I just think that calling the new stuff playground names is beneath a person of your intelligence and experience. That's what I mean by positive. But you responded with undue sarcasm again (the Bieber crack).

"Undue" is a matter of opinion. I don't take "Look on the bright side" arguments seriously, and respond appropriately. If there are data-driven comments to make, that's fine - if your main problem with me is just that I'm not cheery enough, or spend too much time focusing on problems, I've got better things to do than argue with you over my delivery.

The "erratic" costing you describe is exactly why I feel it's relevant to discuss the change in design teams over time. What you pejoratively call "erratic," I call "not making the same mistake twice." I do now recall you bringing that stuff up before, which I guess is your "positive" contribution. And now I recall having this discussion before, so sorry if it's too tedious to retread. Ignore me if you choose.

This is the point I tried to make to Robert above. If you had to look across waves to find inconsistencies, that would be one thing. And while we often use comparisons across waves to highlight the whole, they're not the only way to do it. Every wave has questionable comparisons - TIE Advanced. Overpriced A-wings vs. underpriced Falcons. Rhymer's cost spike. Phantoms vs. E-wings. Wave 5 may break the mold, just by virtue of everything being equally spectacularly broken.

I honestly think they have done a great, though imperfect job, and would like to express that. It doesn't mean everyone has to bow down and refuse to see any flaws that are there. Focusing on the positives which are overwhelmingly there is not a bad thing I think, and could be done a bit more around here is all.

Nobody has ever said you can't express that. But you've taken to attacking me just because I'm not positive enough for you. There's a big difference between you expressing what you like, and telling people they can't express what they dislike.

so lets do this. Still now, the only advice i commonly see is vague stuff like focus fire or list fixing.

Let's take an "obsolete" list, and without being able to change any parts, test fly it a few times as a community against a supposed counter:

Paul Heaver's XXBB (2 Daggers + AdvSen, Rookie, Biggs)

vs Whisper + VI ACD RC, 5 Ties

... at which point the ships were immediately overcosted upon release, and they have been ever since . The only disagreement we have is that I believe these ships will continue to be overcosted until they receive direct buffs, like the A-wing Refit. You are stating that some other indirect buff may make them playable, several years after their launch. There is, however, no evidence for this theory. Your response is "just wait, it can still happen". We're going in circles at this point. Feel free to dig this post up in a year or two and see how things went.

The Phantom arguably presents a balance problem (although I'd take the con side of the argument), but I don't think it's reasonable to say the E-wing is too expensive overall . Corran and Etahn have both been fairly popular

Corran is really really good. Etahn is OK, but his conditional effectiveness stats in wave 4 Regionals is still below average. This was part of my rationale for dropping Etahn 1 point in my house rules.

Some numbers here would be helpful. You can check the Regionals thread, but here is the summary:

• % of points spent on Rebel named pilots went from 51.76% to 58.34% (no weighting, Final Cut + Top Third only).
• YT-1300 use went from 12.33% to 20.41%, and virtually all of this was named YT-1300.
• Therefore, Rebel named YT-1300 usage went up 8%, and generic usage went down 6.5%. So most of the drop in generic usage can be directly attributed to the shift to Fat Falcons, with another 1.5% coming from of all the other named Rebel pilots getting converted into generics. So excluding Falcons, named Rebel pilot usage actually decreased .

Now lets look at the conditional effectiveness for just the generic pilots for some of the ships in wave 3 vs wave 4. (weighted final placement divided by occurrence at top tables)

X-wing: 87.98% to 52.06%

Y-wing: 113.6% to 104.7%

B-wing: 90.32% to 101.5%

A-wing: 54.97% to 54.4%

Z-95: N/A to 125.2%

E-wing: N/A to 44.45%

TIE Fighter: 131.8% to 104.9%

TIE Interceptor: 148.2% to 38.62% (commentary: wow)

Firespray: 83.91% to 61.26%

TIE Defender: N/A to 46.72%

And lastly, 3/1/8/5 Falcons and all Phantoms:

Named YT-1300: 85.66% to 104.9%

All Phantoms: N/A to 107.0%

Unfortunately, lots of ships look good compared to the generic X-wing. If you balance a ship against the X-wing, then you are more or less guaranteeing that it won't see much play.

so lets do this. Still now, the only advice i commonly see is vague stuff like focus fire or list fixing.

