And I thought it smelt bad on the outside!

It wasn't long ago that I felt refreshed reading these forums. Vorpal is right on. The grim darkness of the far future seems to have firmly entrenched itself here. So much the pity, although the salty tears of the fatalists are ambrosia for the soul.

Has it ever dawned on you that there might be a good reason for all these complaint threads? The complainers might -gasp- have a leg to stand on maybe?

Or you could just stick your head in the sand and tell yourself everything is fine, we've seen what good this has done to other wargaming companies (from a competitive point of view, you can make anything work in friendlies).

I think that possibly, we'd be putting more stock in the complaints if each wave didn't have their version of people crabbing about Fat Han. Going backwards it was turrets in general people complained about, then Interceptors (yeah that was a thing, people thinking that 3 attack and 3 evade was totally OP), then it was Ions, because apparently every person who ever got ioned by anyone was going to get ioned onto an asteroid and get hit with the Direct Hit card, every round forever. And good lord, the lamentations of people balking at Proton Bomb's ability to bypass shields. Never mind that it was 5 points for a one-off that could miss.

So no.. no we don't feel that the complainers have a leg to stand on. Every falcon build I've beat, I've beat simply by flying ships I thoroughly enjoyed and was used to flying.

For one, the points cost of the relative ships are dramatically different. 12, 21, 22, 18 vs. 45+, 12, 12, 40+, 22. Even normalized for points, the Falcon and the Phantom mark a large commitment of points in any list, which means they're central elements. I'm also not sure I agree that a 13% jump in winning squad appearance is a small difference. And, finally, as helpful as the data is, I've never been comfortable with laying everything solely on big events - that's what we have data for, but if big events are perfectly balanced and the mass of local events aren't, it'll kill the game.

If we want to talk local meta, in Wave 3, my area meta was dominated by rebel ships made up of two B-wings+something, most often a falcon. So, actually my planning when I went into a tournament was how to deal with those two lists. It was actually worse then than it is now. Local metas are always going to be different (both good and bad), but I also think they're easier to bust in some ways. At larger events, you more often have top players playing top lists.

We can quibble about the effective winning percentage, but when the numbers are 113% for Wave 3 and 126% for Wave 4, I just don't think that's that big of a deal, especially as that's an even smaller sample size. Though, I'd love to hear how MajorJuggler would evaluate his own numbers there as he did the calculations.

But more importantly, I think this misses the point I'm trying to make. It's less about which specific ships are dominant and far more about the emergence of ships that are so dominant you cannot have a competitive game without actively accounting for them as part of your own build. When you've got the potential to face a Phantom or hypermobile Dash, you cannot deal with them via flight tactics - you must address them as part of your build. As our group starts facing and discussing Dash, the only option we see for dealing with him is blocking or high-PS ships with repositioning abilities. That closes off a TON of build options right there .

I think that certainly some of that is intended (I think it's obvious there was a push to bring named pilots back and especially the top PS pilots), and maybe some wasn't (maybe it cut off more builds than intended). However, the alternative was a game that stagnated with the same tactics. I actually disagree with you on the notion on flight tactics not playing a role in beating a phantom, it's just that different flight tactics are needed. Either way, I do think that one thing the designers have shown and made clear is that they will continue to work to make irrelevant ships relevant again. We're going to see it with the A-wing and we've heard hints of it with the Advanced and Y-Wing.

Ships pre-4 stood on their own merits as a positive evaluation, not a counter

I've been trying to think about what has changed in X-wing lately, and have a possible theory.

.......

This worries me, and I think this is a bad thing for the game. X-wing provides a great play experience because the game is good. The more we have "Well, there's no point in playing this matchup" matchups which are decided at the list-building phase, the worse the game is going to be.

While I'm sure the usual suspects will have the usual responses, I'm curious what the rest of the community thinks. Has anyone else felt this shift?

What you have described here is EXACTLY what happened to Warhammer 40K. It seems that game designers cannot stay away from the Power Creep slippery slope. I'm sure every designer wants to leave their mark on the game but in their head is a tiny Matt Ward saying, "Mindshackle Scarabs! Do it, you know you want to! " I'm sure there's one over at FFG and hell, now that Ward has left GW, maybe he'll relocate to Minnesota. But I'm sure he'll only go if he gets to rewrite the SW fluff.

But seriously, I used to say that this game was really solid about not letting power creep take over. These days, not so much.

And I thought it smelt bad on the outside!

It wasn't long ago that I felt refreshed reading these forums. Vorpal is right on. The grim darkness of the far future seems to have firmly entrenched itself here. So much the pity, although the salty tears of the fatalists are ambrosia for the soul.

