What would be the rationale for updating the damage deck? What could possibly be more fair than both players having the exact thing?

Both players having the same thing and that thing not favoring one side over the other.

What would be the rationale for updating the damage deck? What could possibly be more fair than both players having the exact thing?

Both players having the same thing and that thing not favoring one side over the other.

You believe the current damage deck favors one player over another, and adding several new critical hit types would rebalance things? Is that correct?

Not necessilary, just at the time it was designed it covered disabling all areas of the game this far. Now there have been so many new additions, some to many of them go unaddressed in the current damage deck.

Both players having the same thing and that thing not favoring one side over the other.

You believe the current damage deck favors one player over another, and adding several new critical hit types would rebalance things? Is that correct?

I personally am not certain, I haven't given it a thorough analysis, but it is a common accusation I have seen people here make whenever the subject of a new/expanded damage deck is brought up and so is an answer to jrade's question about why people would want such a thing.

I'd be happy with a reprint/replacement pilots deck for the crappier ships.

I look at A-Wings with the refit and think "Yeah, that make the A wing more attractive, but it also guarantees I will *never* take any missiles."

I think it's the simplest, most reasonable way to go. Adding more options and more rules to make specific ships better can create unexpected problems. Going back and re-adjusting the cost of a ship, can too, but it's far less likely, and you would assume there is a massive amount of play data that will help with the analysis.

I'd be excited to see a "new" ordnance deck, to adjust the cost of the early release ordnance. and to get ordnance the cheap way. It'd be a great thing to have in general, as I'd love to play with more proximity mines but have no intention of buying 4+ Slave I packs.

Maybe an X-Wing 2.0 core set. I know I'd buy it.

Not necessilary, just at the time it was designed it covered disabling all areas of the game this far. Now there have been so many new additions, some to many of them go unaddressed in the current damage deck.

Blinded Pilot (2)

Console Fire (2)

Damaged Cockpit (2)

Damaged Engine (2)

Damaged Sensor Array (2)

Direct Hit! (7)

Injured Pilot (2)

Minor Explosion (2)

Minor Hull Breach (2)

Munitions Failure (2)

Structural Damage (2)

Stunned Pilot (2)

Thrust Control Fire (2)

Weapon Malfunction (2)

The only exceptions are:

Injured Pilot if you have no pilot ability or EPT

Munitions Failure if you have no secondary weapon

However, even those two exceptions are pretty broad. At least half of all available pilots have an ability, and secondary weapons includes cannons, turrets, missiles, and torpedoes. I wouldn't want a damage deck diluted with cards which have no bearing on many ships; eg, disabling a crew member when so few can even have them, or disabling an illicit weapon if it's not a S&V faction. If it ain't broken, don't fix it.

Making it mandatory is such a large, large break from FFG's policies for playing the game. The core is really the only purchase you need beyond the ships that you want to play. Adding a new item to purchase just to play in tournaments is a very large break from that philosophy, no matter how inexpensive it may be.

Just sayin'.

For what it's worth, I think it's a bad idea to patch new damage cards into the deck, or issue a new one. I think the right place for that kind of move is to just update the deck if and when X-Wing 2nd edition comes around. Descent and Talisman both had update packs to satisfy old players.

A somewhat better fix IMO would be to FAQ the Munitions Failure to affect a random (non-Elite?) upgrade. Make one card universal, rather than adding many specialized ones.

To bring it back closer to the OP: in general, I'd rather they FAQ'd old cards or just plain made them work better, rather than issuing more new/power creep cards. I don't want to buy a ship in, say, Wave 8 only to find out one of the card spots is taken up by "More Advanced-er Torpedoes!"

Fixing the stuff I already bought > making me buy new fixed stuff.

- H8

Personally, I definitively thumbs-down a Core 2.0 Set, as version creep is one of the things that drove me away from Games Workshop's clutches and into FFG's waiting arms... and my money into their bank accounts without complaint I might add.

That said, Rividius' idea about a munitions pack is a great one I think. I custom ordered acrylic bomb tokens but I know FFG would have rather gotten that cash. Extra specialized tokens and 'fixed' cards for a few bucks is a good plan. Cheap to produce as no miniatures are included but people who are really psyched about tournament play as opposed to Flying Casual have an option to do so. 'Unfixed' cards should still be perfectly legal.

