Over the last 6 months or so (ever since C3P0) the proliferation of defensive upgrades has created super defensive ships. Before C3P0 there weren't too many defensive upgrades that were really worth taking (Elusiveness and Flight Instructor were hardly worth it). The game was offensive and it rewarded offense. Attempting to create a super defensive list usually ended in failure. Since C3P0 defensive upgrade usage, especially those worth taking, has spiked. These days we have:

C3P0

R2D2 (Crew and Droid)

Lone Wolf

Autothrusters

Ysanne Isard

Advanced Cloaking Device

Experimental Interface (When paired with Lando or R2F2)

These upgrades create super defensive ships:

Double droid Han (R2D2 and C3P0)

Soontir Fel with PTL AutoThrusters and Stealth

IG88C with PTL and AutoThrusters

Whisper with Gunner, FCS, Veteran Instincts and Advanced Cloaking Device

Corran Horn with R2D2 (R2D2 was good on a 2 Agi ship, but he's awesome on a 3 Agi ship)

These ships are great and are fun to play, but is the game creating Stalemates with them? How do 2 double droid Han's kill each other, I'm not sure they can?

Consider Double Droid Han vs AutoThruster Soontir Fel. Fel can't damage Han (who can dodge 3 hits per turn) and in order for Han to hit Fel, Han needs to roll 3 hits and Fel needs to roll 3 blanks. Han will win that game in a long enough timeline, but it could take 4 hours. What about PTL IG88C w AT vs PTL Fel with AT. Both of those ships can turtle up with F+E each turn. Fel will win that game but it could take 3-4 hours.

I consider any game that takes 3-4 hours 1v1 to effectively be a stalemate (I know it technically isn't). Have the defensive upgrades stopped? If they haven't will the potential for a stalemate become even greater? Will we begin to see lists that simply cannot lose to or beat each other?

My question for everyone is this, have these defensive upgrades and ships improved the game? Are these late game unkillable ships a good thing or a bad thing? I'm genuinely curious what people are thinking. I like that they have introduced some good defensive upgrades, but I do worry that they may have gone too far.

I understand that there is a strategy to kill all of the above ships. Nothing is totally unkillable at the start, but in certain game states these ships can become unkillable. Discussing tactics to kill Double Droid Han is not what I'm interested in. Did we like the offensive oriented game of Wave 3, or do we feel that the defensive super ships are a good thing?

What happens at a regional when 2 double droid Han's are facing off at the final table, all their support is dead, and they each of shields? That game either ends in a stalemate, or it takes hours upon hours to see which players gets better range 1 shots.

I fly these ships often. My current list is Corran with VI, FCS, Engine, and R2D2 and Chewie with Falcon, C3P0, ExpInt, Lando and LoneWolf. I don't want anyone to think this is a complaint thread, this is just a philosophical discussion about the role defensive upgrades have in this game.

Thoughts?

checked the current FAQ, draws happen

Originally the thought was red dice or bust. Just keep chucking attacks and upgrading those attacks and you'll win. This led to a lot of high number generic builds for sheer number of red dice thrown. I think originally everyone thought about tabling your opponent.

Now we have damage mitigation. Builds that are consistently able to shrug off 2-3 hits a turn. Take that and now people aren't so much thinking about tabling the opponent as they are beating them by 12 points.

I don't think any of it hurts the game, it's just a different play style.

Concentrated fire is still usually good, especially vs. a Fat Han. Cornhole with R2 can also be killed if you focus fire. For me, it means I take more than 2-3 ships. I prefer 4-6 ships in a list. Not a formation "swarm", but an actual swarm. They tend to plink these guys down.

To me, I have zero sympathy with 2 guys in a tournament playing defensive Fat Hans against each other. It just makes me laugh and let them go to time. Serves them right, in my opinion.

I'm most worried about this issue in the context of timed matches, which has been discussed elsewhere. But there are tricks. For example, Outmaneuver on IG-88 instead of Push the Limit means Han rolls no dice so C-3PO doesn't activate and that basically cuts Han's legs out from under him.

I think it's not just defensive upgrades that are causing the trend you're noticing here, and I think that not all of the defensive upgrades are problematic--or, at least, they're not quite part of the same problem.

To my first point, think about other stuff that's happened in the Wave 5 metagame: the proliferation of expensive, heavily upgraded Large ships, and the correspondingly shrinking squad sizes. It's not at all unusual to face lists with just two ships now, where that would have been unheard-of in Wave 3 and was unusual even in Wave 4.

There's also the game's increasing popularity, which means tournaments are getting bigger and stores are running shorter rounds to get things done in a reasonable length of time. That places a correspondingly higher premium on defensive upgrades, since you really can't expect to win a match if you lose a 60-point ship early on.