Let's take an "obsolete" list, and without being able to change any parts, test fly it a few times as a community against a supposed counter:

Paul Heaver's XXBB (2 Daggers + AdvSen, Rookie, Biggs)

vs Whisper + VI ACD RC, 5 Ties

I would suggest tweaking Paul's list to be Biggs + 3x Blues + Advanced Sensors, give the list benefit of not dropping 4 points into an initiative bid in the current meta.

Anyone on Vassal can tell you about the yt-2400 being a very strong ship.

Anyone on Vassal can tell you about the yt-2400 being a very strong ship.

I believe you mean the HLC Outrider variant, specifically.

And it's also hard for me to see how additional turrets don't diversify the metagame in an important respect. If the problem is too many Han builds in response to Whisper + VI narrowing the set of strong counters, then presto! In Wave 5 you'll be facing Decimators and YT-2400s in addition to YT-1300s, all of which have different dials, different pilot abilities, and different parameters for durability.

+1, I am looking forward to this, and hoping that it will bring balance back to Imperial and Rebel swarms making more of a showing, without HLC Dash being too powerful.

To add to this, even triple action Dash is paying a lot of points for the privilege of having a turret, although HLC Outrider pays less than any other turreted ship by far. If you can keep guns on it, any swarm will take him down. The potential issue is specifically with Dash's ability.

Anyone on Vassal can tell you about the yt-2400 being a very strong ship.

I believe you mean the HLC Outrider variant, specifically.

And it's also hard for me to see how additional turrets don't diversify the metagame in an important respect. If the problem is too many Han builds in response to Whisper + VI narrowing the set of strong counters, then presto! In Wave 5 you'll be facing Decimators and YT-2400s in addition to YT-1300s, all of which have different dials, different pilot abilities, and different parameters for durability.

+1, I am looking forward to this, and hoping that it will bring balance back to Imperial and Rebel swarms making more of a showing, without HLC Dash being too powerful.

To add to this, even triple action Dash is paying a lot of points for the privilege of having a turret, although HLC Outrider pays less than any other turreted ship by far. If you can keep guns on it, any swarm will take him down. The potential issue is specifically with Dash's ability.

Indeed I did. Dash especially with his ability to use asteroids as blockers. The ability to Boost Barrel roll with a turret does make it very difficult to lock a ship down with concentrated fire though.

My point was that the TIE Advanced and A-wing may have been more appropriately priced during development, prior to their release , but changes in the development process caused their point values to change to a higher value for release.

... at which point the ships were immediately overcosted upon release, and they have been ever since . The only disagreement we have is that I believe these ships will continue to be overcosted until they receive direct buffs, like the A-wing Refit. You are stating that some other indirect buff may make them playable, several years after their launch. There is, however, no evidence for this theory. Your response is "just wait, it can still happen". We're going in circles at this point. Feel free to dig this post up in a year or two and see how things went.

And now you put words in my mouth, awesome. That's not what I said at all. You seem to be stuck on that one facet, which misses the core of this thread of discussion. If you really want understand please look back.

I frankly would rather have no statistics than misleading statistics. I have looked at the data sets that are more complete, and yes there is a popularity effect. There is also an emaciating amount of data for certain ships. I've brought this to your attention and have hopefully encouraged others (especially new players) to not blindly follow statistics, but look closer for themselves, I'll consider that as my small contribution. But really, if you truly understand what I'm saying and have thought about it since you started collecting the data, why do you keep holding up these (at least semi) misleading observations as some kind of gospel?

in a meta that's sharply depressed the use of generic Rebel pilots across all ships, it's hard to come to a firm conclusion about the proper place of Knave Squadron and Blackmoon Squadron.

Some numbers here would be helpful. You can check the Regionals thread, but here is the summary:

• % of points spent on Rebel named pilots went from 51.76% to 58.34% (no weighting, Final Cut + Top Third only).
• YT-1300 use went from 12.33% to 20.41%, and virtually all of this was named YT-1300.
• Therefore, Rebel named YT-1300 usage went up 8%, and generic usage went down 6.5%. So most of the drop in generic usage can be directly attributed to the shift to Fat Falcons, with another 1.5% coming from of all the other named Rebel pilots getting converted into generics. So excluding Falcons, named Rebel pilot usage actually decreased .