I see what you are saying Hatemonger and agree on a basic level, I just don't like the idea of having a card that says one thing and having to have an FAQ full of new points values printed out to use the most current set of rules. Again, such shenaniganry is the realm of the Grim Darkness of the Far Future.

Can we list the things that are being missed by the current damage deck? Crits that affect new(-ish) abilities like Cloak and Boost I suppose? What else?

If you're dealing face-up crit cards to enemy ships, then they're (mostly) not going to be too healthy regardless of what the crit effect is.

Relying on dealing one or two specific (existing or dreamt-up) crit effects to an enemy ship isn't a good strategical plan from the onset.

The current damage deck has enough sufficient crit effects to cripple most ships in the game. It works fine.

I think.....

I'd be thumbs down to either a new core game or selling cards with alt ships. I can imagine the outrage 'I never play rebels/imperial but not I need to buy a ship I don't want to have the new deck'. Even if you have two new ships then what about the cross faction upgrades.

If they ever sell a new deck (not that it's needed) it might be wise not to include a new alt ship with it.

I'd say if they ever want to do a new damage deck. The idea above about reprinted cards with the errata on them, alt art pilots, and upgrades would be the way to go.

I'm not saying that they should or would. But if they put out such a pack for $15 or so, I'd pay for it.

The ships that are most prone to criticals are the large ships with low agility but high hull values (falcon, decimator, shuttle to a lesser extent). Those ships all have crew slots... Something not in game design when the damage deck was made. Lots of those ships do take crew members to become effective. Many of those ships take modifications as well (fat han engine upgrade to arc dodge). Injured pilot, sure would hurt Han plenty.. But there are only two of them in the deck.

I understand the decreased odds of drawing cards in probability better than most, that doesn't change the fact that the crit deck being 'just fine' is something that a game designed should accept. There is a huge difference between a game being 'fine' and being 'awesome' and I doubt the game designers are shooting for mediocrity.

I do completely agree that if done, it needs to be handled very, very carefully... But it's of my opinion that adding damage to fully encompass all aspects of the game is worth the hassle of changing.

Personally, I definitively thumbs-down a Core 2.0 Set, as version creep is one of the things that drove me away from Games Workshop's clutches and into FFG's waiting arms... and my money into their bank accounts without complaint I might add.

I think there are good reasons that they might do a second version some day, but I don't think it'll be soon, and I think they'd want to be very careful about how they roll it out: I'm just about as invested in the game as you can be, but three years ago I would have said the same thing about D&D, and version creep pushed me away from that game just like it pushed you away from GW.

That said, Rividius' idea about a munitions pack is a great one I think. I custom ordered acrylic bomb tokens but I know FFG would have rather gotten that cash. Extra specialized tokens and 'fixed' cards for a few bucks is a good plan. Cheap to produce as no miniatures are included...

I'm not sure that last bit is a good assumption. I'm fairly confident in my guess (although it is a guess, with no numbers to back it up) that the cost of the physical miniature is a relatively small portion of the overall cost of an expansion. Consider the list of other costs that have to be recouped: salaries and benefits for a couple of full-time developers; art commissions, plus time from FFG's design and layout department; costs for licensing, including both a bit of time from the legal department and an amortized slice of the licensing fee; and costs for printing, packaging, and distribution.

...but people who are really psyched about tournament play as opposed to Flying Casual have an option to do so.

It's a bit off-topic, but Fly Casual and tournament play aren't at all incompatible. In fact, Fly Casual started out as a reminder for tournament players to take it easy and be ambassadors for the game.

I see what you are saying Hatemonger and agree on a basic level, I just don't like the idea of having a card that says one thing and having to have an FAQ full of new points values printed out to use the most current set of rules. Again, such shenaniganry is the realm of the Grim Darkness of the Far Future.

I think this is the main reason FFG avoids errata when possible, and hasn't yet issued errata on point costs. It would have been easier to just drop the point cost of the A-wing back by 2 across the board, but instead we have the Chardaan Refit--because (among other things) it means no one has to carry around the FAQ to demonstrate that the cost of a Green Squadron Pilot is 17 rather than 19.