To my second point, consider C-3PO and Ysanne Isard: both add an extra evade result sometimes, but at most once per round. The way to shut those upgrades down is to attack them with multiple ships, but that's more and more difficult to do as the metagame shrinks to 2-ship and 3-ship lists. 1v1 play is a lot more likely and more consequential when it's Dash/Corran against Han/Jan than if it's Dash/Corran against 8 TIE fighters.

But Lone Wolf and Autothrusters are different. When their benefit is available, it adds to every roll. The benefits for upgrades like that are typically smaller or harder to activate or both, but they're actually at their least effective in 1v1 play. (You reroll no more than 1 die with Lone Wolf against a single ship, but as many as 8 dice if you're facing a swarm.)

As to the question of whether the game is better or worse than it was before the profusion of defensive upgrades, I think it's just different.

There are also a lot of neat offensive upgrades that came in with wave 6, many of which have flown under the radar thus far. I'll be curious to see how they all interact in the near future

There are also a lot of neat offensive upgrades that came in with wave 6, many of which have flown under the radar thus far. I'll be curious to see how they all interact in the near future

This. Feedback array doesn't care if you have 2 evade tokens and 10 agility, nor does Vader. Same principle applies to assault missiles and dead man's switch.

Personally I like the idea of mixing up some Z's with a 50/50 of hot shot and feedback. In the heat of battle it is easy for your opponents to forget which is which. A little miniswarm of these guys leaves you with 42 points to put towards a centerpiece.

Ion tokens (with stress placement for those with extra mobility) are another great way to take out someone when they get a little too close to the edge. You only have to get a single hit through and you can guide them off the playing field.

I think that as defense escalation continues, people will make choices that ignore/minimize their opponents defenses.

I'd say it's a bad thing if only because these upgrades can be combined with ships that just don't give a **** (Turrets) and force opponents into literally unwinnable scenarios rather than practically unwinnable

If you're down to a tie/headunter/proto-type facing down a 1 or 2 hull Fattie, that little ship should have the chance to kill the fattie instead of being rendered a pointless existence. While facing off against a powerhouse like soontir already greatly skews chances because he is practically impossible to beat (Can't draw arcs on him), fatties are literally impossible to outplay and will simply remove the opponent from the equation the moment the game starts sliding too far into one person's favor, which can happen as soon as the fattie farts out a handful of hot dice and kills a ship to slide the game further towards that impossible scenario. (even if you get him in arc, can't do any damage)

The moment the game removes any impact that player input has on the game is the moment said game fails from a design perspective. It's not really due to the defensive upgrades as much as it is their combination with ships that invalidate the opponent's maneuvers, thus forcing the release of new defensive upgrades to keep certain types of ships from being an out and out liability to even put on the table (see auto-thrusters)

More than any of that, though, the defensive upgrades simply further stress the importance of partial scoring that FFG has managed to somehow continuously overlook.

The game is different, that's for sure.

I don't think it is better or worse. It is nice that 2 Ship builds can win, which is something that players were asking for from the day we could actually fill 100 pts with 2 Ships.

The whole playing vs Defensive turrets and other ships does come with multiple sides of the argument though.

1. Playing against the defensive ships can feel bad when said defensive ship gets into an ideal game position and winning becomes VERY difficult, even when you move and point your ships VERY well.

2. Playin WITH the defensive ship feels really satisfying when your single ship and support widdles enough forces to get into a nigh un-losable game situation. Some times it looks like an auto win button, but there are a lot of fun manuevers that our defensive ships get to use, and it is far from an auto win.

I don't think this is a horrid situation, as the amount of disatisfaction the losing player feels is similar to the amount of satisfaction the winning (defensive ship) player feels.

One problem with these sort of discussions is, our defensive Turret and Phantom players don't spam the forums with how much fun they have been having since using these ships. Heck, it would be IMPOLITE to do so, which kind of creates some level of skewed view points from players who read forum posts and hear complaints from players at events.

There is ALSO a third situation...

3. Players who manage to BEAT the defensive ships (by skill, consistent luck, counter building) get a great deal of satisfaction from taking out the known nemesis archetype.

We DO hear from these players quite often, but a lot of these views are berated and/or skimmed over as edge cases, which sort of sucks!

All of this stuff I am okay with, the winners feel good, the losers feel bad, that sounds like normal competition to me.

However, now we have a new situation that is coming more and more common:

4. Defensive ship vs Defensive ship results in a long, drawn out game that turns out to not be all that fun, or ends at time with the winner determined by who has the higher cost defensive ship.