Has it ever dawned on you that there might be a good reason for all these complaint threads? The complainers might -gasp- have a leg to stand on maybe?

Or you could just stick your head in the sand and tell yourself everything is fine, we've seen what good this has done to other wargaming companies (from a competitive point of view, you can make anything work in friendlies).

I think that possibly, we'd be putting more stock in the complaints if each wave didn't have their version of people crabbing about Fat Han. Going backwards it was turrets in general people complained about, then Interceptors (yeah that was a thing, people thinking that 3 attack and 3 evade was totally OP), then it was Ions, because apparently every person who ever got ioned by anyone was going to get ioned onto an asteroid and get hit with the Direct Hit card, every round forever. And good lord, the lamentations of people balking at Proton Bomb's ability to bypass shields. Never mind that it was 5 points for a one-off that could miss.

So no.. no we don't feel that the complainers have a leg to stand on. Every falcon build I've beat, I've beat simply by flying ships I thoroughly enjoyed and was used to flying.

If every wave has people complaining about Fat Han, to me that screams that there is a problem with the build.

I agree that you have to look at the quality of the complaining. But i've seen some sensible arguments put forward in these complaints recently.

I think that possibly, we'd be putting more stock in the complaints if each wave didn't have their version of people crabbing about Fat Han. Going backwards it was turrets in general people complained about, then Interceptors (yeah that was a thing, people thinking that 3 attack and 3 evade was totally OP), then it was Ions, because apparently every person who ever got ioned by anyone was going to get ioned onto an asteroid and get hit with the Direct Hit card, every round forever. And good lord, the lamentations of people balking at Proton Bomb's ability to bypass shields. Never mind that it was 5 points for a one-off that could miss.

I'm sorry, but most of this is fiction, or at the very least INCREDIBLY cherry-picked.

Was there someone somewhere that thought interceptors and ions and Proton Bomb were game-breaking? Probably. But are you seriously going to hold them up to the volume of people who think there's a problem with the current overload of Falcons? I don't remember ANYONE complaining about Proton Bombs, much less everyone. Hell, the **** thing's a 5-point one-shot. Are you seriously going to hold it up as a comparison to the discontent over what the Falcon can do?

I think that certainly some of that is intended (I think it's obvious there was a push to bring named pilots back and especially the top PS pilots), and maybe some wasn't (maybe it cut off more builds than intended). However, the alternative was a game that stagnated with the same tactics. I actually disagree with you on the notion on flight tactics not playing a role in beating a phantom, it's just that different flight tactics are needed. Either way, I do think that one thing the designers have shown and made clear is that they will continue to work to make irrelevant ships relevant again. We're going to see it with the A-wing and we've heard hints of it with the Advanced and Y-Wing.

And I actually think all of this is fine, at least in concept.

But what's happened, IMHO, is that the modifications weren't subtle, and things that might have been originally intended to counter the main problem build (such as Phantoms vs. swarms) came in so powerful that there wasn't any choice but for every squadron to figure out how to deal with it.

The truly big difference is, again, how you deal with it. Maybe it's just selective memory on my part, but I remember the many "How do you handle a swarm?" discussions, the main advice was "Don't joust. Make them maneuver through the asteroids if you can, force them to break formation, prioritize Howlrunner as a target and avoid the blocking potential." There's a little of that with Phantoms ("Spread your fire arcs") but almost nothing for dealing with Falcons. Maybe "Block it", but that's such a core part of any flight plan it barely counts. What do we have as the discussion? Taking higher-PS pilots. Getting more attack dice. Use Wedge and Outmaneuver to limit 3PO. R3-A2 and Flechettes to stress it. Take ions so it'll be stuck cloaked.

It all feels very different to me.

I've been trying to think about what has changed in X-wing lately, and have a possible theory.

.......

This worries me, and I think this is a bad thing for the game. X-wing provides a great play experience because the game is good. The more we have "Well, there's no point in playing this matchup" matchups which are decided at the list-building phase, the worse the game is going to be.

While I'm sure the usual suspects will have the usual responses, I'm curious what the rest of the community thinks. Has anyone else felt this shift?

What you have described here is EXACTLY what happened to Warhammer 40K. It seems that game designers cannot stay away from the Power Creep slippery slope. I'm sure every designer wants to leave their mark on the game but in their head is a tiny Matt Ward saying, "Mindshackle Scarabs! Do it, you know you want to! " I'm sure there's one over at FFG and hell, now that Ward has left GW, maybe he'll relocate to Minnesota. But I'm sure he'll only go if he gets to rewrite the SW fluff.

But seriously, I used to say that this game was really solid about not letting power creep take over. These days, not so much.