To slice the same Regionals data from another perspective: PS1 pilots (like Knave Squadron) were 12.5% of all points spent in Wave 3 Regionals, and they were 9.6% of all points spent in Wave 4 Regionals - meaning their usage went down by 23% = 1 - (9.59/12.52). All generic pilots went from 53.7% of all points to 44.1%, a drop of 18% = 1-(44.05/53.71).

So in successful lists, there were approximately 20% fewer points spent on generic pilots in the Wave 4 metagame than in Wave 3. That's a sharp drop, and it seems reasonable to project that if players were suddenly less confident in the value of generic ships, their willingness to trust generic ships that are also relatively unfamiliar would be even lower--regardless of the actual value of those ships.

My overall point, then, is that:

(1) If the top E-wings are acceptably priced for their observed value, the bottom E-wings are likely not drastically overpriced.

(2) The data that indicates generic E-wings are seldom used should be interpreted in light of a general, likely Phantom-driven drop in players' level of confidence in generic pilots.

(3) In combination, those points indicate to me that the value of generic E-wing pilots should not be determined based on the complex popularity contest of the tournament metagame, but by their actual performance on the tabletop--i.e., by empirical playtesting.

(It's a distraction at this point, and I mention it only to explain the data I prefer to use: I'm not sure I buy the conditional effectiveness numbers. Calculating the proportion of outright wins to the proportion of appearances in the Top 2^N is useful, but only for those ships that appear reasonably often. Ships that don't appear often will likely have highly sensitive "conditional effectiveness"--to such a degree that the value will be indistinguishable from noise.)

Now lets look at the conditional effectiveness for just the generic pilots for some of the ships in wave 3 vs wave 4. (weighted final placement divided by occurrence at top tables)

X-wing: 87.98% to 52.06%

Y-wing: 113.6% to 104.7%

B-wing: 90.32% to 101.5%

A-wing: 54.97% to 54.4%

Z-95: N/A to 125.2%

E-wing: N/A to 44.45%

TIE Fighter: 131.8% to 104.9%

TIE Interceptor: 148.2% to 38.62% (commentary: wow)

Firespray: 83.91% to 61.26%

TIE Defender: N/A to 46.72%

And lastly, 3/1/8/5 Falcons and all Phantoms:

Named YT-1300: 85.66% to 104.9%

All Phantoms: N/A to 107.0%

Looking at the above data, do you still think that it is hard to come to the conclusion about generic E-wings? If you do, then I genuinely don't understand why not.

A couple of possible confounds here:

The e-wing suffered a lot of flak for being an expensive ship, much like the defender, and so was very unpopular at first. People have started warming up to the named pilots.

How much e-wing data is actually there? Taking a look at GenCon for instance out of all the squads I see one Blackmoon, which did fairly well but didn't make it into the final 8. Even with a few more of these "e-wing sitings", what would we really be able to draw from that?

Though, soontir, Jax, royals and to a lesser extent lorrir and sabers have been excellent in wave 4. Between higher pilot skill and ultra maneuverability, particularly with ptl where they gain the turtling ability, they've been better than ever in our local meta. Fat falcons lose to them regularly, as they tend to outgun in numbers and can't be easily arc dodged.

Is our area the only one to see this? This may be anecdotal, but it's enough for me to wonder how they've (interceptors) dropped in efficiency so via the above statistical results.

Guys, I want to add something.

I am pretty clearly on record as believing the Phantom to be over-effective for the cost, to the point of of warping the meta in a negative way and/or creating negative play experiences when facing lists that lack specific anti-Phantom tools.

However, I can tell you with confidence that this is temporary and that things are simply in a state of flux right now. It is difficult to introduce new mechanics, especially interesting and radically new ones like cloak, while perfectly maintaining both long and short term balance. It is much easier to keep it fairly close, and adjust course as needs determine.

It's a great game, with a great team of knowledgeable and enthusiastic devs, and I see nothing but good things coming. "Negativity", at least on my part, is simply an attempt to point out what direction those inevitable corrections should be made.

