ahem, falcon just won malaysian nationals, and 2nd place was taken by a whisper echo list. during swiss rounds, top seed was taken by that same dual phantom list with 0 losses.

Lies. Jan Ors won Malaysian nationals.

ahem, falcon just won malaysian nationals, and 2nd place was taken by a whisper echo list. during swiss rounds, top seed was taken by that same dual phantom list with 0 losses.

Lies. Jan Ors won Malaysian nationals.

HWK with engine upgrade to be precise

THAT RANGE 3 PRIMARY SHOT THAT LANDED ON THE PHANTOM. TWICE

My favorite was when Kyle landed a Crit on my opponent's X-wing at range 3.

In all seriousness. Theres only one bad ship in the game. Almost everything is viable and most games are lost to bad decisions rather than any fault of the ships.

In all seriousness. Theres only one bad ship in the game. Almost everything is viable and most games are lost to bad decisions rather than any fault of the ships.

Sorry man, but that's either beside the point or absurd.

If you're saying that all the ships are perfectly balanced in terms of point value to tabletop effectiveness, then it's beside the point. This discussion is about the matching of certain specific capabilities to other specific vulnerabilities. Frankly, I think it's impossible for the game to be quite that perfectly balanced, but that's a different discussion.

If you're saying that any ship is just as effective against any other given ship, then that's patently absurd. Some ships are clearly more capable of exploiting the specific Achilles heels of certain other ships. The Falcon seems to be particularly effective against Phantoms, and Phantoms seem to be particularly effective against swarms. Just because rock might have the same point value as scissors doesn't mean that scissors can beat rock if the scissors player fails to make bad decisions.

In all seriousness. Theres only one bad ship in the game. Almost everything is viable and most games are lost to bad decisions rather than any fault of the ships.

Sorry man, but that's either beside the point or absurd.

If you're saying that all the ships are perfectly balanced in terms of point value to tabletop effectiveness, then it's beside the point. This discussion is about the matching of certain specific capabilities to other specific vulnerabilities. Frankly, I think it's impossible for the game to be quite that perfectly balanced, but that's a different discussion.

If you're saying that any ship is just as effective against any other given ship, then that's patently absurd. Some ships are clearly more capable of exploiting the specific Achilles heels of certain other ships. The Falcon seems to be particularly effective against Phantoms, and Phantoms seem to be particularly effective against swarms. Just because rock might have the same point value as scissors doesn't mean that scissors can beat rock if the scissors player fails to make bad decisions.

The hardest game I had in a long while was vs

Blue squadron - Adv Sensor

Biggs

Tarn Mison - Swarm Tactics

Roark Garnet - Ion Turret

No other game gave me more stress. Not DTF Double Falcon, Not Phantoms.

The player who ran that was solid and I had already lost to him once and his list pretty much negated one of the key lynch pins of my overall strategy. The only reason why I won was I was able to essentially con him into pouncing at me in a corner where I could break his formation. It was an all or nothing gamble and I lost 60 points of stuff doing it.

What I am refuting is the Rock-Paper-Scissors mindset. If you are subscribing to this mindset you are effectively declaring that you anytime you face an opponent you will have an up to 1/3 chance you will lose outright. This is bad/lazy play and this is why most people are not prepared for Worlds and will lose to the top 32 players who try to go beyond this mindset.

I am not saying the meta doesnt exist. The meta does. But its not a meta based on ships. Its a meta based on PS. The actual ships used doesn't really matter. Whisper doesn't actually do anything that a well played Soontir Fel didnt already do. In a lot of ways Whisper is actually weaker than Fel. This whole Rock-Paper-Scissors thing is a simplification that gamers use to evaluate strategies that has been given a bizarre form of life and is apparently this forum's defacto deity. It completely ignores all other considerations such as board state and player skill. It ignores any potential information disparity between the players and ANY potential psychological hangups one or more players may have. And we all have them. We are all the sum of our past experiences. We are all subject to fear and inner loathing.

If you think Fat Han is strong then play with and against Fat Han. Find the strongest players you can and play against them until you work out how that list wins or loses. I am lucky in the sense that I came from a meta that had very strong players with huge collections. I spent weeks playing 3-4 games a night on multiple nights trying to make or break Phantoms, Fat Hans, HSF Hans, Swarms etc etc etc. I tried everything. I even came close to breaking Fat Han lists with Tie Advanceds w/ ordnance. If you arent blessed with strong players within arms reach then watch vassal games or play a few of them yourself. Like anything in life the amount of effort you put in will be obvious when the games start to matter and when you put together your 100 points.