While I get that new ships and cards that are played a lot look like power creep, I don't think this is the same thing -- at all. We aren't seeing entire waves making old waves obsolete. There are some new ships that are, sometimes unfortunately, pushing out other ships, but I doubt it's on purpose (otherwise why refit the A-wing and hint at improvements for other ships?) and some of that is bound to happen even if they were perfectly balanced (there are only 100 points to standard lists after all) , But, we also see new cards released that invigorate old ships. I know it's easy to forget but the Falcon is a Wave 2 ship and most often its built with Wave 2 upgrade cards and 3PO, who was released in the midst of Wave 3.

We have ships and cards still seeing play from Wave 1, 2, and 3 consistently and plenty of Wave 4 stuff that doesn't see the light of day either.

I think that certainly some of that is intended (I think it's obvious there was a push to bring named pilots back and especially the top PS pilots), and maybe some wasn't (maybe it cut off more builds than intended). However, the alternative was a game that stagnated with the same tactics. I actually disagree with you on the notion on flight tactics not playing a role in beating a phantom, it's just that different flight tactics are needed. Either way, I do think that one thing the designers have shown and made clear is that they will continue to work to make irrelevant ships relevant again. We're going to see it with the A-wing and we've heard hints of it with the Advanced and Y-Wing.

And I actually think all of this is fine, at least in concept.

But what's happened, IMHO, is that the modifications weren't subtle, and things that might have been originally intended to counter the main problem build (such as Phantoms vs. swarms) came in so powerful that there wasn't any choice but for every squadron to figure out how to deal with it.

The truly big difference is, again, how you deal with it. Maybe it's just selective memory on my part, but I remember the many "How do you handle a swarm?" discussions, the main advice was "Don't joust. Make them maneuver through the asteroids if you can, force them to break formation, prioritize Howlrunner as a target and avoid the blocking potential." There's a little of that with Phantoms ("Spread your fire arcs") but almost nothing for dealing with Falcons. Maybe "Block it", but that's such a core part of any flight plan it barely counts. What do we have as the discussion? Taking higher-PS pilots. Getting more attack dice. Use Wedge and Outmaneuver to limit 3PO. R3-A2 and Flechettes to stress it. Take ions so it'll be stuck cloaked.

It all feels very different to me.

I see your point here, but I wonder (and I am just speculating) that a lot of the items you mention at the end are relatively late additions to the game, Wave 3 or later altering the game mechanics to a degree. Pre 4 ship choice was more heavily based on its stats and there were limited upgrade cards that had significant affect against lists and ships (or that those kinds of things weren't cost effective, like assault missiles against swarms). Still, that goes to your point that at least the discussion has changed and as more cards are introduced that play around with the mechanics we end up with cards that are more efficient counters than flying.

It's because of this shift in the meta that I'm not going to Worlds, despite only living a few hours away. I find myself thinking more and more of "is this an efficient list" and less of "is this a list I would enjoy flying?" and that's not the game I want to play. X-Wing has become like Magic in the latest tournament season: if you don't play one of three lists (Phantom, Fat Falcon, or TIE Swarm), you have no chance at the competitive level, and that's just no fun.

I can't find words right now to describe how... let's say "self-defeating" this is. There is no rock-paper-scissors, and there is no "play one of these netdecks or go home early". There was a list in the top 8 at Nationals with three Omicron Group Pilots and a Bounty Hunter. Was Dom playing the same thing as everyone else? The winner, D4rkT3mpl4r, was playing a Phantom list--but he also brought an Interceptor and a Lambda, both of which "should" have been in the "not good enough for prime time" category.

There is absolutely room for you to play something other than those three lists (which, as AlexW says, aren't very specific anyway). Find something you like, something you're going to have fun with, and then play the way you want to play.

Because the other option is to huddle into the narrow box the netdeckers are building for all of us, and to buy into the grim fantasy that there's nothing outside it. I don't want to play that way... so I don't . And I still win games!

What did Dom spend his last 4 points on? Everyone talks about his list, but I haven't seen the specific writeup of it anywhere. Is it somewhere in the bowels of Nationals Results thread, or what?

I think that possibly, we'd be putting more stock in the complaints if each wave didn't have their version of people crabbing about Fat Han. Going backwards it was turrets in general people complained about, then Interceptors (yeah that was a thing, people thinking that 3 attack and 3 evade was totally OP), then it was Ions, because apparently every person who ever got ioned by anyone was going to get ioned onto an asteroid and get hit with the Direct Hit card, every round forever. And good lord, the lamentations of people balking at Proton Bomb's ability to bypass shields. Never mind that it was 5 points for a one-off that could miss.

I'm sorry, but most of this is fiction, or at the very least INCREDIBLY cherry-picked.

