helps with the scoring. yeah Even in the old scoring, Death Rain was was super helpful for that. um Also, this is a podcast. This is the medium for your personal, you know, true. Yeah, it's it's it's weird because like as a player, I benefit from focusing less on objectives because like and I can play objectives, too. But like the list that I want to play, it it it gives me the breathing room to delay my engagement or take my time to surgically approach your list. um so I personally benefit probably from the scoring changes more than other other people. But I know.
00:59:53
Speaker
excellent excellent players uh x-wing players that are disillusioned with the the the new scoring changes um because they feel like their their lists and their play styles are basically neutered yeah um and and i think like you could argue that like well maybe that was too strong of a win condition and i think that might be a fair argument but it's also fair to listen to them and and like it fair to acknowledge that like wait their play style was actually like severely hindered here um
01:00:24
Speaker
And I think a careful balance can be struck. I won't mention specifics for the the the new scale but like or are the new points. Yeah. um But the the scoring, like even even if you look at it at the current state, right like there are some objectives that just seem to not make that much sense to have five of them.
01:00:50
Speaker
when you're capped at two points per turn. Does that make sense? So like, like, I think that there can be some tinkering where maybe the scaling like ah is, is slightly increased by one point, for example, where I can like, now the maximum is three and the minimum is zero that way, like positionally objectives matter a little bit more.
01:01:14
Speaker
um But I, what I've seen in the play testing process, chat, and some of the arguments anyway, was complaining, i don't want to say complaining, like feedback where they felt that they were giving up position objectively, like for for objectives consistently, and that didn't feel good to them. And then they were losing games.
01:01:42
Speaker
And then my my counter argument to that is like, well, you're you're giving up position and you're not killing them. And so like is it is it really an issue with objectives, or is it like maybe your approach needs to change to to win a game?
01:01:57
Speaker
ah For me, a you you just gave me a ah minor insight. I'm very much in favor of the current scoring things. um I have found that the balance that the design team have said is what they're looking for turns out to be about what's happening in my games. And when we've, they've tweaked it back and forth some and what they've settled on is the thing that felt best for me. I sometimes lose because of it. I sometimes win because of it, but it doesn't,
01:02:28
Speaker
it's not consistently one or the other. um I can't ignore objectives, but I'm also not going to win by doing nothing but objectives. ah So the the extremes you're talking about avoiding, they're being avoided.
01:02:41
Speaker
Where they are in the balance between those, I think for you, it's, a I think for me, they basically hit the sweet spot and for you, they have not. um And I know that we've got players that are on the other side of that thing. So,
01:02:58
Speaker
You're right about the one thing you said where you're not going to please everybody. um You're just not. Especially the X-Wing players. The brainstorm you just gave me was what we've got right now is 0, 1, or 2. And the way you get 2 is by having more than your opponent.
01:03:15
Speaker
um If you change it to 3, that may seem like a small increase, but it's a 50% increase in what you can gain every turn. What if you change it to the best you can do is n plus one where N
Scoring System Analysis and Future Developments
01:03:28
Speaker
represents your opponent?
01:03:30
Speaker
So that if you only have one, you only get one, but if you have three and your opponent has two, you're still getting three. That way, having the five objectives, each one of them individually can still matter.
01:03:43
Speaker
This is a rough draft. I just had the thought, but. I think then, then, you know, no one will invest in more than one, um Because then they're just... ah ah Sorry, so the minimum also increases? Is that is that your suggestion?
01:04:00
Speaker
Because what what would be my reason to pick up more than one box in that case? Because you would then still have more than your opponent does and therefore get an extra point. I mean, if you're at 18 points, you want the two, even if your opponent... True. yeah but But then you're you're investing... Yeah, so they incentivize the to...
01:04:19
Speaker
the incentive then would be to pick up like i don't know it feels bad let's just say for for me to pick up three crates just so i can score two and sometimes it it it happens and sometimes it is necessary um i ah yeah i mean it's a it's a fair suggestion i don't i don't necessarily believe in the three points either i i think in the current scale um three might be, well, I mean, i don't think it's too bad personally, but I can see, like, I can i can respect your argument that it could feel too bad.
