It seems more and more that the game is moving toward keeping your ships alive rather than blowing up your enemy. In a real world situation the goal is always to bring all of your pilots home alive, but in a game it makes for boring play and seems to cause problems for the MoV scoring system in the tournament scene.

I feel we have overdone the upgrades that mitigate damage, from autothrusters, to C-3PO, to arc dodgers who never even have to roll greens. I would like to see more upgrades that just plain throw more attack dice during an attack. I want to be terrified to take a ship costing more than 40 pts because the alpha strike potential can take it out in a turn or two. I want to be terrified to take a swarm because Ion Torps and Assault Missiles will wreck me every time.

I guess ultimately, it boils down to 2 things that bug me most.

1. Every ship gets to shoot only once, but can defend an unlimited number of times without penalty. To counter this, I would like to see upgrades, either titles or EPT's or even some unique pilots, that let ships targeting a previously targeted ship get extra red dice for their attacks. This simulates a pilot that was distracted by multiple ships. You dodge left to avoid one guy but you pull right into the sights of his wingman.

2. Ordnance is not worth taking in most situations. I want buffs to missiles and torps that make them not only playable, but almost must haves. HLC's and manlglers are everywhere because they are efficient for the points spent. I am not a fan of points reductions or errata fixing this. What I want to see are upgrades that give free target locks, or longer ranges, or add 2 damage to all torp rolls, or let you fire a torp and primary together (but only counts as one attack for defense dice purposes), etc. I have no problem with 6 or 7 or 8 dice attacks if they are limited to a few uses or by huge point costs or the whole action economy issue of ordnance.

All this being said, the game is very well balanced and both players in a match are more than welcome to take squads that evade for days. I guess I just want to see more things blow up.

Does anyone else feel this way or am I all alone out here?

No, you aren't alone. Just look at all the threads about Fat Turrets and how to fix ordnance.

So like a pilot that shoots at a target and every one team mate gets an extra red die to roll for each teammate that previously attacked that target from then on? Would that be cool or OP?

I agree completely with the sentiment. I would really rather just hit them hard and fast.

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2015/4/20/hit-them-hard-and-fast/

High hopes!

I kind of sympathize with the sentiment but I think the current mechanic actually fits the 'real world' or 'reality' (understand the insanity of using either of those words but hopefully you know what I mean)

meaning, in the film, Luke targets one objective and fires but has three TIES on his tail - that's what happens in the game. As the attacker you line up your shot and fire but you could have three bogey's shooting at you at the same time

Not sure I see the problem really....

We do need something to buff offensive attacks. Two dice attacks are mostly pathetic now.

You want to roll more dice? Play Star Trek Attack Wing. I had a build a year ago that rolled 13 dice with basically a Target Lock + Focus. Then come back and embrace the awesomeness that is a meta in a game that isn't one build.

1. Every ship gets to shoot only once, but can defend an unlimited number of times without penalty. To counter this, I would like to see upgrades, either titles or EPT's or even some unique pilots, that let ships targeting a previously targeted ship get extra red dice for their attacks. This simulates a pilot that was distracted by multiple ships. You dodge left to avoid one guy but you pull right into the sights of his wingman.

This is a good idea in premise but you would have to make this a unique pilot ability only or swarms will mow down anything like a blade of grass.

Hmm dont you think your suggestions wouldnt ultimately lead to your next thread:

"I want upgrades to be worth it!"

If you can kill ships too quickly suddenly noone would take upgrades again. only the most efficient basic ships that at best bring cheap ordnance. Meanwhile ships with a big health pool might stay alive.

I mean all those autothrusters and so on were getting introduced because those low health pool ships with upgrades were geeting killed too quickly.

Maybe a solution to stop all the fat guys would be to enhance torpedo and missile weapons vs large base ships if those are our current real problem.

After all is a dynamic shifting between waves and new upgrade cards.

Btw. i think FFG tries to buff ordnance with wave 7 the problem i think is they only reduce cost if you take several on one ship. Why would you take several if at the moment not even one is worth it? With a low pilot rating it can already be a problem to even fire a secondary weapon.

Suggestion:

Maybe a nice buff would be that you dont need a target lock anymore to fire ordnance in your arc and are allowd to fire ordnance out of arc when spending a target lock.

Hmm dont you think your suggestions wouldnt ultimately lead to your next thread:

"I want upgrades to be worth it!"