Was there someone somewhere that thought interceptors and ions and Proton Bomb were game-breaking? Probably. But are you seriously going to hold them up to the volume of people who think there's a problem with the current overload of Falcons? I don't remember ANYONE complaining about Proton Bombs, much less everyone. Hell, the **** thing's a 5-point one-shot. Are you seriously going to hold it up as a comparison to the discontent over what the Falcon can do?

That's just it: I'm not seeing volume (number), I'm seeing volume (loudness). It's mostly been the same few people complaining over and over in every thread. And most (but not all) of them winge and moan and at the same time completely disregard solid advice on how to deal. You want me on your side in this? You want to convince people? Have those same crybabies go play 10 rounds using each method described. Then come back. Either they'll find some actually work fairly well, and they'll quit adding to the sea of tears, or they'll have documentable proof that after 50 games they still couldn't do jack against it and then we've got some real proof to work from. All I keep seeing is fifty versions of "i lost against this today please nerf."

There's a little of that with Phantoms ("Spread your fire arcs") but almost nothing for dealing with Falcons. Maybe "Block it", but that's such a core part of any flight plan it barely counts. What do we have as the discussion? Taking higher-PS pilots. Getting more attack dice. Use Wedge and Outmaneuver to limit 3PO. R3-A2 and Flechettes to stress it. Take ions so it'll be stuck cloaked.

I believe I mentioned something like this before in another thread, though it may have been from the other perspective: to me it feels that many people are simply complaining instead of reevaluating. I believe my outlook on this comes from how I learned to play this game: it started off as just me and one friend playing countless matches against each other… sometimes upwards of 6 a day. There was never a build that one of us could make that, about 4 matches later, wasn't almost useless because the other person had the chance to quickly iterate on their approach to it. Whether it was squad building or maneuvering or what. Did Ten Numb feel broken to me? Sure. Until game 3, when I put 3 interceptors at his back. Phalanxing x-wings with Proton Torpedoes? Ouch… until I learned how to approach them so that i went from "not in range" to "range 1 and ripping them to pieces". Wedge scary? Not when he's facing a Firespray with Advanced Proton Torpedoes and Marksmanship, or Vader with Marksmanship and Concussion Missiles. I can easily eat the loss of the evade, but Wedge can't easily answer back against 3-4 hits and a crit.

I'm going on and on here, my point is that people need time to get clobbered by it (some more than others) before they notice its weaknesses, and once they've retooled their approach I think they won't be so adamant about Fat Han's brokenness.

(also, come on: Outmaneuver. Seriously, it's 3 points, can go on almost anyone, and works as a great card in any situation so it sits firmly in the "soft counter" play pen.)

I would agree with you entirely, but I think the shift is coming from players, rather than from designers. (Maybe a consequence of the game's broadening appeal, particularly to experienced wargamers of the 40k refugee variety--where list building is a primary emphasis?)

That is, it's clear to me that people are thinking reactively: someone might play this , so I should play that to win. What's not clear is whether or not it's a shift in the game itself. If it were, I would expect to see a new group of players in the top tier: people who, unlike the successful players of Waves 1-3, think and plan reactively rather than figuring out what they want to fly and figuring out how to make it work.

But in fact that's not what I see. Most of the people in the cut at Nationals were people I've met or at least interacted with online in various places--and they're people with lots of practice and a string of solid tournament performances behind them, including high finishes at major events from the past couple of years.

Maybe it's true that the current meta is more a function of the intersubjective than the material base (ie. the hype, rather than the given pieces of the game). However, that doesn't make it any less real.

When I play casually at the FLGS, I see a much greater range of ships than I do at the local tournament. My last tournament was almost all Falcons and Phantoms. Aside from that, there was me flying bombers and another fellow flying B-Wings. I got busted early on by a Falcon, and then by the guy flying B-Wings (both of whom are legitimately better players than I am). No, the guy with the Bs did not end up winning the tournament. One of the Phantom flyers did. The guy (I mentioned) flying one of the Falcons came in second.

I'm not saying that other lists can't win against Falcons or Phantoms, but it's drastically harder to see them rise to the top when 8/10 of the lists at the tournament are Falcons or Phantoms. Also, I certainly haven't cracked the code on what to fly that will give good odds (50% ceteris paribus ) to beating both. So, in the meantime, I'm trying hard to think of what tertium quid I can bring that can stand me in good stead against those Phantoms and Falcons. (Yes, there's the TIE Swarm, but what else?)

So, what are some good reactive lists - and flying tips for those lists - to try to give the Phantoms and Falcons something to really think about?

(I'm just using some Latin for the fun of it.)