01:04:56
Speaker
yeah um yeah Basically, what I want to go back to, though, is is I feel like the disparity between the minimum and the maximum should be a little bit larger. um Because I feel as though, at least in playtesting, in the 50 points, so so they have a goal, which is 40%, about 40%,
01:05:15
Speaker
about forty percent of your points should come from objectives and 60% should come from killing. I thought that goal was 70, 30. Uh, no, the goal is, uh, 60, 40. At least that's what the last I've heard from, from the powers that be, um, in my play tests, they were closer to 80, 20, uh, in favor of killing.
01:05:41
Speaker
And then some, some 70, 30 well. Um, um And it it could be just my play style. could Well, I would argue it's probably not my play style because I did play objectives. um But it could just be like, you know, my weird experiences that that led to that. But it was over the course of all of my games. i keep my own data. So like my distribution was not sixty forty um And I think that the increasing the maximum or increasing the disparity between the minimum and the maximum also helps with overall strategy.
01:06:16
Speaker
um in the game where where it's not like you can't, you can't necessarily run away with objectives. I'm not suggesting that. I don't think that you should be able to just like score five points. And that was the problem before.
01:06:27
Speaker
i mean, I think that that's what desensitated it. so So they're trying to solve that. And like for better or worse, like that, that is not going away. And I think like, you know, i accept that and I'm also on board with that. Right. Like, I think that's, that's also not very engaging when people are just like,
01:06:43
Speaker
scoring 5 points every turn on objectives. Yeah, but you have two force-using three agility ships grab crates and hide for corners, and they get three points every turn, yeah, that's not Agreed.
01:06:55
Speaker
yeah Yeah. One Harding with a TIE fighter in the corner is just, is not fun. like ah Yeah. I also agree with that. um To me, jousting and and being incentivized to joust is not fun either. Yeah. um So it again, like I'm trying to advocate for, i want, I want there to like, I don't want objectives to be incidental as a, as a player, because if they're incidental, then they might as well be removed from the game.
01:07:21
Speaker
Yeah. in In my opinion. Oh, and I'm someone who loves objectives too. like just per yeah i want I want to hop in here because i i have not written down and done a data distribution, but having an 80-20 split would mean 40 points ah from kills and 10 points from objectives. And I cannot think of ever having a single game that lopsided.
01:07:46
Speaker
Well, I have. It's always at least 15 points of ah of objectives if we're getting to 50. If we're only getting to 40, there might only be 12 points of objectives. But we are playing very different games somehow, and I don't know how.
01:07:57
Speaker
You and I should probably play sometime and see what's going Yeah, that would be great. yeah i so So it's one of those things where it's like, this is what I want to avoid is not necessarily what is existing now. It's just like, I'm weird. I'm concerned about it. That's all. I'm not saying like, well, how it is now is not like, I'm i'm not vehemently against it.
01:08:17
Speaker
I just, I was in favor of if we're going talk specifics because you gave up the, you gave up the the points. I well yeah was going to, I was going to say, yeah, so this is, this is being recorded on the 19th. So before any announcements are made, you know, I I'm in the dark on, on what all this means.
01:08:35
Speaker
Well, now now you do. And I'll just I'll give it away if I'm fired. I'm fired. But yeah you don't have to. I feel like it's. Yeah. But I think it's fair for you. Like you can't participate as as as well. So the scale. I mean, it's no secret that the scale was being suggested to change. For sure. a hundred percent And so now the the the scaling is on 50 points.
01:08:58
Speaker
Oh. And they've changed objectives from 1-2 to which means instead of 5% to 10% of your scoring, it's 4% to 8%.
01:09:11
Speaker
So it's going to to tone that down ah a hair more than where it is now. For sure. And so one of my... Sorry. I was just going to finish the sentence with, but a hair.
01:09:24
Speaker
You're fine. I wasn't adding anything. It is hair. It is a hair. um But it means that that theres there are some interesting things that way like you literally cannot win on objectives with that distribution.
01:09:37
Speaker
ah and I'm not saying you should be able to, or should I just find that interesting. like if I've won games or lost games where I... That's not what I'm on the other side of combat by like six points, but won objectives by 10 and ended up winning the game.