Ravncat -

I don't think Interceptors have ever been bad. I have done very well with them, even before Wave 4. However, they have always suffered from inconsistent performance (and still do), which accounts for their unpopularity as a tournament ship.

Though, soontir, Jax, royals and to a lesser extent lorrir and sabers have been excellent in wave 4. Between higher pilot skill and ultra maneuverability, particularly with ptl where they gain the turtling ability, they've been better than ever in our local meta. Fat falcons lose to them regularly, as they tend to outgun in numbers and can't be easily arc dodged.

Is our area the only one to see this? This may be anecdotal, but it's enough for me to wonder how they've (interceptors) dropped in efficiency so via the above statistical results.

Nope. I've see it as well locally. But, I'll also admit that those are usually shorter tourneys. Though, I tend to beef mine up so they're more reliable

Related to the OP, I wonder how well Scum faction will be able to handle Phantoms and HLC Dash. The only turrets they have will be Y-wing and HWK, and the highest PS is 7 and 8.

Related to the OP, I wonder how well Scum faction will be able to handle Phantoms and HLC Dash. The only turrets they have will be Y-wing and HWK, and the highest PS is 7 and 8.

Supposedly the scum HWKs are debuff abilities. If they use the same kind of "within range 1-3" limit as the rebel HWKs that could potentially be a counter. It might not kill the ship directly, but it could take away the maneuverability advantage and set up a kill by the rest of your ships. And of course there's always the Firespray, which doesn't have a full 360* but at least has the rear arc to make things a little more difficult.

Also, don't forget that there are new turrets coming. Only having HWKs and y-wings might not be nearly as much of a limit as it is now with only ion and blaster turrets available.

so now this is becoming magic the gathering. where there is the dominant deck, and even though there are devastating answers to that deck the meta is that there are soooooo many decks that the counter to dominant gets thrashed by loses to an almost obscene number of decks, decks that the dominant will trounce with out any real effort. such as an aight year old who learned how to run a deck a week before a tourney; and then placing in that tourney with jund. kind of saddening

Related to the OP, I wonder how well Scum faction will be able to handle Phantoms and HLC Dash. The only turrets they have will be Y-wing and HWK, and the highest PS is 7 and 8.

HLC is a phantom answer, and scum may have the cheapest half carrier, if with a good dial, could be a good counter. If the viper or scyk have good dials, (esp with the segnors loop) we have access to hyper mobility. VI can push to 9/10 p.s.

Heh, these last few posts sound like we're tired of this thread.

I've not read anything that's convinced me that the current meta, which is expressed in a R>S>P model with the Phantom and the Fat Falcon in the leading roles and the TIE Swarm as a bit of a supporting cast in the role of Paper ('covering rock' never really impressed me as much as smashing scissors or cutting paper did), is not, in fact, an accurate representation of the current state of affairs.

I feel a bit sorry for the X-Wing, which, despite being the ship that gave the game it's name, has become a 'has been' ship. (Being a 'has been' is still better than being a 'was', which is the TIE Advanced.)

I also think that the Phantom was just a bit too 'kewl' for this game. I'm also fairly confident that the HLC Dash is going to be the next best thing.

When I joined this forum late last spring (just before Wave 4 hit) I was assured by folks that this game was not suffering power creep. It strikes that the power creep has arrived. I doubt that it was by design, the way it seemed with GW, but it also doesn't seem like it is a function of an ever-expanding amount of possible combinations, with certain unforeseen combinations being where the power creep takes place. It feels like the current generation of designers are producing things that they feel would be neat (or 'kewl'), and they're not being conservative stewards of the game that has been put in their care.

Of course, maybe it's just late and I'm grouchy.

What do you all think?

When I joined this forum late last spring (just before Wave 4 hit) I was assured by folks that this game was not suffering power creep. It strikes that the power creep has arrived.

I don't think it's power creep, because most of the problem has to do with a fairly small number of pilots and/or upgrades rather than a general trend of increasing power. Take away ACD (a blatant design mistake) and suddenly phantoms are strong but not dominant. That instantly has two major effects on Falcons: the Falcon-beating lists that phantoms suppress come back into the metagame, and a lot fewer people feel compelled to have turrets in their lists just to deal with the possiblity of encountering a phantom. Now that's the two dominant lists taken back down to a reasonable percentage of the metagame, and likely a lot more possibilities opened up to use the rest of the game.