That's just it: I'm not seeing volume (number), I'm seeing volume (loudness). It's mostly been the same few people complaining over and over in every thread. And most (but not all) of them winge and moan and at the same time completely disregard solid advice on how to deal. You want me on your side in this? You want to convince people? Have those same crybabies go play 10 rounds using each method described. Then come back. Either they'll find some actually work fairly well, and they'll quit adding to the sea of tears, or they'll have documentable proof that after 50 games they still couldn't do jack against it and then we've got some real proof to work from. All I keep seeing is fifty versions of "i lost against this today please nerf."

I think the same could be said on other other side. There's a definite list of usual suspects trying to shout them down that I could run through without needing to start on the fingers of hand #2, much less toes. None of them contribute anything either. I'm also not sure I agree about the quantity, because it seems to me like we're getting threads from a lot of different people. Nothing scientific there, just a feeling.

I am going to say though that this sort of response is exactly what has me sick of the boards. If you can't discuss it without calling people "crybabies" and requiring that they prove 50 games playing with exactly the build described before they're allowed to speak... <shrug> I'll take overwrought "I can't beat this" crying over rude "STFU you crybaby noob!" any day.

I'm going to make a quick point about OP. I don't feel that the meta has shifted towards list-building, it's just that it's the easiest thing to do over the Internet. Having trouble with Fat Han? Why don't you switch that Predator for an Outmaneuver? It's much easier to give that kind of advice and discuss list-building then giving flying advice.

I'm going to make a quick point about OP. I don't feel that the meta has shifted towards list-building, it's just that it's the easiest thing to do over the Internet. Having trouble with Fat Han? Why don't you switch that Predator for an Outmaneuver? It's much easier to give that kind of advice and discuss list-building then giving flying advice.

Agreed telling someone to fly better is of no help what so ever, you can help them tweak their build but unless your there with them it's very hard to give practical advice on improving their choice of manoeuvres.

I cannot disagree with what is being said here. I enjoy flying Vader in the Tie Advanced and in our local league I often do so - basically our group enjoy changing and tinkering with what we like to fly; in my squads I try to incorporate Vader.

This weekend I have a tournament and I am building a squad around the Phantom so that I can compete. I have a 4 hour round trip and also funding food and drink, when taking all those facts into consideration I really want to have a worthwhile trip and get beyond the swiss pairings.

vader for he win!

Where are all these TIE swarms, because I sure ain't seeing any. It's being frequently outed as an effective Fat Falcon counter but I'm not seeing significant uptake.

The meta was always reactive: people talked about "learning your local meta" so you can counterbuild it since I got here back in semi-early Wave 3. Then you've got the netdeckers who just copy off the tournament ranking, meaning whichever list wins gets duplicated everywhere and stays at the top through sheer weight of numbers. People looking for an edge outside of the game itself.

But all this reactive building is mostly illusory, a bad habit brought over from games where it is necessary. Yes, if you have a small number of low pilot skill ships you'll have problems with ships that thrive off of dodging arcs (TIE interceptor, TIE phantom), and if you over-rely on arc dodging you'll suffer against ships that can't be arc dodged (except come Wave 6 they semi-can). The phantom broke up the omnipresence of tight formation flying, which is what it was meant to do: it made ships doing their own thing far more viable by making Biggs and Howlrunner less viable: when a superarcdodger appears, spread out your arcs, if you're fighting a lot of them, bring a high pilot skill pilot or Roark.

The Falcon can be beaten, you just need to learn its tricks and fly around them, turning it into a contest of skill rather than of build.

Has it ever dawned on you that there might be a good reason for all these complaint threads? The complainers might -gasp- have a leg to stand on maybe?
Or you could just stick your head in the sand and tell yourself everything is fine, we've seen what good this has done to other wargaming companies (from a competitive point of view, you can make anything work in friendlies).

And what exactly do we suggest we do? Scream, run in circles, place a load of Falcon adverts all over the forums?

The Fat Falcon problem is a community created one, not a design one. It's problem lies in numbers, not in power. It's a good list, but it's only been elevated to such ridiculous heights because when people lose to it or get so sick of encountering it over and over that they post complaints on the forums, because the mass netdecking of it means it will not get out of the top rankings (simply because there are so many). Phantom too: people were screaming OP at it before it had even been released, so many tears that their supertight formation Vassal Biggs list was no longer dominant. Now we've ingrained it so throughly it won't go away until something new scares it off, and what we need to do is be very careful not to make a new problem like this in the future. If only a few people played these lists it wouldn't be a problem in the slightest: it's their mass prevalence due to being told over and over "you must play these lists to win" that is the problem. It works in reverse too: the TIE defender was completely written off by "internet wisdom" before it even came out and now it's all but unheard of.

