My concerns:

1. Release date? This matters because I have time now to play. No idea whether this would be the case come next February or March.

2. New best builds for Scum? So far, I am liking the Scum style. I like how the Scum actually make secondary weapons highly viable again. Don't know about you, but I rarely see secondary weapons other than HLC near whether I live. But with Kavil, the Y-Wing title, and other newly revealed cards, secondary weapons can actually be quite strong now. However, I do not know what builds will wind up being the best for the Scum. Wouldn't want to buy a bunch of Scum, only to find out that some units are barely playable. This is especially since I don't know most of the fluff behind the Scum and have no time to learn the fluff, so I only play Scum for the gameplay and not for the story (I.E. Unit Strength is very important). This is in contrast to the Empire, where I am cool with getting a TIE Advanced because, hey, it's Vader.

Because of these two concerns, I think I will play by ear and not order any Scum until they have actually been released.

<shrug>

Scum won't have Krassis. I mean, even Boba Fett has new life in the current environment. The Decimator is nice, but I will still prefer the Firespray and it's HLC.

The Firespray is probably my most used ship, but I've never like that I had to fly it with Imperials, It never fit in to me. Also, I always felt it's too fast for an HLC, I prefer it with just crew and EU, and the Defender is perfect for HLC, if a bit costly.

<shrug>

Scum won't have Krassis. I mean, even Boba Fett has new life in the current environment. The Decimator is nice, but I will still prefer the Firespray and it's HLC.

The Firespray is probably my most used ship, but I've never like that I had to fly it with Imperials, It never fit in to me. Also, I always felt it's too fast for an HLC, I prefer it with just crew and EU, and the Defender is perfect for HLC, if a bit costly.

The Firespray was never an Imperial ship, and I HATED that it was pushed into that fake role.

It does not matter now, becuase we have gloriouse SCUM!

im getting more and more peeved by this games' possible direction.

That's unfortunate. Personally I'm loving it. I love the variety, I love the balance, and I love the sheer fun factor. And I can't wait to see what FFG pulls out of the hat for us next.

For every "core" ship there should be updates and changes.

Why? If a ship is doing what it should be and has no balance issues then why should there be change just for the sake of having more stuff to buy?

The clearest need happens to be on the imperial side AND the updates/changes are not occuring on that side at all.

And what need is that? Let's look at the imperial ships:TIE fighter: no problems.TIE interceptor: no problems with the ship itself, needs an ACD nerf to fix the turret-heavy metagame.TIE bomber: no problems with the ship itself, but would benefit from an overall missile/torp fix.TIE defender: maybe slightly overpriced, but in the same situation as its rebel equivalent.TIE phantom: absurdly overpowered and needs a huge nerf, not more options.TIE advanced: probably the worst ship in the game, but FFG is working on it.Shuttle: no problems with the ship itself, just suffers a bit from the standard 100 point game not leaving much room for dedicated support ships.Firespray: base ship is fine, could maybe use some better unique pilots but should they really be imperial and not scum?So what exactly needs to be fixed with more options?

The bwing "needing" help is a stretch, it needed about as much help as the firespray.

It's not a stretch at all. The generic b-wings were popular, but only with a limited set of options. Meanwhile the unique pilots were both terrible and never used. That's a major design failure that needed to be fixed. And that's exactly the fix we got: unique pilots that don't suck, and a crew slot option to encourage creativity in b-wing setups instead of "my blue has more HP per point than a rookie".And yeah, the Firespray has a similar unique pilot problem, but it also has another problem: it isn't really an imperial ship. It's a scum ship that was put into the imperial faction because FFG needed a Falcon equivalent and there wasn't a third faction yet. And since there are no imperial pilots in the fluff the only way to add more imperial Firespray pilots would be to take stuff away from the scum faction.

Your bwing "problem" is exactly the problem that shuttles and firesprays have. The same problem (only 1 pilot really, Jax and RGPs maybe) in the already "aced" interceptor stable. The empire has that opposite problem in that only named phantoms are used. And DOUBLE that problem with bombers and Advanced. Let us not forget that your Bwing "problem" is happening on the 2nd most used rebel ship in the game. Apply your "problem" to the Empire and you see what is happening to the Empire as a whole.

And yes, every ship ever created should have new content and options made available to it. In fact, the tie fighter is probably he only ship that hasn't already had new options made available to it (even the decimated and outrider already see new toys in most wanted). I'd like to see a few more named tie pilots for fun and options not so the company can make money, but that too, so that the game can grow and expand. One of the problems with phantoms is there is no semi-competitive option other than named+VI+ACD.