If you can kill ships too quickly suddenly noone would take upgrades again. only the most efficient basic ships that at best bring cheap ordnance. Meanwhile ships with a big health pool might stay alive.

I mean all those autothrusters and so on were getting introduced because those low health pool ships with upgrades were geeting killed too quickly.

Maybe a solution to stop all the fat guys would be to enhance torpedo and missile weapons vs large base ships if those are our current real problem.

After all is a dynamic shifting between waves and new upgrade cards.

Btw. i think FFG tries to buff ordnance with wave 7 the problem i think is they only reduce cost if you take several on one ship. Why would you take several if at the moment not even one is worth it? With a low pilot rating it can already be a problem to even fire a secondary weapon.

Suggestion:

Maybe a nice buff would be that you dont need a target lock anymore to fire ordnance in your arc and are allowd to fire ordnance out of arc when spending a target lock.

This is an amazing idea I never really considered, I have always thought all missles and torps home to a certain degree why does homing missle get to be the only one striking evades. This would make them all homing somewhat and give slow fat kids a chance to run and gun with the little speedy ones.

Hmm dont you think your suggestions wouldnt ultimately lead to your next thread:

"I want upgrades to be worth it!"

If you can kill ships too quickly suddenly noone would take upgrades again. only the most efficient basic ships that at best bring cheap ordnance. Meanwhile ships with a big health pool might stay alive.

I mean all those autothrusters and so on were getting introduced because those low health pool ships with upgrades were geeting killed too quickly.

Maybe a solution to stop all the fat guys would be to enhance torpedo and missile weapons vs large base ships if those are our current real problem.

After all is a dynamic shifting between waves and new upgrade cards.

Btw. i think FFG tries to buff ordnance with wave 7 the problem i think is they only reduce cost if you take several on one ship. Why would you take several if at the moment not even one is worth it? With a low pilot rating it can already be a problem to even fire a secondary weapon.

Suggestion:

Maybe a nice buff would be that you dont need a target lock anymore to fire ordnance in your arc and are allowd to fire ordnance out of arc when spending a target lock.

This is an amazing idea I never really considered, I have always thought all missles and torps home to a certain degree why does homing missle get to be the only one striking evades. This would make them all homing somewhat and give slow fat kids a chance to run and gun with the little speedy ones.

http://xwing-miniatures.wikia.com/wiki/Nera_Dantels

Hmm, yet another reason I don't like Bwings but thanks for the heads up I didn't know that existed.

I know Nera but shes the exception and still has to have a target lock.

Beeing able to shoot ordnance without target locks would make them more viable on low skill pilots. Also I dont think a general problem can be solved with one unique pilot.

I agree completely with the sentiment. I would really rather just hit them hard and fast.

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2015/4/20/hit-them-hard-and-fast/

High hopes!

Might be great...

WANT NOWwww!

I agree completely with the sentiment. I would really rather just hit them hard and fast.https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2015/4/20/hit-them-hard-and-fast/

High hopes!

Might be great...

WANT NOWwww!

I agree completely with the sentiment. I would really rather just hit them hard and fast.https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2015/4/20/hit-them-hard-and-fast/

High hopes!

Might be great...

WANT NOWwww!

I'd settle for a punisher preview today.

We should be seeing a lot of goodies in the next three months I think.

Start it up now... we want it FFG!

BTL-A4 has made the Y-wing fun and relevant to play. Knowing you can put a Blaster or Ion turret on to hammer the enemy has made it a more viable ship - even though the fire is fixed in the front arc.

Give me a way to regenerate shields on a Shuttle and a turret option and I'd be happy.

I just want the **** Raider.

As much as I agree with OP, because it would be fun to do all of that, I think that the reason we see so much in terms of evade is because we already have hard hitting attacks.

They definitely aren't the 7 to 8 attack dice attacks that were mentioned, but it's already a possibility to vaporize any ship in the game with 1 round of attack, even most of the large base ships. An 8-TIE swarm could very well knock out a VT-49 in the first round of combat. I'm sure it's happened somewhere already, despite it being not so common.

I think the answer OP is looking for is to beef up the attack of the few-ship builds that we're seeing today; the 2 or 3-ship builds. The problem with that is that you could invariably over-beef the swarms where you have multiple ships throwing an unholy amount of dice, and at that point you have a broken game.

Sure, you could probably sit down and make it so that doesn't happen, but I think it would be harder than you think. I'm sure if it were feasible by now we would have seen it already. I'm not saying FFG is pristine perfect, but they do a **** good job of keeping things balanced while at the same time pushing new ground.