This means everyone needs to shut the [insert expletive here] up about "hypermobile Dash" being the new Falcon before we end up actually turning him into the next Falcon, and likewise in future waves stay calm, don't believe what the forums tell you until you've throughly tested it for yourself, and avoid netdecking wherever possible.

If you scream "overpowered", what you're doing is screaming "PLAY THIS IT'S AWESOME" to the internet.

I cannot disagree with what is being said here. I enjoy flying Vader in the Tie Advanced and in our local league I often do so - basically our group enjoy changing and tinkering with what we like to fly; in my squads I try to incorporate Vader.

This weekend I have a tournament and I am building a squad around the Phantom so that I can compete. I have a 4 hour round trip and also funding food and drink, when taking all those facts into consideration I really want to have a worthwhile trip and get beyond the swiss pairings.

That's a TIE advanced. Everyone acknowledges that ship is severely underpowered and the designers say it's getting a buff not that far down the line (I'd imagine just after Wave 6).

What do we have as the discussion? Taking higher-PS pilots. Getting more attack dice. Use Wedge and Outmaneuver to limit 3PO. R3-A2 and Flechettes to stress it. Take ions so it'll be stuck cloaked.

To me that reads "use a broader variety of game mechanics."

All this being said, I'm genuinely surprised TIE swarms aren't everywhere again. I guess the Falcon's cheaper in real money.

I've been trying to think about what has changed in X-wing lately, and have a possible theory.

.......

This worries me, and I think this is a bad thing for the game. X-wing provides a great play experience because the game is good. The more we have "Well, there's no point in playing this matchup" matchups which are decided at the list-building phase, the worse the game is going to be.

While I'm sure the usual suspects will have the usual responses, I'm curious what the rest of the community thinks. Has anyone else felt this shift?

What you have described here is EXACTLY what happened to Warhammer 40K. It seems that game designers cannot stay away from the Power Creep slippery slope. I'm sure every designer wants to leave their mark on the game but in their head is a tiny Matt Ward saying, "Mindshackle Scarabs! Do it, you know you want to! " I'm sure there's one over at FFG and hell, now that Ward has left GW, maybe he'll relocate to Minnesota. But I'm sure he'll only go if he gets to rewrite the SW fluff.

But seriously, I used to say that this game was really solid about not letting power creep take over. These days, not so much.

While I get that new ships and cards that are played a lot look like power creep, I don't think this is the same thing -- at all. We aren't seeing entire waves making old waves obsolete. There are some new ships that are, sometimes unfortunately, pushing out other ships, but I doubt it's on purpose (otherwise why refit the A-wing and hint at improvements for other ships?) and some of that is bound to happen even if they were perfectly balanced (there are only 100 points to standard lists after all) , But, we also see new cards released that invigorate old ships. I know it's easy to forget but the Falcon is a Wave 2 ship and most often its built with Wave 2 upgrade cards and 3PO, who was released in the midst of Wave 3.

We have ships and cards still seeing play from Wave 1, 2, and 3 consistently and plenty of Wave 4 stuff that doesn't see the light of day either.

True, the game hasn't creeped to the point where 40k is now (and yes, it is creep). You're spot on about getting some new cards for old ships. The new scum pilot cards already have me giddy and I'm looking forward to running scum Y's and HWK's since I've never played them much with the Rebels. The problem with releasing new upgrade cards that reinvigorate the old ships is that they also buff ships that don't need buffing. So FFG has to take special care to think about the consequences of not limiting an upgrade to a faction or ship size...maybe they need a new classification?

Regardless of whether they address the creep issue or not, creep will increase unless they decide to reboot the game at some point. Three years from now they'll be grasping for ideas over at FFG on how to keep the game fresh in a game where Falcons can teleport and VT's can mount Mass Drivers that use the asteroids as ammo, perhaps they'll do the reasonable thing and go back to the drawing board.

All this being said, I'm genuinely surprised TIE swarms aren't everywhere again. I guess the Falcon's cheaper in real money.

Ex-Swarm player here,

They are also boring to fly with and against. Especially in Swarm v Swarm (not that relevant anymore, but in the last Wave it was bad)

And what exactly do we suggest we do? Scream, run in circles, place a load of Falcon adverts all over the forums?

Bring it up on the official forums? Bring it up to the attention of the designers? Is that really a bad thing?

All the rest

That's, like, your opinion only. Please don't try to pass it off for a general truth. You say that fat Han and Phantom are taken because people just netdeck and these lists are over-represented? I say it's because of their design and the fact they give a very clear advantage in game compared to other lists.

Bring it up on the official forums? Bring it up to the attention of the designers? Is that really a bad thing?