01:09:53
Speaker
Right. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is you cannot win exclusively on objectives. Like you literally cannot score out because you will, you will reach the 12 turn limit. Oh, fair point. You're absolutely right. And I think that that's just interesting. Yeah.
01:10:06
Speaker
yeah One of the major suggestions that my group has tried to make, and and we did test it, um was increasing the, the maximum to five points.
01:10:17
Speaker
So scoring is two to five points. You either get zero, two or five. Um, my, sorry, go ahead. Yeah. Uh, yeah. My, my group found that that was, a really nice compromise for having objectives and killing where killing is still focused.
01:10:35
Speaker
Personally, i was getting closer to the 60, 40 distribution. Um, that was the target goal of the XWA. Um, um and And my group overall and enjoyed it more.
01:10:46
Speaker
um Of course, my group is only one of 12, so it's it's it wasn't as well received um across all groups. um but For my group, ah along your lines, we had when we spent a couple of weeks on 2-5, we had, of our eight to 10 people, one person who liked it, ah two or three people who were like, whatever, it's fine. And everybody else was like, no, man, that's just too much.
01:11:12
Speaker
So our group is on the other side of that. Yep. And I'm just curious, like, why why is that too much? how How is the one point? So because one point difference in 50 point scale is much less than one point in the 20 point scale.
01:11:23
Speaker
It's less than feels bad and more the ratio of the points. ah Yeah, so... it being apply to zero or even five to two the ratio involved is significantly different and there were multiple games we looked at where the person who wonn would have lost under two four of course it has to be a tight game for that to be true ah either way it has to be a tight game um I think my group is probably just a little more bloodthirsty.
01:11:54
Speaker
Although that can't be true because we're scoring so many objective points. I don't know. I think, I mean, I think it's an interesting discussion. i and I, but again, like to, again, for my own philosophy, which is um i want to increase or, or maintain the complexity and the engagement of the game by having objectives, not be incidental.
01:12:17
Speaker
Whereas I felt that they were more incidental on two, four. um But even even meeting their goals of 60-40 distribution, personally, that's how I met their goals. by By being able to ah score that extra point um across the game multiple turns, I was able to increase my objectives percentage by ah buy enough to be you know closer to 35%, for example.
01:12:42
Speaker
um And sometimes rarely, but sometimes 40%. just, me... um and i just to me if you are consistently giving up five points a turn,
01:12:53
Speaker
um what are you doing is the question that I have. um And like, it could be a fair answer. Like I'm not, I'm not trying to poke fun at anybody. Like, but like if, if you're, if your goal is to only dogfight in this game and you're, and you're consistently giving up five points, like you can't control one objective, then I feel like you, you don't want objectives in the game at all.
01:13:17
Speaker
Is that like a fair thing to say? The thing is, is that my group is having the, I have two issues with your entire argument. One is, and I'm trying to look it up now and not finding it. I would swear that what they said was it's currently either 50-50 or 60-40, and they're trying to move it to two thirds and one third, not even 70-30, but two thirds and one third.
01:13:38
Speaker
So the basic premise of your argument, I think is counter to everything that I've been doing for the last year. Second, my group is meeting your goal.
01:13:50
Speaker
So that brings up the question, what are you doing with objectives? Because we're doing it. We're getting there. So it's entirely weird to me. i The experience you're having is very much not the experience I'm having.
01:14:08
Speaker
Well, okay. It's not my goal to meet 6040. It's the XWA's goal. That's my claim anyway. It's not. Right. that's And my claim is that it was 7030, which we are meeting 7030. We're not meeting 6040. Well, we do and we don't. We don't consistently meet 6040. So it would be interesting to see how that translates into the public space. And and also it would be good to see the data from other other groups.
01:14:36
Speaker
It really would. It absolutely would be good because, you know, they've got it in there somewhere because they'll tell us about it every now and then. It would be excellent to see that. Right. I mean, this this kind of points back to, Josh, what you were talking about earlier, which was the need for diversity on like the playtesting team in terms of groups, play styles around the globe, like like globally.