I don't want an imbalance, I want a similar number of viable semi-competitive options for all three factions. That is not the case right now. And right now that imbalance will exist until after most wanted. That could be next May-June.

I don't want an imbalance, I want a similar number of viable semi-competitive options for all three factions. That is not the case right now. And right now that imbalance will exist until after most wanted. That could be next May-June.

Define what exactly you mean by "viable semi-competitive options". Because from my point of view, EVERY Imperial ship is a viable semi-competitive option.

I thought 4 Phantoms did okay in a recent online tournament?

FTS Gecko: Rakky has an unrealistic view on balance. It's a balanced game if each ship has equal representation in the top tables. Which is going to be impossible as the game gets bigger. The meta has contracted a bit since Wave 4, but it is mainly a learning period.

Frankly I see nothing but good things coming with Wave VI. We don't know all the details yet, but between the Y-Wing title and bomb loadout, the new turret, and the as-yet unspoiled cannons, I think there's plenty that's going to impact the Rebel and Imperial lists moving forward. As I prefer Defenders and Firesprays, generally, the cannons in particular hold my attention.

But, Ion Torpedoes are going to shake up the Bomber a little, the mysterious Thruster upgrade is pegged for the Interceptor, and supposedly the Advanced is being worked on; I don't see how the Empire isn't making out pretty well with Waves V and VI, never mind moving forward.

...it stems from the fact that people are tired of having their asses handed to them simply because they decide to play something that so depends of green dice that the minute you roll the dreaded 3 blanks there goes you 30+ pt ship.

The average number of successes (hits and crits) rolled by a ship with 3 attack dice and a focus token is 2.25, with a median of 2 and a mode of 2.5. So, while it's frustrating to roll all blanks, the likelihood of losing your "30+ pt ship" to a single attack is always fairly low.

More typically, it's going to take a lot of attacks to kill an Imperial ship. The "Typical Shots to Kill" column here describes the number of attacks it takes for the mode of damage (the most frequent result) to equal or exceed the ship's hit points, assuming the defender does not modify dice:

Ship | p (all blanks) | p (OHKO) | Typical Shots to Kill

TIE Fighter | 5.3% | 2.2% | 3

TIE Advanced | 5.3% | 0.0% | 4

TIE Interceptor | 5.3% | 2.2% | 3

Firespray-31 | 14.1% | 0.0% | 7

Lambda-class Shuttle | 37.5% | 0.0% | 6

TIE Bomber | 14.1% | 0.0% | 4

TIE Defender | 5.3% | 0.0% | 5

TIE Phantom (+cloak) | 2.0% | 0.0% | 5

TIE Phantom (-cloak) | 14.1% | 0.0% | 3

Decimator | 0.0% | 0.0% | 7

It's not terribly likely that your TIE Interceptor will roll three blanks in the first place, although it's high enough that you'll probably see it at least once in a day of tournament-style play. But even if you do, you're not very likely to lose your ship to it; you're also easily able to avoid it by using the evade action and/or taking a modification that adds hit points.

More typically, it should be clear that you get pretty good defensive value from those "fragile" Imperial ships (having an evade or focus token to spend on defense pushes the values in that "Typical Shots" column up by at least 1). In fact, overall the Empire has stronger defense than either the Rebellion or Scum: HWKs, X-wings, and Headhunters typically survive only 3 attacks under the same conditions, and B-wings and Y-wings can only survive 4.

I get what you're saying, but you're blowing a rare event out of proportion and using it to draw an unfounded conclusion. People are leaning Rebel these days because Falcon lists are dominating the metagame, not because the Empire relies too heavily on green dice.

Basically it has degenerated into if you can't beat em, join em! Last weekend i was the only Empire player out of 6 but luckily a Rebel player played Empire for the 1st time in a tournament.

There is a problem even if you refuse to see it, and the Decimator wont fix it since the rebels are getting and even better ship.

I have substantial experience with both ships, and while they're both good, the Decimator matches my preferences and playstyle much better.

Still, the one shot Fel at Range 3 is bad enough to leave emotional scars. Sadly, I've done it to the same guy twice...

Still, the one shot Fel at Range 3 is bad enough to leave emotional scars. Sadly, I've done it to the same guy twice...

In my first (and so far only) tournament win, I won the final match by OHKOing an undamaged Fel + Stealth Device through his evade token.

Knowing what I know now, it looks like a pretty hefty mistake from my opponent: he had initiative against Han + Gunner + Marksmanship, and closed to Range 1 and spent his focus token on the attack. My chances of killing him in one shot were actually fairly high--something like 7-8%, which is too much to wager in a championship game. But I still remember it, almost two years later, and he probably does too.