Do you think the designers live in a box with no outside communication? They know what's going on with X-wing in the wider world. They're also professionals, they're not going to act out of hysteria. They verify things via playtesting, they don't take rash and hasty measures. If something is genuinely broken they find out and they fix it. Howlrunner TIE swarm can no longer take over because Wave 4 introduced strong counters to both it and Biggs Darklighter. Likewise, if the Falcon is a genuine problem they'll give it a harder time in future releases: Wave 6 has a card called Autothrusters which apparently is meant to level the Falcon playing field for TIE interceptors (which are the ones which genuinely suffer from the Falcon prevalence).

Besides, if you think posting on the forums is talking directly to the designers, it's really not. It's talking to the community . If you want to talk to the designers, if you want an official response, you use the customer support forms on the main website. If you post here saying Falcon OP you're telling the world. Most people upon hearing something is OP, that playing something will give them an advantage, will play it.

That's, like, your opinion only. Please don't try to pass it off for a general truth. You say that fat Han and Phantom are taken because people just netdeck and these lists are over-represented? I say it's because of their design and the fact they give a very clear advantage in game compared to other lists.

I'm basing that on the mass netdecking of all the previous "top lists." Whatever the new craze it, it gets everywhere. XXBB started out as Paul Heaver's crazy idea, he won with it and then suddenly there are copycats all over the rankings, at the top and at the bottom.

Plus, we know there are huge number of Falcons and Phantoms around. If they're so broken, why do we constantly get other lists appearing in top rankings? Falcons and Phantoms are being beaten and regularly, they just require a change in thinking, an adaption of tactics. Most of the phantom "OP" rage early on was from people who refused to adapt, they kept very tight formations around Biggs and they died.

I used to have exactly the same opinion of you on killing Falcons and the constant death of my TIE interceptors until I learned how deal with it. If you've closed your mind and decided the Falcon has to change rather than you then there's nothing I or anyone else can do to persuade you otherwise, but if you haven't, look within for a solution rather than without.

And what exactly do we suggest we do? Scream, run in circles, place a load of Falcon adverts all over the forums?

Bring it up on the official forums? Bring it up to the attention of the designers? Is that really a bad thing?

It would be a good thing if (a) posting on the forums was the same as bringing it to FFG's attention, and (b) you had concrete, actionable feedback. "Threepio is broken", as an example, isn't enough even if it were unequivocally true.

All the rest

That's, like, your opinion only. Please don't try to pass it off for a general truth. You say that fat Han and Phantom are taken because people just netdeck and these lists are over-represented? I say it's because of their design and the fact they give a very clear advantage in game compared to other lists.

Okay, but your hypothesis fails to explain all of the observed evidence: other lists still win regularly even against Falcons and Phantoms. Lagomorphia's hypothesis, on the other hand--that they're strong lists, but not broken ones--fits better.

As I continue to look back at statistics, I'm continuing to be a bit perplexed by the difference in perception between Wave 3 and Wave 4.

Currently there are two ships that people perceive to be dominating the game (Phantom and Falcon). In the past, wasn't the TIE swarm more dominating than lists built with these two?

The TIE fighter itself was absolutely the dominating ship in the game, appearing more often and winning more often than either the Falcon or the or Phantom are now. No other ship came even close to it's effectiveness (138% and ironically, the closest ships were the Y-Wing and Interceptor but weren't within 20 points) or winning effectiveness (168% -- closest ships, Lambda and Interceptor weren't within 20 points again). It was far more dominating and more used in Wave 3 than either the Phantom or the YT are in Wave 4.

It's also interesting that, at least from MJs archtype regional statistics, Wave 3 lists with at least 4 or 5 TIES + YT lists were seen with about the same frequency as lists built around phantoms + YTs (a bit over 50% of lists in both cases). Of course, I'd have to dig deeper to see if the overall variety beyond that has become more limited, but again the perception is interesting as things aren't that much different in terms of the top lists being made up of similar archetypes -- they're just different ones than they are now.

However, it's also worth pointing out that maybe there was also a different approach for whatever reason because competitively, there's solid evidence that really wasn't an answer to the TIE swarm pre-wave 3 yet it either wasn't as perceived as such a problem or people are remembering differently. I'd argue that that archetype was more dominant it "should/could" have be played even more, but for whatever reason wasn't.

Of course, this doesn't say much about the local meta and for some that may be a problem, which is a bit sad to me as I'd think that there'd be a lot more room for experimentation there than in the premier events.

I guess that, in sum, while the additional mechanics have had certainly had an impact on the strategy of the game and particular ships are seeing more play, I think there's more going on than just those two factors. Maybe information we have now has narrowed people's choices or caused them to be less creative, or maybe it's tied into the expansion of the player base that has changed the mentality both in the list building arena and the discussion on the boards.

