X-Wing 2.0 Design Review - Pilot Shuffle

Welcome to our third review of the design of X-Wing 2.0! We’ve previously looked at how the revamp has allowed a resurgence in the importance of maneuvering and how the value of actions has increased. Today we’re going to look at what the 2.0 version does to pilots; both mechanically and from a more fluffy perspective.

Do the Pilot Shuffle

So what’s changed?

The big change is the removal of Veteran Instincts and the condensing of pilot skills (now called Initiative, that will take some getting used too).

Wait, what?

Yep, that’s right. The nine levels of pilot skill have become six levels of initiative. This consolidation goes a long way to helping clarify any given pilot’s place. Before, everything from Pilot Skill 3 to 7 didn’t really matter. So all of those mid-level pilots have been condensed down to Init 3 and 4, leaving your generic rookies at Init 1-2 and your aces filling out Init 5 and 6.

As far as we know right now, there will be no way to change a pilot’s printed initiative level. Darth Vader, Wedge Antilles, and Han Solo will remain the elite of the elite. And they will no longer have to sacrifice their EPT to stay there. However, there will be a few ways to change initiative during the engagement (former combat) phase.

Han Solo gunner card allows a ship to fire at Init 7. This also serves as an extra attack if you have a dual turret arc as you can still fire from a different arc during your normal Init slot. Additionally, Heightened Senses (using Determination’s old art) allows pilots with Force powers the ability to engage at Init 7. This might seem pretty powerful but it is balanced by a few things. For one, you have to spend a force point, which means there is one less to use for modifying dice or other abilities. This also limits it to Force sensitive pilots, which is a small, and presumably expensive, pool. And finally, its only for engagement. You still move at your regular Init level, which is important.

One potential concern with this change will be the greater emphasis (old) initiative, now Player order, will play. With less spread of skill, more pilots will trigger at the same time. This will mean whoever wins player order, and gets to decide who moves/shoots first, will have an even greater impact on the game. Point bids will still be a thing.

Okay, the big question everyone wants to know, does Fel’s Wrath still suck?

Come X-wing 2.0, hopefully he won’t anymore. Rebooting the game has given the developers a chance to completely redesign all of the game’s pilots. And boy did a lot of them need some work. There exists a marked contrast between pilots released early on and more recent releases. Compare Lt. Loorir (TIE Interceptor) to StarVipers. His pilot ability was their “fix” but worse; No EPT and took a stress when doing those special barrel rolls. Or Horton Salm’s lack of an EPT.

Unfortunately, we don’t know a lot about what the new pilot abilities are going to be yet. We won’t really know until the conversion pack is released. From what do know there are going to be quite a lot of changes. And some of it will be very sad. It’s highly likely we’re going to lose some of our favorite old canon pilots.

Say it isn’t so!

I cannot. We have already seen two cases where a pilot’s ability has shifted. Ten Numb now appears to be sporting Keyan Farlander’s ability and a new pilot, Ved Foslo has Juno Eclipse’s ability. That doesn’t mean those pilots are definitively gone but things are not looking hopeful. Both Keyan and Juno were characters from video games so that might give an indication of who is leaving. But so was Maarek Steele and he’s definitely returning.

Any character that is from the old canon is potentially on the chopping block. So far we know Dash, Corran and Jan are safe but we don’t yet know the fate of many others. While sad, it shouldn’t be particularly surprising. And it does allow for a positive opportunity as well.

What good can come from this madness?!

With this relaunch, pilots that were added late to the game can return in 2.0 in the ship they belong to. For example, all of the ARC-170 pilots are better known in canon flying different craft. Norra Wexley in a Y-wing, Thane Kyrell in an X-wing, and Shara Bey in an A-wing. We already know Thane and Norra are transferring so its likely Shara is as well.

They are also able to add many new pilots to the game from other new sources. All of the characters from Inferno Squadron are appearing as TIE Fighter pilots. And with the fact that they are now selling shipless packs (aka the conversion kits) its possible we’ll see more new canon pilots added to the game flying currently released ships, without having to rebuy a ship. I wouldn’t get your hopes up too much for that, but it’s at least a possibility now.

One thing about this pilot revamp does disappoint me though.

Oh?

It would have been a perfect opportunity to separate pilots from ships and merely make the pilot an upgrade slot for each ship. They were already redesigning the base cardboard. If they had removed all mention of initiative and pilot name, they could have made it easy for players to move pilots between ships. That way you could throw Wedge into an A-wing and Darth Vader into a Decimator.

But I get that would make things really hard to balance. Take Wedge Antilles and put him in a revamped E-wing and it might be overpowered. Plus, some pilot abilities are tailored specifically for a given ship. Moving them to another ship would be pointless.

Fortunately, the addition of a subtitle to pilots now makes it easier for them to switch ships in later expansions. Destiny has characters appear multiple times, with different abilities and different in-game costs. There’s a young Luke, a Jedi Knight Luke and a Jedi Master Luke. X-wing can do that too now.

So, did we really need a 2.0 version for this?

Of the things we’ve looked at so far, this I think is the first bit that did not really require a 2.0 version. Veteran Instincts could have been banned or the rules changed so the game capped at PS 9. That would have solved that race with ease.

As for cleaning up old school pilots, that’s harder without new packs but not insurmountable. They had been doing this with Aces packs, releasing new pilots for older ships, whose abilities strengthened them.