Are We Done Complaining About Fat Turrets Yet?

By VaynMaanen, in X-Wing

you don't do that fix on small bases, which don't have enough room and already come with enough restrictions as is (aside from the K-wing, but it is definitely priced horribly if you're planning on using its PWT)

Uhh, why? Seriously, why on earth would primary weapons somehow be harder to control than secondary weapons? Game design has to have internal consistency, and this, well, doesn't. Breaking verisimilitude is not healthy for a game.

you could set the arc during activation, before dials are revealed ala de-cloaking

I suppose had such a mechanic been implemented, it could be errata'd to do so, but this definately wouldn't have been the case in wave 1 or wave 2. Plus, like I said, there's no way this would effect only PWTs. Think of the poor Y-wings and HWKs.

restrict to one arc (**** fluff, gameplay takes priority over the falcon's two turrets) and if necessary limit to moving only to adjacent arcs so there's some actual choices involved.

Limit to moving one arc per turn might work. I'm not sold on whether or not the falcon would have been accepted with only one moving arc. Perhaps if it had the primary arc always on as well? Hmm... Maybe we should playtest this just for the sake of the argument.

adjust costs if necessary

Well, yeah, but that kind of goes without saying

that's the dream scenario which will never happen due to cruel logistical realities, but really anything giving an opponent something for outmanuevering a PWT would be appreciated. ATs are a start, but they're very restricted to a very small sub-set of ships (all of which needs them because of how ridiculous the PWT mechanic is)

Comments in green.

I'd imagine the rationale fluff-wise would that yes, bigger turrets are harder to control simply because there's more to move (which might not apply in space, but the time we start applying actual space physics to star wars is the time we stop playing star wars :P). I'm sure a fluff expert is more knowledgeable about relative sizes of a falcon's turret to the Y's, but that'd be it for me since it'd mimic WW2 tanks. The far more important rationale (gameplay) is that secondary weapon turrets are already limited in some capacity (range, plus focus requirement for the blaster)

of course, if secondary weapon turrets are fine because of range restrictions, I'd imagine the PWTs would likewise become far less of a chore to face if they too had a range restriction that an opponent could play around

You say that like it's all one ship that is causing the issue, that it's a total lack of diversity. And yet that catch-all of 'turrets' includes at least seven different pilots across three different ship types. Along with a rather varied assortment of aces and generics to fill out the rest of the list. It's not like last year when 'turrets' was the same as saying Fat Han with triple Zs.

You want a diverse meta in X-wing? Look around, it's already here.

Three ships out of 24. Seven pilots across 122.

I agree the turret problem is at least in part one the community has created rather than one inherent to the game design, but please don't wildly misrepresent data.

There is 11 Interceptor pilots, and usually only one seen at the top tables (Soontir). Corran is the only E-wing seeing success. Blue Squadrons are more common than the named pilots, as are for Y-Wings.

There will be gems and duds for each ship type. They're not all meant for competitive play. Your argument of 7 pilots out of 122 having success and being turrets is also wildly misrepresenting data.

Where did I make that argument? I was pointing out that seven pilots (the number he gave) does not constitute diversity in the context of the total number of pilots. Nothing more. I fail to see how your first paragraph is anything more than non-sequeter information.

And as for "they're not all meant for competitive play," "meant" is a word that carries implications, in this case the implication that pilots are designed to be duds. Which is a little insulting to the people who designed them, really.

And what about the ships? You're going to get weak pilots, that's a given. But should ships be dud? No.

Edited by Blue Five

It doesn't matter where their place in the meta is. As long as there is a contingent of people who believe they are against the nebulous, undefined "spirit of the game", there will be complaints about turrets.

One thing that's important to remember:

An individual squadron's success is a function of three things.

  • The favour of the Dice Gods.
  • How good the player is.
  • How good the squadron is against what it faces.

When dealing with an archetype, you have a huge number of lists. This averages out the favour of the dice gods and player skill. People assume that it's then cut to this:

  • The favour of the Dice Gods.
  • How good the player is.
  • How good the squadron is against what it faces.

There are two mistakes here, both borne from the same assumption people don't realise they're making: that all lists are evenly represented. They're not.

The first mistake this leads to is indirectly assuming there's a linear strength to a ship. Turrets are not outright good. They're good against starfighters that rely on dancing out of firing arcs. Back in Wave 3 when it was considered the height of idiocy to drop below four ships in a squadron you barely ever saw the Falcon, and when you did you could deal with it.