A couple thoughts about it.

People have been complaining about the YT since wave 2. They've also complained about the Shuttle, the B-Wing, Ion's, Assault Missiles, and I'd dare say nearly everything that's come out. For every complaint thread started about Fat Han, I bet there's 2 for how OP'ed the Howl swarm was. People begging FFG to do something to stop the swarm.

There is a point to what Buhallin is saying because list building has changed some since Wave 4 came out. But even in Wave 1-3 it wasn't like you could just bring any old list to Worlds and expect to do well, you had to have some way of countering things like the Howl Swarm or HSF. So there was some reaction even then.

The XXBB was a good list, because it could deal with both of those as well as most anything else that was likely to be there. So it was as much reaction as it was anything else. But all list building is somewhat reactionary, you have to build a list that can counter what the other guy will bring.

I also think that as X-Wing becomes more popular as a tournament game, rather then a friendly beer and pretzels type game, what we're seeing is only natural. When I started playing between wave 1 and 2, we didn't have these kinds of discussions but the stakes were also different.

Also there is a very real point of as the game gets more popular, more and more people will try to use methods that work in other games, like netdecking and looking for power combos or killer lists.

I cannot disagree with what is being said here. I enjoy flying Vader in the Tie Advanced and in our local league I often do so - basically our group enjoy changing and tinkering with what we like to fly; in my squads I try to incorporate Vader.

This weekend I have a tournament and I am building a squad around the Phantom so that I can compete. I have a 4 hour round trip and also funding food and drink, when taking all those facts into consideration I really want to have a worthwhile trip and get beyond the swiss pairings.

I'm sure many other good things have been said in this thread, but this one ruminated a bit in my brain.

I wonder what percentage of players are so constrained by their time to play, that they choose to play what they know has a high chance of winning. This then pushes more players to using the internet heavy meta lists and kills some of the creativity of the game.

If I can get in 3-4 matches a week, I may get to play a lot more variety in my lists and see combos that haven't been on the table much. The player who doesn't have as much time may want to stick to the tried and true - understandably so.

And I thought it smelt bad on the outside!

It wasn't long ago that I felt refreshed reading these forums. Vorpal is right on. The grim darkness of the far future seems to have firmly entrenched itself here. So much the pity, although the salty tears of the fatalists are ambrosia for the soul.

Has it ever dawned on you that there might be a good reason for all these complaint threads? The complainers might -gasp- have a leg to stand on maybe?

Or you could just stick your head in the sand and tell yourself everything is fine, we've seen what good this has done to other wargaming companies (from a competitive point of view, you can make anything work in friendlies).

I think that possibly, we'd be putting more stock in the complaints if each wave didn't have their version of people crabbing about Fat Han. Going backwards it was turrets in general people complained about, then Interceptors (yeah that was a thing, people thinking that 3 attack and 3 evade was totally OP), then it was Ions, because apparently every person who ever got ioned by anyone was going to get ioned onto an asteroid and get hit with the Direct Hit card, every round forever. And good lord, the lamentations of people balking at Proton Bomb's ability to bypass shields. Never mind that it was 5 points for a one-off that could miss.

So no.. no we don't feel that the complainers have a leg to stand on. Every falcon build I've beat, I've beat simply by flying ships I thoroughly enjoyed and was used to flying.

Isn't THIS^^ the crux of the matter?

I've flown against plenty of lists that people have complained about, and I've lost. I've figured out how to fly against them and won as well. The sky ISN'T falling people!!

Fat Han is a thing - we all have to deal with it. Does that mean I'm going to build directly to counter it every single time? HELL NO! That isn't fun - for me or for my opponent. I personally want to know that I'm doing the best I can with the list I bring rather than bringing the best LIST I can. That's not to say I'm not building a strong list, it just says that I'm not building to counter X.

Fly what you enjoy. Don't give me the argument that the game is over before dials are set. The game is over before YOU even hit the tournament floor with that attitude. There are plenty, PLENTY of alternative ways to shut down Fat Han, and Phantoms, and Swarms, and Flankers. We've seen countless suggestions. JUST. PICK. ONE. When a 3 point card (Outmaneuver) can ruin Fat Han's day, I say that the Chicken Littles of the world don't have a leg to stand on. When the first ship firing on Fat Han causes 3PO to activate, and the 7 others are able to take him on unmolested, I say the Chicken Littles of the world don't have a leg to stand on. There are countless other options.

Fat Han won't go away. We all need to learn to fly better though, so it becomes less of a deciding factor in our tournament lives. I guarantee that while it won't disappear, it WILL fade. Until then, consider it practice. Learn how to outmaneuver and outfly it. And stop hopping around on your one 'leg to stand on'.