I think it is this situation that creates some actual disparity. With more players moving to these very satisfying to play defensive ships, mirror matches and what not are more likely to happen. It isnt horribly prevalent, since there is still a lot of ship diversity, even among similar archetypes, but it does create what I think is the only situation that is NOT FUN for BOTH players. At least some the classic NON FUN matchups, Swarm vs Swarm and what not, still had chances to outplay during the end game.

So to simply answer the main topic, the "stalemate" matches are, in my opinion, not fun to be in or watch. This isn't every match though, as plenty of games still end with board wipes and there are plenty of creative ideas floating about.

One problem with these sort of discussions is, our defensive Turret and Phantom players don't spam the forums with how much fun they have been having since using these ships. Heck, it would be IMPOLITE to do so, which kind of creates some level of skewed view points from players who read forum posts and hear complaints from players at events.

As much as I hate turrets, **** being polite. Anyone has as much right to appreciate their play-style as I do to bemoan it

...but it does create what I think is the only situation that is NOT FUN for BOTH players. At least some the classic NON FUN matchups, Swarm vs Swarm and what not, still had chances to outplay during the end game.

I think this captures what I'm trying to say better than what I said

Competitive or not, the enjoyment of a game does not have to be a binary derivation based on from winning or losing. For me personally, enjoyment from games should come from player interaction (whether against other players or against A.I in single player games) and is lost when the significance of said interaction is taken away from any number of players involved.

For anyone who's played dice-dependent games (Such as Betrayal at the House on the Hill) it can sometimes suck to be absolutely bent over into completely unwinnable scenarios by the dice, but at least you can have a great laugh with your mates. More competitive games don't really alloy for as much of that, though, since the emphasis is placed on your ability to affect the game itself (Tactics) rather than witnessing the absurdly crazy **** that can hit the fan.

Well the good news is that the current tournament format is timed and goes by remaining points so the people who bog the game down with thier defense are punished by winning all the time.

I like a lot of what people are saying. I agree that it's just mostly different than it has been in the past, and the Super Defensive ships are still beatable, they just require the correct tactics.

I'm still worried that there are matchups and game states that create a slog that may not be able to be completed in a rational amount of time.

It's entirely possible that 2 double droid Han's could be facing each other at the end game. Let's say for the sake of argument that the Han builds are identical. They both reach the end game with no damage cards. Now, they can each basically evade 3 damage per turn, and they can each only deal 3 damage per turn (unless range 1). So for those two ships to be able to do damage to each other the ship without initiative would need to move into range 1 of the ship with initiative, without using boost (because he will want the evade token more than a boost to range 1). At that point it's a question of which Han can roll 4 hits and score 1 damage. Let's say this happens at a final table for a Regional or Store Championship. Who wins that match? If they keep playing one of the two Han's will eventually get the 4 hits at range 1, but it could take all weekend. There are logistical issues with that. Stores close. People need to sleep. Currently, the tournament rules suggest that the final match is untimed. Do we really want to create a situation where a game needs to be played for 8 hours to determine a winner? This is my concern with the Super Defensive ships. It's when they pair off against each other. Those games can and will take considerable time. If initiative is used to determine the winner, couldn't and wouldn't the player without initiative refuse to end the game? There is nothing in the current rules that says that game ever needs to end until all of one players ships are destroyed. The tournament rules probably could use some revision to address this game state.

I fly these Super Defensive ships a lot. They are a lot of fun, and they irritate your opponent into making mistakes. I do worry though that we are getting close to a tipping point where it becomes unusual for games to complete in a timed environment. With the MOV score being the tie breaker, taking a Super defensive ship that will rarely if ever die assures that even if you lose the game at time, you will still score a beneficially high MOV. Taking that Super Defensive ship becomes the correct strategy. With a lot of stores moving to 60 minute rounds, Super Defensive ships could very easily become a common if not a necessary list component. Will the game become too frustrating to play when the normal game result does not mean one player has been completely destroyed? Right now going to time is becoming more common, but I still think in my own observations that games usually complete and one team is completely destroyed.

Some of the non attack damage that can be landed helps. And, I don't think that in the early/mid game the game states exist (yet) that will create stalemates. The potential stalemates seem to only exist at the end game between 2 ships. By that point most of the non attack damage tricks have been spent or aren't as useful to finish off a game. Sure you could have a feedback array to use against a double droid Han, but what ship can use the feedback array enough to not die first? I'm not sure those are the best answers. They will help against the low hull super defensive ships, but the large based defensive ships will just out last your feedback array.

Maybe this is no problem at all?

I mean, if having an ultra defensive ship in a list is too common, then many people will play it. That means that in the timed rounds before, such situations will occur, which means a draw between the two players after 60/75 min. Other lists will get full points (BBBBZ for instance), and make the cut.

Edit: What I mean is that maybe, hopefully, this problem will solve itself.