I can't even say that what people need to win is to think outside the box because the only box that exists in this game is the box you choose to put yourself in. Winning when you have a clear and overwhelming advantage is meaningless. Winning when you are up against something that the world tells you is unassailable? That's why I play these games.

sonova i think you are spot on with what you are saying. i do believe most of the time people that do subscribe to the rock paper scissors idea are either limiting their selves or believe to much into the hype that a particular ship is too strong. True enough this ship might have awsome agility or that ship have great shileds/armor. doesnt mean they are nigh impossibe to be defeated with the right stratagy.

Slowly reading through this massive thread, but I've had some disheartening experiences. I decided to try an Obsidian swarm to counter Predator, since I've always liked running lots of Ties just for the crazy maneuvering. But in a recent match against a Predator Chewie with C3PO I just couldn't kill it, or even do damage. In part it was because a ship got knocked out of formation during set-up, so I couldn't just completely break and come back, but I still managed to get a number of Ties shooting at Chewie every turn with Howlrunner and just did nothing at all, despite predicting where he was going and action-blocking three turns in a row. Second time I've had this happen.

In a casual game I took Howlrunner, 3 souped-up Black Squardons and Soontir against a Super Dash and only won with 1hp on Soontir because after everything was obliterated that very particular ship (his pilot ability, not just the maneuvers, were critical) was able to stay in the range 1 blind spot of the almost untouched Dash for about 5 turns.

With all those 2 attacks and the really high damage negation on these new turret builds I think even the normal swarm is in trouble. Sure if everything goes right and you get someone who flies straight at your whole formation you might win big, but when would anyone do that?? I'm hoping maybe I can make something work with Intimidation, but that could be pretty tricky.

As far as the OP goes, it is feeling a bit like Attack Wing. You've now got a lot of very powerful 360-degree attacks that don't need to worry nearly as much about maneuvering, and with the Predator combo, still can get some good dice quality even if they flub their actions. In a lot of cases it's just circle-strafe and hit the Easy Button.

Slowly reading through this massive thread, but I've had some disheartening experiences. I decided to try an Obsidian swarm to counter Predator, since I've always liked running lots of Ties just for the crazy maneuvering. But in a recent match against a Predator Chewie with C3PO I just couldn't kill it, or even do damage. In part it was because a ship got knocked out of formation during set-up, so I couldn't just completely break and come back, but I still managed to get a number of Ties shooting at Chewie every turn with Howlrunner and just did nothing at all, despite predicting where he was going and action-blocking three turns in a row. Second time I've had this happen.

Mathematically speaking, it sounds more like bad luck than 3PO if you are getting "a number of TIES" shooting at Chewie and Howlrunner's reroll not helping to do "nothing at all." Dice are still part of this game (whether they were his bad dice or your good dice) and there are games where this happens. Even with just 4 TIES with focus shooting at Chewie, you should get six hits (not including Howl's reroll) and pull off a couple of damage after subtracting for 3PO and evade rolls are complete on an average turn.

I n a casual game I took Howlrunner, 3 souped-up Black Squardons and Soontir against a Super Dash and only won with 1hp on Soontir because after everything was obliterated that very particular ship (his pilot ability, not just the maneuvers, were critical) was able to stay in the range 1 blind spot of the almost untouched Dash for about 5 turns.

I think there are other ships that will be able to exploit Dash's weakness as well, along with other things you can do to make him vulnerable. He is going to be a dangerous ship, but it sounds like you had a good game against him.

Well not quite nothing, but he had 5 hull left. And Howlrunner doesn't last forever in such builds, even when turtled with PtL. Once that happens the attack quality drops dramatically, and the ability to auto-negate 2 damage becomes huge. This has happened to me twice, which is admittedly not a big sample, but it's starting to seem like more than coincidence. I did learn that even if it's incredibly awkward I need to just run the hell away and not trail the Falcon, but with other ships in the mix that's going to be pretty hard to do as well. The first Chewie disaster had 3 Z95s in there, which I almost instantly obliterated and then Chewie just killed everything. This one had a Corran with R2D2 who could get out really quickly.

A big part of the problem though is that it really feels like it matters so much less how you maneuver. The idea that a good player (which isn't always me, admittedly) always has at least a little chance no longer feels true. It's not to the level of Attack Wing where depending on what your opponent has you might as well just concede, but it feels qualitatively similar and that terrifies me.