I'm not saying that this particular cognitive bias isn't a powerful one, or that there isn't potential value in the reliability of high-hp lists as compared to the variable performance of high-Agility lists. But the idea that people as a whole are being pushed away from Imperial lists by rolling green dice ignores both probability and the fact that the majority of Imperial ships aren't particularly vulnerable in that way.

FTS Gecko: Rakky has an unrealistic view on balance. It's a balanced game if each ship has equal representation in the top tables. Which is going to be impossible as the game gets bigger. The meta has contracted a bit since Wave 4, but it is mainly a learning period.

Ah, OK. So I guess the TL;DR for the topic is "there are plenty of Imperial options available, but I do not want to use them so the faction is imbalanced", then?

I've never defined that as what I consider balance. Nor will I.

Nor do I believe that the game can't be balanced as it expand.

Thanks again Sithborg for making my point for me: When the Meta contracts and you already have less options (again vanilla vs. vanilla bean vs. french vanilla), you're running out of stuff to play that can be fun AND win a game AND not just feel like you played the same game even though your list was "different".

I know that the rebels felt the same when xxbb was everything. XXBB was hit hardest by the phantom (swarm was just a collateral damage and there has been a lot of anti swarm tech to follow). Before Phantom the B was the second most used ship in the game after the Tie Fighter.

If you are only concerned with the top tier, the tier one stuff, sure. But the tier 1 stuff will NEVER be as balanced as you want Rakky. That is the nature of the competitive game. As nice as Major Juggler's numbers are, they are not a true analysis of the meta. Squads are what are important, not percentage of ship usage.

And while the top tier may have had some contraction, the tier 1.5 and tier 2 stuff is still wide open and fun. The tier 1 stuff does not shut down the fun stuff nearly enough to detract the fun from the game.

If a single release can "contract" the metagame, why can one single release or multiple releases not expand it? Top tier or not?

My point is and has been, now with your new label for it, that contraction is happening on one side, has been happening, and with the information we have right now, will continue to happen for some time. At the same time, it is not contracting but growing on the other side AND, since this is game now has a third faction, it is growing in a third way AND many of those areas of growth on the "third side" are also growing the rebel side (I admit we don't know what the firespray buff is but we also have no evidence that the S&V Firespray will buff the Empire's at least not in Most Wanted).

I'm not saying the game is broken, sky is falling, or any of the other extremest terms being thrown around. The rebel side has 3 (2 specifically so far RIGHT now) ships being buffed or expanded on by the introduction of the third faction, the empire has one and it's still a maybe in the short term, 2 huge ship packs worth of upgrades to ships, and a vastly superior "aces" pack vs. the empire getting some imperial only crew and 2 imperial only EPTs.

Actually, the contraction of the gatekeeper squads (the squads that are the top of the top) actually is in favor of the Empire. The general consensus is that the trio of top squads are Phantom-Falcon-Swarm. Howlrunner still makes Imperials the best swarmers around.

As for the rest of it, it comes down to how we see things. It is fairly obvious by now that you see things in a completely different light than I do. You say that the third faction is helping out 3 Rebel ships, yet only 1 Imperial. Outside of the Y-wing, what direct boosts are other ships getting. We know that there is a new Firespray Title. We will see how that works for Imperials. Yes, there is a new Turret option for the HWK and Outrider, but that is really nothing compared to the three new cannons that are coming. And when it comes to cannons, the Imperials have some of the best support (Jonus) and users (Defenders and Firesprays) for them. Accuracy Correct is okay, but there are a few Imperial ships with the System slot as well. So please tell me what other 2 ships are getting a boost by the Most Wanted, because there really isn't anything in there for Rebel Z-95s.

And I think you are not correct when you are comparing what the factions get when you compare the two Aces packs and the two Wave 5 packs. Yes, Rebel Aces did more for the A-wing than Imperial Aces did for the Interceptor. And quite frankly, they needed it more, especially with the introduction of the Z-95. I would say that the B-wing got the short end of the stick vs the Interceptor though. The Interceptor got a new, high PS generic. And the Royal Guard Title is more useful than the B-wing/E2. Making B-wings more expensive isn't exactly the best plan. And there were good pilots and meh unique pilots in both. And the various upgrades in Wave 5 is about even, imo. A lot of them favoring the Imperials a bit more (namely, Lone Wolf is more powerful on the Imperial's large amount of high agility ships).