I think that it is all easily fixable, especially since most of the problems stem from cards. Take away ACD, take away C3P0, take away the Outrider title, now all 3 ships are immediately well balanced with the game. Immediately. Could Falcons be played well without C3P0? Definitely. Could Phantoms be played well ? Definitely, Tusken Raider just won a tournament in today's meta using a 4x Sigma build, here: http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1245634/where-4-sigmas Could the Outrider be played well without the HLC turret? That remains to be seen, but Eaden Vrill seems promising if you wish to explore that route. Anyway, you could still equip cannons, just not be able to fire them 360deg, so you would pretty much get yourself a Firespray, with a much better dial.

So to fix today's meta issues? Banlist. And let's not kid ourselves, Xwing already has a banlist. Luke / Gunner / Navigator cannot be used on epic ships.

EDIT: dang got ninja'ed

Take away ACD, take away C3P0, take away the Outrider title, now all 3 ships are immediately well balanced with the game.

I think banning C-3P0 and Outrider might be a bit of an overreaction. C-3P0 isn't that much better than crew Chewbacca (unless you're taking pilot Chewbacca, but that's not the preferred Falcon these days), and the current popularity of Falcons has way more to do with counting phantoms than Falcons being the perfect ship for every purpose. Take the pressure of ACD phantoms away and I don't think C-3P0 Falcons would be much more popular than HSF lists were before wave 4. And the Outrider title isn't even out yet. Sure, some people got them early and started playtesting them, but we haven't really seen a fully-developed metagame with it yet to get a clear idea of its power.

I agree with you that the Outrider title card could wait.

I do not agree about C3P0. By itself it is alright, but when paired together with MF title, engine upgrade, high PS, Determination or Chewy's ability, things easily spiral out of control. Individually these parts and pieces are alright, they only become ****** up when they come together.

I do not agree about C3P0. By itself it is alright, but when paired together with MF title, engine upgrade, high PS, Determination or Chewy's ability, things easily spiral out of control. Individually these parts and pieces are alright, they only become ****** up when they come together.

But all of these things already existed before wave 4. I really doubt that adding a slight defensive upgrade (crew Chewbacca to C-3P0) was enough to take Falcon lists from balanced to overpowered. I think the much bigger factor is that the lists which crush Falcon lists are pushed out of the metagame by ACD phantoms and so the Falcon lists are free to dominate. Even a basic wave 1 TIE swarm has a decisive advantage, you just can't play it because if you get into endgame with a phantom still alive you might as well just concede the game and save yourself the effort of playing the last turns. So I think any changes to Falcons (or other ships) need to wait until we've had some experience with a proper wave 4-5+ metagame instead of the warped mess we have right now.

I am kinda tired of this thread being top of the board. I am guilty of feeding though. Feeding hard.

You know, as much as I hate banning things in any game... logically, it does seem to me that if ACD, C3PO and Outrider were banned we would have a more diverse game, at the expense of everyone who does truly love those upgrades. Me? I could live without them.

A question is: Is the Phantom underpowered without ACD? I think its possible.

Autothrusters or whatever fixes for Interceptors really needs to come out soon. The sadness that how terrible of a time Interceptors have in this meta is really inexcusable.

The power creep of removing the low and mid PS ships (like the generic Xs) is incredibly saddening.

So is the lack of use of the Tie Bomber, continuing from its inception.

I don't think it matters if you believe its unbalanced or not, its still really really sad these ships are frustratingly hard to use in this meta.

Chewbacca is completely worse than C3PO by a considerable amount. (At least, thats what it feels to me. Can someone Mathwing it to be sure?)

It feels like C3PO will give about 3 evades per game, assuming the opponent focus fires the Falcon within 2 or 3 turns as they should. This for 3 points.

Chewbacca gives ~2.5 "evades", by restoring 1 shield, and removing a damage card, which is sometimes a direct hit or an important crit. Other times, its a facedown card or a non-relevant crit. This for 4 points.

C-3P0 gives an average of 5/8ths of an evade per round, due to there being a 3/8ths chance of guessing wrong (ignoring range 3 shots). 5/8*4=2.5 evades, so four rounds of being shot at to equal Chewie's mitigation.