01:14:56
Speaker
And honestly, like this conversation just feels like maybe, yeah, you were on to something, that that is something that like could be missing. Were there any other feedback from other playgroups that you've experienced that are similar? I mean, I'm sure that your internal group chat's got to be, you know,
01:15:14
Speaker
ah lighting up and, and, you know, far more contentious than, you know, even just this short conversation. It frequently is. Yes, for sure. I mean, like everyone's got, you know, deep held beliefs and I'm sure everyone's also bringing their own play styles, their own heuristics like to the game as well. Cause when you're talking to like, just thinking about this, you know, this past season, all of my play through the leagues and the, the chats that I'm having with just even like my, my teammates, like,
01:15:43
Speaker
and my findings between each, each point change has had completely different heuristics even. Granted it's an older scale, but yeah. And I want to point out here for a moment that while it's obvious, Josh and I not only have different play styles, but kind of of different expectations of what the philosophy is and stuff.
01:16:01
Speaker
Right. We're both getting pretty similar, pretty high level results right now. Yeah. So it's not like either one of us is wrong or either one of us is right. Right. For sure. We're, we're,
01:16:13
Speaker
I think we're showing that there definitely is some variety, but it would be nice to know, you know, how much variety is there and where is it? Maybe, maybe the XWA needs to do an internal survey of what do you see? What do you want? What is your style?
01:16:28
Speaker
So that they can see for themselves what variety they've got. And then they can also publish that out and go, this is what we have. We are missing this particular play style. We want more play testers who do this so that we can get more of that data.
01:16:41
Speaker
I think that would be, a really excellent idea. And I never would have had that, that idea without Josh's discussion points earlier. So thank you, sir. Oh, you're welcome. Yeah. And just going back to, um,
01:16:55
Speaker
So I think this, yeah, it highlights. So first of all, Joel, I'll send you screen caps that I'm taking of your target goal. Please do, because I'm not following this stuff. Yep. Yeah. It's mentioned a few times, but it's lost in in a lot of discussions. And I think that this kind of goes back to my very early on point which of I need to know the metrics. I need to know the goals.
01:17:18
Speaker
So of the XWA, of the balance team, so that I can um properly evaluate the game to those goals and and and objectives.
01:17:29
Speaker
And I actually have something I want to interject there too, which is this this is going to sound really weird to you, but I kind of... to a certain degree, at least, I kind of don't want to know because if I do know, I'm going to tailor what I'm doing to try to make that happen, even if it's only subconsciously.
01:17:48
Speaker
Whereas if I don't know, I'm just going to do what I think I need to do with to win the game within the structure they've currently given me and give them data that has nothing to do with their expectations and everything to do with me just trying to win the game.
01:18:03
Speaker
um well I absolutely see your point of view. your tax You're taxed. You're You are tasked to evaluate as well as play a game. um and And I don't think you can evaluate without criteria.
01:18:16
Speaker
And if you're but if you're working on your own criteria and that's not explicitly stated, then then how can they evaluate your data? My criteria is I'm trying to win the game. Yeah. So yeah I mean, like. I'm just, yeah I'm falling quiet because I'm just trying to absorb and I'm percolating.
01:18:37
Speaker
is what I'm doing. um So go ahead. No, it's fine. I just think that, you know, there's, you know, there's there's multiple roles for playtests, playtester, and it depends on what you are playtesting and like the purpose of you playtesting is. And I think, you know, there there are many examples of video games, for example, where playtesters, they exist only to run into walls for 20 hours and see if they fall through the map, you know, and that kind of thing.
01:19:07
Speaker
And that's not what my interpretation of a play tester is for, for this XWA group. um It's not to simply provide data for games and, and, and try to win, but it's also, you know, they, they ask explicitly for what felt good. What were the test results? What felt not so good?
01:19:26
Speaker
um Are things balanced? If they ask you the question of, is this okay? Then inherently you are tasked to evaluate something. And it's, it's not just to win a game. It's, it's to,
01:19:39
Speaker
answer the question. But if I'm evaluating something and you're evaluating something and we don't, we don't share the criteria with each other on how we're evaluating it.