The general consensus is that the trio of top squads are Phantom-Falcon-Swarm.

Everyone says this but where are the swarms? All that seem to come up are Fat Hans and Whispers.

Thanks again Sithborg for making my point for me: When the Meta contracts and you already have less options (again vanilla vs. vanilla bean vs. french vanilla), you're running out of stuff to play that can be fun AND win a game AND not just feel like you played the same game even though your list was "different".

And here's the problem: you're defining "feels different" in a way that makes every superficial difference between rebel ships/lists a big deal, but minimizes all of the differences beteween imperial ships/lists.

Your bwing "problem" is exactly the problem that shuttles and firesprays have.

No it isn't.

The b-wing's problem was that the uniques sucked and the generics were mostly used for their jousting efficiency, with little reason to upgrade them beyond AS or FCS.

The shuttle's problem is that 100 point games don't leave much room for support ships, a problem that the rebel support ship only gets to ignore because of Roark and the importance of PS 12 in the ACD metagame.

The firespray's problem is that the uniques are kind of underwhelming but any new uniques have to be scum, not imperial. So the imperial firespray is trapped in a situation where it can't really improve very much.

These are three very different problems, and only the b-wing's problem was easy (or even possible) to fix.

The same problem (only 1 pilot really, Jax and RGPs maybe) in the already "aced" interceptor stable.

Fel, Phennir, Jax are all good named pilots, and you have the extremely efficient RGP for a generic. The problem with interceptors is not the interceptor itself, it's the ACD phantom.

The empire has that opposite problem in that only named phantoms are used.

You know why? Because the named + VI + ACD combo is so blatantly overpowered that there's no reason to take anything else. Why take a generic when, for a few points more, you can take the most overpowered ship in the game? Giving the phantom more options would only make the situation even worse.

And yes, every ship ever created should have new content and options made available to it.

Why? If a ship is working just fine then why should FFG add more stuff just to increase the price of owning everything? That's a perfect recipe for rules bloat and diminishing returns on the quality of each new addition. Good game design isn't about options for the sake of having more options, it's about adding relevant and interesting options where they are needed.

If a single release can "contract" the metagame, why can one single release or multiple releases not expand it? Top tier or not?

Because the biggest problem with the narrow metagame right now is the blatantly overpowered ACD phantoms. A new "add more options" release has very little room to change the metagame significantly because there's a high chance that it is either too weak to compete with the overpowered ship, or even more powerful than the overpowered ship and way too dangerous to even consider releasing. If you want to expand the current metagame then ban ACD.

My point is and has been, now with your new label for it, that contraction is happening on one side, has been happening, and with the information we have right now, will continue to happen for some time.

No, it's happening on both sides. Rebel lists have seen tons of options removed in the current metagame, and now you're pretty much limited to a choice of fat Falcon + support or VI Wedge/Corran/etc with support.

The rebel side has 3 (2 specifically so far RIGHT now) ships being buffed or expanded on by the introduction of the third faction, the empire has one

That's because you're only counting explicit "can only be used with ship X" cards, not buffs in general. For example, if the new turret options are a y-wing/HWK buff then the new cannon options are a TIE defender buff.

Also, the y-wing is the only rebel ship that gets a "ship X only" upgrade. Rebel HWKs and z-95s are not getting anything new, other than new turret options which won't have much impact on the HWK.

I have yet to see anything that would even come close to breaking game balance in wave 6 from what has been spoiled so far, so I don't think there is any reason to cry "sky is falling" yet. The named Scum pilots are as a whole are looking very interesting and competitive.

If you are only concerned with the top tier, the tier one stuff, sure. But the tier 1 stuff will NEVER be as balanced as you want Rakky. That is the nature of the competitive game. As nice as Major Juggler's numbers are, they are not a true analysis of the meta. Squads are what are important, not percentage of ship usage.

Hey, I have been tracking squad archetypes as well!

I have things planned for future tracking though, provided I can get all the game data... maybe by this time next year....

If a single release can "contract" the metagame, why can one single release or multiple releases not expand it? Top tier or not?

Because the biggest problem with the narrow metagame right now is the blatantly overpowered ACD phantoms. A new "add more options" release has very little room to change the metagame significantly because there's a high chance that it is either too weak to compete with the overpowered ship, or even more powerful than the overpowered ship and way too dangerous to even consider releasing. If you want to expand the current metagame then ban ACD.

Come wave 5, I think Phantom use is going to drop with the increased turret usage from the YT-2400 and VT-49. So that's the bright side. The down side is that in a few months it will go from complaining about Fat Han / Phantom to triple action Dash Rendar instead.