The second mistake is forgetting that there's now another factor.

  • How good the squadron is against what it faces.
  • How many of that squadron are played.

To use an utterly hyperbolic example, if ninety percent of players take Fel's Wrath, Kir Kanos and a naked Maarek Steele you've got a good chance at seeing a few placing highly.

The turret trumpet has been blown by its advocates and enemies for a year now. It doesn't matter how good they are unless they're terrible, people think they're good. And when it comes to tournaments the winning lists are copied over and over because people think they can use them as crutches (not saying everyone who uses a tournament list is using it as a crutch), the majority will reach for the current hotness thinking it'll give them a much needed advantage and when a turret wins they'll take it as confirmation.

The turret's not broken, it's just good and is getting far more than its fair share of lottery tickets. The metagame tends towards staleness not so much because of the game but because of people. Because of human nature.

Before turrets it was the TIE swarm, and FFG made a whole wave dedicated to killing it off as a dominant force. It worked, but a new "demon" quickly rose to take its place.

The solution to the turret problem is not to kill the turret but to kill the perception. A change from the design rooms, like the one the phantom had, could do this by spooking the herd, but that's not something we have any control over.

The problem this forum has, and that the game maybe has, is that people are trying too hard to win in the metagame and not hard enough to win in the game. If you want to kill off the turret, you need to train people to kill it. Strategy threads on blocking it, boxing it in, denying it actions and focusing firing it into slag are what you need, not calls for FFG to nerf Broken Ship #3. "This is broken" is an advert for it. Training the masses to kill it is how you'll bring it down.

Edited by Blue Five

You say that like it's all one ship that is causing the issue, that it's a total lack of diversity. And yet that catch-all of 'turrets' includes at least seven different pilots across three different ship types. Along with a rather varied assortment of aces and generics to fill out the rest of the list. It's not like last year when 'turrets' was the same as saying Fat Han with triple Zs.

You want a diverse meta in X-wing? Look around, it's already here.

Three ships out of 24. Seven pilots across 122.

I agree the turret problem is at least in part one the community has created rather than one inherent to the game design, but please don't wildly misrepresent data.

There is 11 Interceptor pilots, and usually only one seen at the top tables (Soontir). Corran is the only E-wing seeing success. Blue Squadrons are more common than the named pilots, as are for Y-Wings.

There will be gems and duds for each ship type. They're not all meant for competitive play. Your argument of 7 pilots out of 122 having success and being turrets is also wildly misrepresenting data.

Where did I make that argument? I was pointing out that seven pilots (the number he gave) does not constitute diversity in the context of the total number of pilots. Nothing more. I fail to see how your first paragraph is anything more than non-sequeter information.

And as for "they're not all meant for competitive play," "meant" is a word that carries implications, in this case the implication that pilots are designed to be duds. Which is a little insulting to the people who designed them, really.

And what about the ships? You're going to get weak pilots, that's a given. But should ships be dud? No.

I must have misunderstood what you were implying amd I apologize for that.

I'm not saying that cards are specifically designed to fail in the competitive scene, and in a perfect world any possible combination can win. But games like this one that have such infinite amount of combinations will always have those that are better than others, which forms a meta game and popular lists. This is all normal and expected.

The argument I'm trying to make is against the claim that there is no diversity in the meta. I just counted 33 different pilots that have won, and I'm sure the top 8 is even more diversified. How much more diversity is needed before everyone is happy?

If I'm reading the Regionals results correctly, 28 winners included a turret, 23 didn't.

Does this really justify a fix, errata, nerf?

Yes. It's not so much that they're OP and that certain OP things will naturally rise to the top in any game, it's that turrets strip much of what's fun about this game away.

I'm still seeing Phantoms winning, do they require another nerf?

ACD should have just never existed in the first place, but they seem toned down enough. They're still obnoxious though. Personally I'd just ban ACD/make the free cloak happen during the end phase. The way generic Phantoms play seems to be how they intended the ship to work, then they seemed to break it immediately with ACD.

I think people continue looking for problems where there are none.

~55% of winning lists being dumb fatties that ignore what makes this game great, that isn't a problem to you?

I'd like to play my Millenium Falcon in casual games/tourneys please. That's the reason I got into this game. To play with my favorite tiny little ships. Don't spoil it for me!