01:19:50
Speaker
um That's, that's just doomed. to yeah some of Some of those questions of, is this okay? If I'm approaching it from a different perspective than you, then we can have different answers and both be right.
01:20:05
Speaker
Correct. Which is why I want to know the goals of XWA so that I can tailor my evaluation. Is this meeting their goal rather than does, do I think this is okay?
01:20:17
Speaker
And I can say, yes, this is okay in meeting your goal. Personally, I may have a problem with it or maybe I love it. um And I think like, it's totally fair to have two different sets of evaluations, but um and basically allow them to make that call of saying like, well, this play tester really liked what we did, um but maybe it's not meeting our goal or or the opposite. Like, yes, it's meeting our goal, but the play tester didn't really have a good time with it.
01:20:42
Speaker
And I think that that's totally, that's usable data. that's that's And that's beneficial to both ah play testers and um the balance team, and in my opinion.
01:20:55
Speaker
In part because this is the internet and this is a rarity on the internet, I am going to take a moment here and mark that in my mind, ah Josh, you have officially won me over and won this argument that I cannot provide.
01:21:10
Speaker
You and I cannot both provide data that is consistent and useful to the organization. If we do not both understand the criteria in at least a pretty darn similar way.
01:21:20
Speaker
And to do that, we need to know what it is. So, uh, Well done. yeah Thanks for the discussion. Thanks for being open-minded. and and But I think we both highlight that perhaps...
01:21:33
Speaker
you know perhaps You know, just just the discussion of sixty forty percent right? like And that's something that I i will happily um discuss with you further and and send some screenshots and all that.
01:21:45
Speaker
um But just not knowing those goals or not having those goals be abundantly clear to us is already something that we should probably change. The simple fact that I thought the goal was different than you thought it meant, you know, I'm going to say something here.
01:22:02
Speaker
Obviously, this means that it's it's possible to misinterpret them. I want to point out, I have ADHD. My memory me too is like an interesting Swiss cheese where sometimes it's really thick and dense and every tiny detail you can possibly think of is there at my fingertips.
01:22:19
Speaker
And sometimes I will do stuff like forget that I was ever on blood pressure medication and almost give myself a stroke after missing my meds for four straight months. Oof. i Yeah, I say it's like it's at times it can be like an etch a sketch, you know, a brain where you can be hyper focused on one thing, but you switch over and just you shakes it.
01:22:37
Speaker
Yep. Yeah. um So ah for the the audience listening at home, um it's entirely possible that they've been crystal clear about this. And my memory is just flat wrong.
01:22:48
Speaker
Yeah, but I mean, and that can just be just within working like a large organization. It's going to be interesting to see, you know, how that kind of stuff shakes out in the decision making process. But it's also entirely possible that there was a comment in passing sometime early on when they were talking about do we want this or do we want that?
01:23:06
Speaker
And this stuck in my head. And that is what they actually went with. I was going to say, or what if they just gave different teams different objectives? you know They might have. That'd be interesting. I mean, it sounds like... i'm i mean that No, but it could... I mean, we don't know. I mean, I don't know.
01:23:22
Speaker
You're right. We wouldn't know. But i I would say that, I mean, it just seems like, yeah, like two things. like we'll We'll need like a di ah bigger diversity of player base, and it does seem like there might be just an issue with like transparency from the lead designers now.
Public Feedback and Game Balance
01:23:40
Speaker
Yeah, and and being positive for once for they for me, i am excited to to have this be public because I think, you know as Joel said, um the the public can do more good um with with these points and and providing good data um than than we could possibly do um over such a fraction of the time.
01:24:05
Speaker
And I think if it's if it's properly evaluated, how do I want to say this? and properly evaluated and carefully evaluated, then I think that they they can really have excellent data to tailor what they they they need to to meet their goals.
01:24:24
Speaker
um But I hope, sorry, I just, i know I know you want to say something, but I really just hope that they, one of their goals, their main goals is to maintain player base and maintain a unified player base.
01:24:39
Speaker
The last thing I think that anybody wants is to have another split where there's like another legacy group, you know, and and now now X-Wing is further divided into three or more different groups.
