I think some 4-2s made it in. I think Alex Davy even mentioned this when talking about Sablegriffyn and his bomber squad.

And of course, people look at the squads and see different things. I see that while the Falcon was popular, there was also some fascinating diversity. We will never have the kind of diversity that people are clamoring for. There was enough diversity in the top 32 to keep me happy, with some really neat odd squads making it in.

I think some 4-2s made it in. I think Alex Davy even mentioned this when talking about Sablegriffyn and his bomber squad.

I'll also just apologize now for my poor attitude. I'm particularly irritable today.

Agreed. A lot of people scream that Fat Han is OP, phantom is OP, but the distribution of lists in the final bracket simply doesn't support this. The top 8 were split evenly between Han, Whisper, TIEswarm, and 4 ship rebel.

Everyone who wants to point out how diverse things are points to the top 8. Everyone who wants to do the reverse points to the top 16 or top 32. It's just cherry picking the data to support whatever claim you have, but neither is really conclusive.

For the record I'm pretty neutral on the issue, but it seems to me that the top-8 data is more important to consider. After all, the point isn't to identify which builds are popular, but rather, which builds are too powerful.

Top 32 represents basically all the builds that went 6-0 or 5-1 in Swiss rounds at Worlds. I'd say that is a pretty good indicator of success and not just "popularity".

I'm not trying to argue diverse or not, just that both data sets are valid and contradict, so let's quit trotting them out as the end-all be-all of conclusive proof of something. They're not.

Also, the top 32 had to/got to face a larger diversity of lists but also a wider range of opponent skill. The top 32 then had some of the same/similar builds knocking each other out where player skill mattered more.

Another factor here is matchups. Some squads just have a horrible time versus others and get pounded head to head.

Does anyone have any intel on what Paul Heavers opponents flew in the first 6 games?

His choice to play R2-D2 over gunner really paid off for him but this might not have worked too well if he faced lists where gunner was more important.

Agreed. A lot of people scream that Fat Han is OP, phantom is OP, but the distribution of lists in the final bracket simply doesn't support this. The top 8 were split evenly between Han, Whisper, TIEswarm, and 4 ship rebel.

Indeed. Also, I'd point out that Worlds is behind us. We're just about to get Wave 5, and Wave 6 will be forthcoming. Next year the meta is likely going to be different.

Alex (iirc) talked about some hard counters to the current meta coming out. What I wonder is if that means that we're going to see power creep, with older ships becoming obsolete unless they get some Chardaan-refit-style love, or if the new ecosystem of competitive ships will bring them back up to competitiveness organically. Perhaps the hard counter to the current meta will have an Achilles heel to those older ships. I think that would be awesome, but it strikes me as tricky to engineer in a complex adaptive system like ours.

So, let's put Worlds and the meta of 2014 behind us and think about where the meta may shift in the future.

Actually, the data that would REALLY be indicative (but would also require us to do a bit of mathing) is to take all of the "fat Han" lists, all the "whisper" lists, all the "TIE swarm" lists, and group the rest of the lists however you like, then calculate and look at their overall win-loss percentages. If any of the win-loss results for one particular group is substantially bigger than 50%, then that's a sign that there is a problem.

That makes sense, except that 2 waves will hit stores in the next 3 months. So the whatever the meta is right now doesn't matter if waves 5 and 6 fix it.

I'd like to point out that in the interview, Alex mentions Phantoms as one reason for the popularity of Fat Han. It's not the only one, of course, but if there wasn't a need to deal with super arc-dodgers, people may not look so hard at turrets, ways to boost the power of those turreted ships, etc.

That means the game doesn't necessarily need, say, a counter to turrets; maybe it just needs a different way to deal with Echo, and the cascading effect would remove Fat Han from the metagame. I thought that was a particularly relevant point of game design when talking about the effects of certain builds and how to influence their relative power up or down.

- H8

http://teamcovenant.com/blog/2014/11/13/alex-davy-on-x-wing/

Alex talks about fortressing

Meta-trends-blah... yeh.

Most importantly the last ten minutes of this fine chat is all about the forthcoming glory... Oh Dat GLORY that is Scum & Villainy!

One thing game designers will mention candidly is that communities are great at pointing out problems, but not great at knowing why something is a problem, and thus usually have terrible solutions.

In Borderlands, for instance, there was early beta feedback that movement was awful and slow. The solution was to have the art team add extra rubble and trash to the ground. Players had more to measure walking against, and the "problem" went away.

"Fat Han" is great, because it has a low skill floor- anyone can use it with some success. It also has a high skill ceiling- learning when to evade, boost, and/or focus is an enormous challenge. Learning how to maneuver a large base ship is a different challenge. Let's not forget that a Fat Han with Engine upgrade plans to be an _arc dodging large ship_. That's not an easy thing to do.

I actually do think Fat Han is just slightly OP. Maybe by 1 or 2 points. That's a hard problem to solve, and addressing it head on would probably be overkill.

So in an ideal world the Tie Advance is somehow buffed in such a way that it becomes a soft counter to the Fat Han.

That is unlikely to happen. The best counter to Fat Falcons is overwhelming firepower. Which, it looks like Scum may be able to provide. I don't see the Advanced getting a higher attack.

One thing game designers will mention candidly is that communities are great at pointing out problems, but not great at knowing why something is a problem, and thus usually have terrible solutions.

Players, quite simply, have terrible ideas. Let the designers design the game. The best way you can help them do that?

Play the game.

There are reasons why designers aren't allowed to read forums,

I'd like to point out that Alex said in this interview that they DO read the forums, they just aren't allowed to post.

There are reasons why designers aren't allowed to read forums,

I'd like to point out that Alex said in this interview that they DO read the forums, they just aren't allowed to post.

Right right, correcting. Point being that they may start unnecessary quarrels with players who want certain things.