And I'd like to play with ships that aren't dumb turrets, dual IG's, B Wings, or Soontir.

I'm still seeing Phantoms winning, do they require another nerf?

ACD should have just never existed in the first place, but they seem toned down enough. They're still obnoxious though. Personally I'd just ban ACD/make the free cloak happen during the end phase. The way generic Phantoms play seems to be how they intended the ship to work, then they seemed to break it immediately with ACD.

ACD was required (kinda still is) for phantoms to see play. Why?

tumblr_lvp2luc9bJ1qgzm0mo1_500.gif

Phantoms are basically in the same boat as interceptors, frail arc-dodgers that simply can't exist in the same game as the unavoidable PWT mechanic (unavoidable if you want to shoot the PWT, that is). They're another example of why PWTs don't really gel in a game based around maneuvering, only this time FFG recognized it early and packaged the phantom with two mods that let them survive for a bit despite their Z-95 stats. The fact that every other ship else suffered from ACD's arc-dodging while turrets continued not to give two ***** has been corrected by the errata. Being able to de-cloak constantly at PS order was a great advantage, but really it was the four green dice + whisper's assigned focus that let the 40 point z-95 have the impact it did while turrets casually ignored everything about the phantom's key strength.

About the only phantom that'll survive now without ACD has to have jammers + stygium (those are pretty cool, though). I've seen the loadout on sigmas do well, and am considering dumping it on Echo (oh, if only I could fly her well at all...)

Edited by ficklegreendice
The argument I'm trying to make is against the claim that there is no diversity in the meta. I just counted 33 different pilots that have won, and I'm sure the top 8 is even more diversified. How much more diversity is needed before everyone is happy?

Count ships.

The argument I'm trying to make is against the claim that there is no diversity in the meta. I just counted 33 different pilots that have won, and I'm sure the top 8 is even more diversified. How much more diversity is needed before everyone is happy?

Count ships.

14 of 21 different ships (24 if you count the dual faction ships). Leaving out Lamdba Shuttles, M3-A's, HWK's, Starvipers, and TIE Defender/Advanced/Bomber.

One of these ships is getting a face lift pretty soon (Advanced) and the Bomber should benefit from extra munitions. I think I've seen Starvipers and Defenders in top 8's, so they are not completely out of contention. That's pretty good diversity if you ask me.

NEVER

14 of 21 different ships (24 if you count the dual faction ships). Leaving out Lamdba Shuttles, M3-A's, HWK's, Starvipers, and TIE Defender/Advanced/Bomber.

Not bad going. I swear a triple HWK win was reported the other day though.

T-B, T-D and T-A are unsurprising. Surprised by the lack of Omicrons but the Raider'll change that.

14 of 21 different ships (24 if you count the dual faction ships). Leaving out Lamdba Shuttles, M3-A's, HWK's, Starvipers, and TIE Defender/Advanced/Bomber.

Not bad going. I swear a triple HWK win was reported the other day though.

T-B, T-D and T-A are unsurprising. Surprised by the lack of Omicrons but the Raider'll change that.

I expect an "aces" pack for Scum that will benefit at least the M3-A, and it looks like there might be an upgrade coming with the Punisher that will benefit all TIE's.

Look at how the Interceptor and the Y-Wing made a comeback. How quickly Brobots (as much as I hate them) found a place in the meta. The game is evolving before everyone's eyes and people still think it's stale. It's upsetting but alas, you can't please everyone.

Edited by VaynMaanen

14 of 21 different ships (24 if you count the dual faction ships). Leaving out Lamdba Shuttles, M3-A's, HWK's, Starvipers, and TIE Defender/Advanced/Bomber.

Not bad going. I swear a triple HWK win was reported the other day though.

T-B, T-D and T-A are unsurprising. Surprised by the lack of Omicrons but the Raider'll change that.

Right. And I trust FFG to help out these ships that are not making it to the top in future waves.

I expect an "aces" pack for Scum that will benefit at least the M3-A, and it looks like there might be an upgrade coming with the Punisher that will benefit all TIE's.

Look at how the Interceptor and the Y-Wing made a comeback. How quickly Brobots (as much as I hate them) found a place in the meta. The game is evolving before everyone's eyes and people still think it's stale. It's upsetting but alas, you can't please everyone.

But here's the question: What happens once the number of available prevents the kind of diversity people want to see?