Well not quite nothing, but he had 5 hull left. And Howlrunner doesn't last forever in such builds, even when turtled with PtL. Once that happens the attack quality drops dramatically, and the ability to auto-negate 2 damage becomes huge. This has happened to me twice, which is admittedly not a big sample, but it's starting to seem like more than coincidence. I did learn that even if it's incredibly awkward I need to just run the hell away and not trail the Falcon, but with other ships in the mix that's going to be pretty hard to do as well. The first Chewie disaster had 3 Z95s in there, which I almost instantly obliterated and then Chewie just killed everything. This one had a Corran with R2D2 who could get out really quickly.

A big part of the problem though is that it really feels like it matters so much less how you maneuver. The idea that a good player (which isn't always me, admittedly) always has at least a little chance no longer feels true. It's not to the level of Attack Wing where depending on what your opponent has you might as well just concede, but it feels qualitatively similar and that terrifies me.

I have lost near 100% of my games with that Chewie + 3-4 Z-95s to Chris Haak's (QLD Regionals #1, Australian Nationals #2) myriad of 2 ships lists. I am no slouch at this game myself. Quality of player matters.

From this we worked out that Chewbacca + Z-95s were actually low value plays. The Z-95s had almost 0 value because they could be negated easily by good play and 3PO doesnt win you games. It only slows down losing. The rest of your list needs to be able to win and winning is hard when 3-4 of your extra bodies on the table are low value.

NOTE: When I say 100% of my games it was a whole lot more than just 2 games.

True, but what are these two ships? A lot of the point isn't that the lists can't lose, but that they have a huge advantage before the match even starts and a large number of otherwise successful builds are going to really struggle, and thus not be reliable or viable, all else being equal.

True, but what are these two ships? A lot of the point isn't that the lists can't lose, but that they have a huge advantage before the match even starts and a large number of otherwise successful builds are going to really struggle, and thus not be reliable or viable, all else being equal.

You can see his final 'optimized' list on the 2014 Nationals report for Australia.

It has advantages but also a large number of disadvantages. Assuming those advantages are huge and ignoring their weaknesses is how you lose vs these lists. Identifying what those disadvantages are and working out how your list can exploit them is how you win vs these lists. The most glaring disadvantage is its abysmal PS.

EDIT: I should also point out that 'optimized' is in parenthesis because I believe that his previous incarnation of the list was stronger.

In all seriousness. Theres only one bad ship in the game. Almost everything is viable and most games are lost to bad decisions rather than any fault of the ships.

Sorry man, but that's either beside the point or absurd.

What I am refuting is the Rock-Paper-Scissors mindset. If you are subscribing to this mindset you are effectively declaring that you anytime you face an opponent you will have an up to 1/3 chance you will lose outright. This is bad/lazy play and this is why most people are not prepared for Worlds and will lose to the top 32 players who try to go beyond this mindset.

Excellent - now that 's an argument, rather than a toss-off statement.

I can certainly agree that R<P<S is a mindset, and that this mindset invites one to believe that there is a 1/3 chance to lose any given match based on what people bring to the table.

But your own argumentation somewhat refutes what you're saying. You say that this mindset is why most people are not prepared to play against the top 32 players. The Achilles heel to you argument is that the top 32 players mostly play the meta themselves. They bring rocks, papers, and scissors. They don't tend to bring lizards or Spocks.

I think where you go awry is that you're trying to refute an absolute that's just not there. The implicit (and I've tried to make it explicit) assumption of the argument is ceteris paribus , ie. other factors held equal . As in, the assumption that skill is outside of the model. Yes, of course skill matters a great deal - but it's not something we are generally prepared to theorize about.

Now, I will say that understanding the rock<paper<scissors aspects (again, not in terms of absolutes, but in terms of non-even odds) of particular ships is a part of the skill and 'information' as you put it.

In all seriousness. Theres only one bad ship in the game. Almost everything is viable and most games are lost to bad decisions rather than any fault of the ships.

Sorry man, but that's either beside the point or absurd.

What I am refuting is the Rock-Paper-Scissors mindset. If you are subscribing to this mindset you are effectively declaring that you anytime you face an opponent you will have an up to 1/3 chance you will lose outright. This is bad/lazy play and this is why most people are not prepared for Worlds and will lose to the top 32 players who try to go beyond this mindset.

Excellent - now that 's an argument, rather than a toss-off statement.