If you want to expand the current metagame then ban ACD.

There's something like a five-post rule when I read your posts. I go through a thread where you're involved and think "okay, agree, agree, agree, agree, agr... wait, what?!"

There's nothing in the game that needs to be banned. Even if ACD is overpowered--and to be clear, I don't think it is--it's not breaking the game. Furthermore, banning any popular game element would result in the community (and this community, in particular) moving on to something else, which would then be taken up as the thing that's broken.

Come wave 5, I think Phantom use is going to drop with the increased turret usage from the YT-2400 and VT-49. So that's the bright side. The down side is that in a few months it will go from complaining about Fat Han / Phantom to triple action Dash Rendar instead.

I think phantom use will decline, but not by much. Most people who would fly those other turret lists are probably already flying fat Falcons right now, so the situation doesn't get much worse for the phantom players. And I don't think its effect on the metagame will change much at all. Even if fewer people are using it the phantom is still an auto-lose threat you have to worry about. For example, would you take a wave-3 XXBB list to a tournament when encountering a phantom list probably means losing the game and having no chance of taking first place?

Even if ACD is overpowered--and to be clear, I don't think it is--it's not breaking the game.

I disagree. ACD can be beaten, but it has a vastly disproportionate effect on the metagame. Your entire list concept has to be designed around beating an ACD phantom, and if you don't include the proper anti-phantom counters you're almost certainly going to lose. And it just isn't much fun when you come up with interesting ship/list ideas but have to discard them because they have no chance against an ACD phantom. Ban ACD and those other lists become viable options again, and the metagame as a whole is a lot more interesting.

There have been similar situations in MTG where a deck could be beaten, but it was too powerful and was warping the metagame into the overpowered deck and decks designed specifically to beat it. Those metagames weren't much fun, and WOTC responded by banning the problem cards to open up the metagame. And it worked.

Furthermore, banning any popular game element would result in the community (and this community, in particular) moving on to something else, which would then be taken up as the thing that's broken.

But there aren't really any similar things that we know of. ACD isn't a problem just because it's the current best thing, it's a problem because of how many potential lists it eliminates. And I don't see any other options that have anywhere near the same potential to say "don't even bother deploying your ships, I win".

I think we're getting away from the nature of Wave VI, which itself is going to have some interesting effects on the metagame, but honestly I don't see ACD Phantoms as a major problem to the game anyway. It hasn't truly eliminated much from the game at all, people just think it has; I made a decent showing at my Regionals tournament with nothing but Wave II and III kit, and took down three Phantoms along the way without using a turret. People just need experience flying against Phantoms, because maneuvering is still everything.

I'm not too worried as a potential Scum player, either; they already seem to have enough tricks in their toolbox to bring to bear against the shifty devils.The Star Viper and IG-2000 in particular seem like they'll manage quite well, but the details remain to be seen. So far, the only two ships over which I'm concerned are the X-Wing and the TIE Advanced, but the unique pilots for the former and the upcoming tweak for the latter mean I'm not too put out.

Even if ACD is overpowered--and to be clear, I don't think it is--it's not breaking the game.

I disagree. ACD can be beaten, but it has a vastly disproportionate effect on the metagame. Your entire list concept has to be designed around beating an ACD phantom, and if you don't include the proper anti-phantom counters you're almost certainly going to lose. And it just isn't much fun when you come up with interesting ship/list ideas but have to discard them because they have no chance against an ACD phantom. Ban ACD and those other lists become viable options again, and the metagame as a whole is a lot more interesting.There have been similar situations in MTG where a deck could be beaten, but it was too powerful and was warping the metagame into the overpowered deck and decks designed specifically to beat it. Those metagames weren't much fun, and WOTC responded by banning the problem cards to open up the metagame. And it worked.

Furthermore, banning any popular game element would result in the community (and this community, in particular) moving on to something else, which would then be taken up as the thing that's broken.

But there aren't really any similar things that we know of. ACD isn't a problem just because it's the current best thing, it's a problem because of how many potential lists it eliminates. And I don't see any other options that have anywhere near the same potential to say "don't even bother deploying your ships, I win".

I'm with you except for the ban idea. ACD has warped the meta but I don't think a ban is the right fix. A better idea would be a couple anti-cloak upgrades, like what they did for the swarm with assault missiles and other area effect upgrades.

For example:

A System upgrade that lets you reduce a cloaked ship's agility by 2.

A Unique EPT that lets you look at an opponent's dial at range 1-3.

A Tractor Beam that forces a 0 move.