01:24:51
Speaker
um So I've got three things to toss in. ah One goes all the way back to 1.0 with the Jump Master. I don't know if you remember, but when they teased the article, they released enough that it became possible to play it on Vassal.
01:25:08
Speaker
Easily a month before it was physically released on the shelf, we already knew that three of them with whatever upgrade it was that let you fire the ah torpedo that they could carry without having to have the lock meant that three of them with proton torpedoes won basically every single match except when there was horrible dice discrepancy against them.
01:25:30
Speaker
We knew this a month before it hit the shelf because there were enough people screwing around with it enough that the public could find it when the play testers had not somehow.
01:25:43
Speaker
And the second thing that that ties into is to one of your points about um using that data is that ah FFG, in part because they had to run everything by Disney and that slowed everything down, it took them six months to do the first fix, which wasn't enough, another six months to do the second fix, which stopped the the the three of them being a thing, but just resulted in Dengaroo, which took another six months to fix, by which time 2.0 was just about to happen.
01:26:09
Speaker
um Whereas XWA isn't tied to any of that and can and ah has ah made changes as needed pretty quickly.
01:26:23
Speaker
um I know one of the things they're looking at is on these points release, if something turns out to be an immediate and huge problem, that they will make quick fixes. Hopefully, they don't have to because we've tested everything under the sun as much as we could and gotten it close enough that you're looking at a point here and a point there and not three points or or an entire slot or something.
01:26:45
Speaker
But we all know it's entirely possible for something like that to slip through. um And then um want to point out you talked about you need your changes to not result in losing the player base.
01:26:58
Speaker
Agreed. I will say that any change can lose a player. yeah um And if you don't have any change, that can lose players.
01:27:09
Speaker
So what they really need to do is make sure that what they're doing is as appealing to as many people as possible. And if you saw the recent survey that had 600 plus respondents, which I think means we have at least 600 players,
01:27:22
Speaker
um it came out The results of that survey were so much better than any survey ever done while AMG or FFG were under control of things.
01:27:33
Speaker
ah The average on a one to five where five is fantastic and one is terrible, the average score for any of the metrics was like between 3.8 and 4.1, which is... which was wonderful to see.
01:27:47
Speaker
There were some ones in absolutely every category, but there were a whole lot more fives and fours and threes than there were ones and twos. um So, so far their changes have been pretty well received.
01:28:03
Speaker
Hopefully the 50 points will be. um One of the big sticking points on the 20 point was granularity. I have a completely different thing. I don't want the upgrades I put on a ship to be tied to the points of the ship, but having play tested this, i don't think you can properly express How much easier it is to create a game balance when you don't have to worry about that one upgrade going with this one upgrade on that particular pilot. Yes.
01:28:35
Speaker
when When you can go, okay, that takes 13 points, that pilot gets 12. Boom, we're done. And now you can't break the game with that pilot. Yeah. And as much as I want the total freedom and I want to be able to fly really, really lean ships um and focus just on the fundamental of the games and not worry about comboing at all, the workload involved, we'd have to have 10 times as many playtesters as we do to come up with a product that approaches the quality of what we've already got.
01:29:06
Speaker
um So my biggest gripe in the game is one that I have reluctantly set aside as a necessary thing. Also, ah in South Bend, where the Michiana Marauders went from not existing to being a play tester group and and a group that's about 15 strong total in the last year and a half, um a lot of those players, anytime anybody looks at Legacy or considers it, they get deer in the headlights. They're like, I don't i don't know what I should be putting on this ship because it's freeform.
01:29:42
Speaker
It had never occurred to me that that was actually beneficial for new players until new players that I knew and respected and loved said to me point blank, oh, this helps.
01:29:55
Speaker
This makes the game more approachable for me. i If it's going to bring more players in so I have more people to play against and the game lasts longer and we're more likely to continue to have large events and be able to hold worlds and and all these other things,
01:30:10
Speaker
then okay, I will take this thing that I see as an imperfection in the game and I will embrace it and run with it because it's better for the overall health, even if it's not what I want. yeah I have two other rules things that I want fixed that are actually pretty bloody minor.
01:30:27
Speaker
I'm not even going to bother to say them out loud because whatever. I'm living with it the way it is now and I'll i'll i'll deal with it. No game has ever been perfect in the history of the universe. This one isn't either.