I can certainly agree that R<P<S is a mindset, and that this mindset invites one to believe that there is a 1/3 chance to lose any given match based on what people bring to the table.

But your own argumentation somewhat refutes what you're saying. You say that this mindset is why most people are not prepared to play against the top 32 players. The Achilles heel to you argument is that the top 32 players mostly play the meta themselves. They bring rocks, papers, and scissors. They don't tend to bring lizards or Spocks.

I think where you go awry is that you're trying to refute an absolute that's just not there. The implicit (and I've tried to make it explicit) assumption of the argument is ceteris paribus , ie. other factors held equal . As in, the assumption that skill is outside of the model. Yes, of course skill matters a great deal - but it's not something we are generally prepared to theorize about.

Now, I will say that understanding the rock<paper<scissors aspects (again, not in terms of absolutes, but in terms of non-even odds) of particular ships is a part of the skill and 'information' as you put it.

My point is that the difference between the top 32 at worlds and most of the other people clinging to the R/P/S model is that even if they do bring Rock, Paper or Scissors they will be looking to win the 1/3 'unwinnable' match up instead of accepting that 1/3 of the 'possible' choices is a total wash.

People tend to forget that RPS in and of itself is a very deep strategic game despite there being only 3 meaningful choices. Its also a super bad analogy for X-wing because if you are playing RPS in X-wing then its a version where the Size of the rock, the length of the paper,the sharpness of the scissors and the hand with which you play matters.

Me personally I would bring Spock, but the game I play is X-wing: The Quest for Value.

When skill is equal, there are more factors on who wins than build. I would say that dice are just as an important factor once you eliminate skill as what your build is.

And when we are talking about something like the marathons that Regionals, Nationals, and Worlds can be, the ability to handle the exhaustion. We saw some of that this year in the finals. I saw the mistake that turn the finals last year at worlds.

But, it still comes down to that builds are the really only tangible things we can discuss.

Yes. But the sheer defeatism of the RPS schtick is wearing thin. There are so many options in this game its mind boggling that there's an entire school of thought devoted to the idea that only a handful of cards matter.

My point is that the difference between the top 32 at worlds and most of the other people clinging to the R/P/S model is that even if they do bring Rock, Paper or Scissors they will be looking to win the 1/3 'unwinnable' match up instead of accepting that 1/3 of the 'possible' choices is a total wash.

Of course they will be looking to win that game; they don't have much of a choice but to give it their best shot - but how often do they end up winning those matches in which they're not favored by the ships they're flying?

Yes, RPS is a deeply strategic game, but it's also so strategic that it's a meaningless one, unless you're a mindreader of some sort.

Are you saying your rocks are bigger than mine?

Yes. But the sheer defeatism of the RPS schtick is wearing thin.

Okay, so maybe don't think of the RPS discussion as a defeatist one. That's certainly not how I'm approaching the notion. I'm exploring it as an example of a complex adaptive system, and thinking about how one could theorize about it.

Yes. But the sheer defeatism of the RPS schtick is wearing thin.

Okay, so maybe don't think of the RPS discussion as a defeatist one. That's certainly not how I'm approaching the notion. I'm exploring it as an example of a complex adaptive system, and thinking about how one could theorize about it.

If thats the case then you are probably in the minority.

My thesis behind my earlier 'all ships are viable', is this:

All SHIPS have fundamentally the same value. Lets for simplicity's sake adopt that value as 0. Any advantage that would be conferred by the base stat line (turret, red dice, HP etc etc) would be offset by a similar baseline disadvantage (cost, Ag, dial, bar etc etc).

Therefore a YT-1300 has fundamentally the same value as the equivalent points of lets say the Tie Fighter since they have a similar base PS. Which is 2 Ties with 3 points for upgrades would be an equal match or 50/50 chance vs the baseline YT. You can math it out to see if its right.

Where you get value is in the upgrades (which encompasses both pilots, EPTs and upgrades). Each upgrade would have a base value of 1+x

Therefore a fully kitted out YT-1300 would have a baseline value of 7+x over the baseline Tie Fighters. What this ultimately means is that the same 2 Ties would be extremely unlikely to beat that same YT in a straight up fight. However that is with both a quality and an extreme points advantage going for the YT. If say you add in the equivalent points of Tie Fighters where each additional Tie is worth a baseline of 1 point you are now looking at:

7+x (where a fully kitted out falcon is at least 60 points) vs 3+x (where you get +3 tie fighters over your base)

The YT is still likely to win because it still has an advantage of 4+x vs the Ties. Where it gets interesting is what if instead of adding an additional Tie you add upgrades, lets say Howlrunner and an assortment of other upgrades. The gap then closes.