The ships that are most prone to criticals are the large ships with low agility but high hull values (falcon, decimator, shuttle to a lesser extent). Those ships all have crew slots... Something not in game design when the damage deck was made. Lots of those ships do take crew members to become effective. Many of those ships take modifications as well (fat han engine upgrade to arc dodge). Injured pilot, sure would hurt Han plenty.. But there are only two of them in the deck.

I understand the decreased odds of drawing cards in probability better than most, that doesn't change the fact that the crit deck being 'just fine' is something that a game designed should accept. There is a huge difference between a game being 'fine' and being 'awesome' and I doubt the game designers are shooting for mediocrity.

I do completely agree that if done, it needs to be handled very, very carefully... But it's of my opinion that adding damage to fully encompass all aspects of the game is worth the hassle of changing.

Actually, I think you would have a hard time backing up this claim, given the long development lead times (18+ months) that FFG uses. It would be *very* hard to believe that the YT-1300 and Firespray were not already in development when the core set came out, or that the designers didn't take crew members into account when the damage deck was designed.

The molds are actually probably a significant cost to making the miniature. Granted, they try to make that back, what with the repaints and all.

And given how soon Wave 2 was announced after Wave 1 was ready to release, I'm going to say that Wave 2 was pretty far in development with Wave 1.

Personally, I definitively thumbs-down a Core 2.0 Set, as version creep is one of the things that drove me away from Games Workshop's clutches and into FFG's waiting arms... and my money into their bank accounts without complaint I might add.

That said, Rividius' idea about a munitions pack is a great one I think. I custom ordered acrylic bomb tokens but I know FFG would have rather gotten that cash. Extra specialized tokens and 'fixed' cards for a few bucks is a good plan. Cheap to produce as no miniatures are included but people who are really psyched about tournament play as opposed to Flying Casual have an option to do so. 'Unfixed' cards should still be perfectly legal.

I see what you are saying Hatemonger and agree on a basic level, I just don't like the idea of having a card that says one thing and having to have an FAQ full of new points values printed out to use the most current set of rules. Again, such shenaniganry is the realm of the Grim Darkness of the Far Future.

Can we list the things that are being missed by the current damage deck? Crits that affect new(-ish) abilities like Cloak and Boost I suppose? What else?

There's a huge difference between updating some cards that don't work properly and GW's heavy handed Edition changes. We're talking about fixing an aspect of the game that simply doesn't work (ordinance). And a damage deck that favors one faction(soon to be 2) over the other. GW would respond with a $60 core set without any ships and swap the Combat and Activation Phases.

We're not talking about reprinting one or two cards. We're talking about almost every piece of Ordinance being overcosted. We're talking about several of the pilots being downright unusable except for highly specific gimmick builds. Another hallmark of GW is refusing to address problems like this, and I'd much rather not see this happen again. Anyone else not want to see a Doom of Malanti fiasco repeat?

Torpedoes/Missiles are getting there. We know there are big plans for the Bomber, and I would assume ordinance is a part of those plans. You just don't build your entire squad around Torpedoes/Missiles.

I fail to see how the Damage deck favors one faction over another. Unless you are talking about one faction having a lot more hull vulnerable to crits, then changing the deck doesn't change a thing.

And is there a problem with niche options? The game should not revolve around the Tier 1 options. A lot of stuff can do decently in the Tier 2 and Tier 1.5 areas. There are a small, small handful of cards that are "bad". And somehow, I don't see how some of what people are proposing will fix the issues the mid-range PS generics have...

Tier what?

The ships that are most prone to criticals are the large ships with low agility but high hull values (falcon, decimator, shuttle to a lesser extent). Those ships all have crew slots... Something not in game design when the damage deck was made. Lots of those ships do take crew members to become effective. Many of those ships take modifications as well (fat han engine upgrade to arc dodge). Injured pilot, sure would hurt Han plenty.. But there are only two of them in the deck.

I understand the decreased odds of drawing cards in probability better than most, that doesn't change the fact that the crit deck being 'just fine' is something that a game designed should accept. There is a huge difference between a game being 'fine' and being 'awesome' and I doubt the game designers are shooting for mediocrity.

I do completely agree that if done, it needs to be handled very, very carefully... But it's of my opinion that adding damage to fully encompass all aspects of the game is worth the hassle of changing.

So you want the damage deck to specifically address Fat Han and other large ships at the expense of being irrelevant to most other ship ships? That's the direction you want it to move in?