01:30:38
Speaker
but I love it. There's going to be another, there's going to be another update after this one. So yeah, exactly. I think it's, it's, it's important to, to note that like I, the, it it is an exciting change um to, to increase the granularity of the game.
01:30:55
Speaker
yeah um I, I think obviously the main goal um for this initial release as a play tester is really, um probably to find the things that are the most broken and sort of eliminate them from from being available.
01:31:13
Speaker
um And as you said, where we probably didn't catch everything. um But I find that that that's ah that's an okay thing, right? Like this is acceptable. if If the public finds it and then there's an emergency nerf, everyone should be okay with that. Like, because we're actively improving the game together.
01:31:28
Speaker
yeah um And on that note, you know, again... Personally, i feel like the 50-point system has a long way to go with with how good it can be. um i don't like There are many ships and and chassis that I see that maybe aren't as granular as they could be.
01:31:54
Speaker
um And you're absolutely right. Perfect balance is not obtainable. But I'm excited to see how It changed like, you know, three points patches down the road. How will 50 the 50 point scale look? And I like that is exciting to me. It's not really a criticism. I just think like this should be the worst version of 50 points.
01:32:16
Speaker
um You're absolutely right. This should be the worst it will ever be. That's I hadn't had that conscious thought. Thank you.
01:32:26
Speaker
continue sorry no no if you're fine you're you're welcome uh so like you know and that to me is also exciting but it's it's also ah it's something that i've thought about like during playtesting where i'm i'm kind of just like a board is not the right word but it's just like i'm kind of stuck with the list building at the moment and i'm i'm excited to see what others do outside of the playtest group um you know If that 600 response, you can maybe add another 100. I don't know. I'm just throwing numbers out there to to assume like this is the 700 players in in X-Wing um with 100 playtesters. That's one-seventh.
01:33:06
Speaker
It's not bad, but like that's only one-seventh. So i'm I'm super excited to see where we go from here um and and to see how the granularity does improve even further because there there are some limitations for now that I see.
01:33:21
Speaker
But there's also... you know, I hear that they're, they're, they're going to release new upgrades and, and new, I hope so. ah Yeah. New, new cards that, you know, I'm not aware of. um And so they, they're planning that out before, you know, anyone knows anything about it. So long-term health of the game, they need new content eventually. So, yeah.
01:33:43
Speaker
I mean, and the yeah SL cards were such a huge hit. Like, I think that they're going to be safe in, in going that direction. Yeah. Yeah. um As long as everyone is is acknowledging, like, you know, this is this is a group effort. Like, don't don't expect the 50-point scale to be perfect when it releases. It's it's like, this is um everyone's... Yeah.
01:34:05
Speaker
Not responsibility, but, you know, like, this is a group effort. Exactly. and well And the thing is, is like, I mean, from everything that I've learned from game design is you will always be surprised when it gets released to the greater public because you just have so many more people trying to break it.
01:34:21
Speaker
Um, yes. ah Specifically going back to what you mentioned with, you know, roughly 100 play testers, 600 respondents. If we take those as the absolute numbers in one month, the public can do what we did in six months, assuming they play all of their games at the rate that we played only our play tester games. Because keep in mind, our play tester games are on top of whatever we play normally.
01:34:47
Speaker
There's a good bet that the public as a whole averages at least that rate. So in one month, they'll do the work we did in six. We should. I'd be stunned if in one month there weren't some changes because some mad genius concocted something and six copycats had real similar level results. And we all went, oh, that's a problem.
01:35:11
Speaker
If that doesn't happen at least once, then this is not the X-Wing public that I know. Yeah. um And regarding balance, um there was a discussion at some point a long time ago that for FFG and for AMG...
Closing Thoughts on Game Development and Community
01:35:29
Speaker
They were never intending to get a perfectly balanced game. They always want the new release to be better so that it will sell. And then four months down the road, when the new next new release comes out, they can price it normally while the next new thing becomes the hotness.
01:35:45
Speaker
right That does a couple of things. One, it sells product for them. But two, it keeps the game fresh and interesting. From our perspective, we don't have to worry about game balance. So we don't have to break anything to make it better.