I agree Mr OP, I also want to blow some stuff up....

Time for some fire works me thinks

Part of the issue is Margin of Victory on timed games. An 8 TIE swarm is still one of the best squads you can fly- and Fat Turret builds will still struggle with it. Heck! A Decimator is a sitting duck until the round after the round in which the shields are stripped. But a Fat Turret list will probably take out half the Swarm list before the big gun is destroyed. And then time gets called.

The solution to this was supposed to be alpha strike missile swarms, but we see how well that has worked out. Hopefully Wave 7 will make that viable again.

One way I've always thought to fix ordinance is to allow torps and missiles 360 degree fire arcs exactly the same as target locks, this is how missiles and torps worked in tie fighter and x wing computer games, it just seems logical.

funny thing

if you want to blow things up, you're also better off going for the things that won't die

HLC brobots with thrusters and evades are a good example

Super Dash is a lesser example (not nearly as defensive) but relevent

fat PWTs stack re-rolls + focus mods (cheri, luke crew) on top of gunner effects and are all completely action independent

so really, all you can do to surpass them ito sheer offense (aside from being able to play around Brobots and Dash) is to spam dice

hopefully wave 7 brings us some nice toys to change this up

I kind of sympathize with the sentiment but I think the current mechanic actually fits the 'real world' or 'reality' (understand the insanity of using either of those words but hopefully you know what I mean)

meaning, in the film, Luke targets one objective and fires but has three TIES on his tail - that's what happens in the game. As the attacker you line up your shot and fire but you could have three bogey's shooting at you at the same time

Not sure I see the problem really....

Ah, but you make my point for me. Yes Luke only gets one shot but he was so focused on hitting the exhaust port he just flew in a straight line. Translate that to the game and you have could say that when a pilot has a target lock on one guy, his agility is 0 vs other enemies shooting at him from behind. Now what I just said is of course ridiculous, but is it really that much more ridiculous to think that Soontir can easily dodge all 6 sets of laser blasts coming at him from 6 different vectors when he faces a Z swarm? Maybe. But what if he is taking fire from Wedge, Keyan and Tycho. I think that aces at least should have a way to take advantage of a distracted opponent beyond just facing a guy with no tokens left to spend.

You want to roll more dice? Play Star Trek Attack Wing. I had a build a year ago that rolled 13 dice with basically a Target Lock + Focus. Then come back and embrace the awesomeness that is a meta in a game that isn't one build.

Wish I could but this game has already almost backrupted me. My girlfriend would probably move out if I started another one.

1. Every ship gets to shoot only once, but can defend an unlimited number of times without penalty. To counter this, I would like to see upgrades, either titles or EPT's or even some unique pilots, that let ships targeting a previously targeted ship get extra red dice for their attacks. This simulates a pilot that was distracted by multiple ships. You dodge left to avoid one guy but you pull right into the sights of his wingman.

This is a good idea in premise but you would have to make this a unique pilot ability only or swarms will mow down anything like a blade of grass.

Agreed. It would definitely have to have limitations. If it were an EPT it could be limited to the higher PS ships that can take an EPT and would compete with Predator, PTL etc. If it were a title, it would have to be expensive enough or only apply to a few ships such that you could only field maybe 4 ships. And if it were a unique pilot talent, then maybe it applies to say 2 friendlies at range 1. These are just suggestions for a theme. I know that FFG has people more creative than me to figure these things out so they are fun and balanced.

Part of the issue is Margin of Victory on timed games. An 8 TIE swarm is still one of the best squads you can fly- and Fat Turret builds will still struggle with it. Heck! A Decimator is a sitting duck until the round after the round in which the shields are stripped. But a Fat Turret list will probably take out half the Swarm list before the big gun is destroyed. And then time gets called.

The solution to this was supposed to be alpha strike missile swarms, but we see how well that has worked out. Hopefully Wave 7 will make that viable again.

Exactly. The main reason I am hoping for more offence is to shorten games by something like 5-10 minutes. Not a huge amount, but enough to make more games end with only one side having ships left.

I play lots of 150-300 point games with friends and while they can be tons of fun, by the time you set up, and put your dials down for 6 or 10 or 15 ships, it takes an hour just to fire the first salvo. We often don't have time to finish. So again, more offence means more completed games.

And yes I have high hopes for Wave 7 too.