Another interesting point is that even if all you have are straight up vanilla Ties in your 100, if you bring them up against said YT its now a (~7+x) vs (6+x) match up which the Ties could conceivably win given good dice or a decent +x. It gets even more interesting when you consider that not all upgrades/abilities/actions are always on. Most are conditional so its possible that the accumulated value of the YT might be <7+x which would make it a closer fight or even a game advantage towards the Ties.

Its also important to remember that the over the course of the game, value is not static and can be altered by things like collisions and damage etc etc. The YT player would likely seek to obtain/push an advantage by picking the Ties off using its overwhelming 1 on 1 advantage vs the lowly 1 value AP as well as leveraging its remainder points.

Therefore the winner of that match will be the player who can negate the most points efficiently either through their own upgrade choices, play choices or even straight up blind luck (variance is a thing but its a thing that will require its own super massive thread).

This is just a simplified model that I use. In reality you have to apply a lot of testing and experience to work out what the actual card values are. But this is what it is.

X-wing the Quest for Value.

Uh, beyond a very vague definition of 'value' there are a ton of assumptions there borrowing perceived legitimacy from seemingly arbitrary numbers that represent too many variables that need to be disentangled.

The numbers are arbitrary because its just a rough example and yes there are variables that are basically impossible to determine without reference to actual game states.

If you are lazy/dont have the time to do testing then you can simply work it out this way:

The nature of upgrades is that they are either relevant or they are not. You break it down to a binary equation.

For example:

ACD is only relevant if the Phantom shoots first, assuming that the player who paid for the ACD is using it for its defensive properties. If you shoot before the phantom the value of the ACD is now 0. Similarly the points paid for Whisper's innate ability and probably V.I as well would be negated. Therefore by shooting first you are basically stripping your opponent of 3 advantages and if you paid less than the cumulative points of those upgrades to shoot first then you have a huge advantage that will force your opponent to react to it or just straight up lose unless they are extremely lucky.

Every ship bar the Imperial Shuttle could potentially out bid Whisper for initiative either through straight up upgrades or through indirect initiative bidding. This makes a strategy dependent on ACD potentially hazardous and 'low value'. Which is why I am avoiding Phantoms as a list to take.

You say some stuff that's right, but it's at most represented with fungible numbers, but your conclusions don't derive from any math.

You say some stuff that's right, but it's at most represented with fungible numbers, but your conclusions don't derive from any math.

Yeah, I'm with PenguinBonaparte on this one. While the points values are FFG's best attempt at putting prices on the value f different ships, I'm with MajorJuggler on the finding that there errors in the pricing compared to the value.

While FFG has done a wonderful thing in making this game, and playtesting it, there's only so much playtesting that you can do to determine relative values. Also, while FFG employs amazing people, I don't think they have MJs math skills (for the mathwing side) nor did they have the data that he has collected, because the game had to be made before the data could be collected.

So, the thing is that it was humanly impossible for them to get the prices exactly right to the actual values. They've done pretty well, but it takes a market to properly set prices. I imagine MJ's prices are better than the points values that are printed.

Does that mean I'll be playing with MJs points? No, because his points are not official. The game plays with the printed prices; not the market-based value.

Yes. But the sheer defeatism of the RPS schtick is wearing thin.

Okay, so maybe don't think of the RPS discussion as a defeatist one. That's certainly not how I'm approaching the notion. I'm exploring it as an example of a complex adaptive system, and thinking about how one could theorize about it.

If thats the case then you are probably in the minority.

Maybe; maybe not. But I think you're wasting your time if you're trying to admonish those folks, while you're in conversation with, or the bulk of intelligent folks posting in this thread.

Also, as PenguinBonaparte has already pointed out, your assumption of points values seems to imply jousting values. But, as you know, only people who don't know what they're doing are going to joust if they have ships that are lower in jousting value. It's like asymmetric warfare. You don't fight on the battlefield that favors your enemy. You attempt to force your opponent to fight on the terms that favor you.

Given that different ships have different tactical profiles, and some profiles are a stronger match against some tactical profiles than others, you do get a R<P<S structure to the game - just based on the material base; not based on the intersubjective meta.

Good conversation going well