01:35:57
Speaker
like the SOC arcs were when they first hit the market. Right. um On the other hand, we also... In order to keep things fresh, honestly, we don't want things ever to be as good as the SOC arcs or as bad as the stuff in the Rebel Starter Kit.
01:36:16
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. But what we do want is from perfectly balanced, we want some things that are a little better and some things that are a little worse that change when the points iterations change because that will change the meta and that will make the game feel a little more fresh and a little more new.
01:36:33
Speaker
and keep people experimenting and trying different things. At least that's what I think is going on. Yeah, I mean, I think that that was what why I was always so hopeful when... when XWA is taking over. i was happy to see AMG go just because the priorities for AMG is to, you know, sell units and to, you know, i offload or take it, be valuable enough to be sold as a company versus, you know, XWA by the players for the players. It's based on, you know, making the best version of a game that you can.
01:37:10
Speaker
Yeah. i This has been, Just an absolutely incredible conversation, especially from my perspective. I know we're teasing something. this is This is going to come out after the announcement, the XWA stage.
01:37:25
Speaker
And we'll have a link to that um in this show episode. But I think this might be a great point to to wrap this up. Does anybody have any closing remarks? And once again, congratulations to both of our Conquest champions.
01:37:40
Speaker
I'm just really glad that the game is continuing, the community is continuing. um What I've seen so far in reactions, even from people who aren't fond of whatever the XWA might be doing in a particular detail has so far had a fair amount of grace applied to it.
01:38:00
Speaker
The reaction has been something akin to, I'm not really fond of this, but I'm still playing the game. I'm glad these people are still doing the work. I'll see how it goes in the future with the next set of changes. Yeah.
01:38:13
Speaker
I think that's a great attitude to have because none of us are ever going to love everything. Um, also, It's been, i think we might've learned, I know I personally learned deeply um about reactions when changes come down the pike, because my reaction to the 2.5 announcements was famously, let's just say suboptimal um and not something I was proud of.
01:38:41
Speaker
I'm really happy with the way I've seen people manage to disagree with XWA without being disagreeable about it. Yes. Yeah, and I agree. i think um at the end of the day, XWA is doing very good for the game. um And they you know as you've mentioned previously, like this is this is out of passion and and love for the hobby that that we enjoy. So that is also just coming from a a good space already rather than...
01:39:17
Speaker
um a company that was given this, this IP and we don't need to go into conspiracies about how they handled it or whatever, but like, you know, it was a product first. um Whereas this is that we're all volunteers um um to, to continue on with this game. And and I think that that alone um is, is really helpful for even if I disagree with some changes or or not, like everyone wants to play the game. Everyone loves the game. And, and so um I think it's in good hands overall.
01:39:49
Speaker
um but But anyways, my last closing statement is just, you know, thanks for having us and thanks for the conversation. appreciate it. Yes. Thank you very much for having us on.
01:40:01
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, and you you both are are definitely welcome back. This was such an amazing insight for me just into um understanding just from from the leads of two playtest teams, like what considerations are being made, what they're thinking about. I think it's going to be, I think our listeners and are going to absolutely love this conversation. And I mean, it's inspired me to get more involved and start turning in more of those feedback form sheets too.
01:40:26
Speaker
So, yeah, thank you. Seriously, once again, this has been absolutely incredible. And also, thank you to everyone for listening to this episode and continuing to support us here at 312.
01:40:37
Speaker
So be on the lookout for a couple of events in November from us, including the coverage of the San Francisco System Open November 8th and 9th, as well as the Alamo Conquest, the final qualifier for our Conquest series on November 15th.
01:40:51
Speaker
And if you aren't already following us on Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook, you should. We have links in the description. And then finally, 312 is excited to be producing exclusive alt art cards of featured new XWA pilots for their patrons.
01:41:06
Speaker
Consider supporting us on Patreon and get rewarded with some awesome quarterly swag. Closing out, I'm Andrew Kuba. I'm Josh Kalmudi. I'm Joel sp Springle. And we're signing off.
01:41:18
Speaker
Thanks so much. Cheers.