F no. The complaining wont stop until we hear the devs apologize for breaking the game so they could see more Falcon's in in the finals.

Hurray yet another reminder (not that I needed one) that staying at home and playing at home having more fun than ought be allowed for the tiny price of these wonderful toys... is indeed a wise and a good way to live as a very happy seasoned gamer.

:lol::D:P:);):ph34r:

If I'm reading the Regionals results correctly, 28 winners included a turret, 23 didn't.

Does this really justify a fix, errata, nerf?

I'm still seeing Phantoms winning, do they require another nerf?

I think people continue looking for problems where there are none.

I'd like to play my Millenium Falcon in casual games/tourneys please. That's the reason I got into this game. To play with my favorite tiny little ships. Don't spoil it for me!

Yup... been done from day one. In fact I think these badass ships should kill a little fighter in one or two shots at most. like in the movies.

:o ^_^ :lol:

Nerf?

:angry: :rolleyes: :wacko:

Nah they need more umph.

:D

Here at Boss Central they work right.

:P

What simple joy... resplendent like!

:lol:

One thing that's important to remember:

An individual squadron's success is a function of three things.

  • The favour of the Dice Gods.
  • How good the player is.
  • How good the squadron is against what it faces.

When dealing with an archetype, you have a huge number of lists. This averages out the favour of the dice gods and player skill. People assume that it's then cut to this:

  • The favour of the Dice Gods.
  • How good the player is.
  • How good the squadron is against what it faces.

There are two mistakes here, both borne from the same assumption people don't realise they're making: that all lists are evenly represented. They're not.

The first mistake this leads to is indirectly assuming there's a linear strength to a ship. Turrets are not outright good. They're good against starfighters that rely on dancing out of firing arcs. Back in Wave 3 when it was considered the height of idiocy to drop below four ships in a squadron you barely ever saw the Falcon, and when you did you could deal with it.

The second mistake is forgetting that there's now another factor.

  • How good the squadron is against what it faces.
  • How many of that squadron are played.

To use an utterly hyperbolic example, if ninety percent of players take Fel's Wrath, Kir Kanos and a naked Maarek Steele you've got a good chance at seeing a few placing highly.

The turret trumpet has been blown by its advocates and enemies for a year now. It doesn't matter how good they are unless they're terrible, people think they're good. And when it comes to tournaments the winning lists are copied over and over because people think they can use them as crutches (not saying everyone who uses a tournament list is using it as a crutch), the majority will reach for the current hotness thinking it'll give them a much needed advantage and when a turret wins they'll take it as confirmation.

The turret's not broken, it's just good and is getting far more than its fair share of lottery tickets. The metagame tends towards staleness not so much because of the game but because of people. Because of human nature.

Before turrets it was the TIE swarm, and FFG made a whole wave dedicated to killing it off as a dominant force. It worked, but a new "demon" quickly rose to take its place.

The solution to the turret problem is not to kill the turret but to kill the perception. A change from the design rooms, like the one the phantom had, could do this by spooking the herd, but that's not something we have any control over.

The problem this forum has, and that the game maybe has, is that people are trying too hard to win in the metagame and not hard enough to win in the game. If you want to kill off the turret, you need to train people to kill it. Strategy threads on blocking it, boxing it in, denying it actions and focusing firing it into slag are what you need, not calls for FFG to nerf Broken Ship #3. "This is broken" is an advert for it. Training the masses to kill it is how you'll bring it down.

More people need to read this post.

The problem this forum has, and that the game maybe has, is that people are trying too hard to win in the metagame and not hard enough to win in the game. If you want to kill off the turret, you need to train people to kill it. Strategy threads on blocking it, boxing it in, denying it actions and focusing firing it into slag are what you need, not calls for FFG to nerf Broken Ship #3. "This is broken" is an advert for it. Training the masses to kill it is how you'll bring it down.

Well, I'd certainly appreciate threads like that. I'm still very new to the game (10 matches, maybe), and the two times I've run into Han have been frustrating. And I won both times! But I like frail fast things (A-Wings, Interceptors, Phantoms), and it's just...irritating/scary/disconcerting that not only can't I dodge the turret's fire, but if I get within range one it still gets to throw four dice out its backside. And I don't really know how to cope with that. I mean, yes I beat the Falcon twice but that was mostly down to dice. In one match, after I lost Carnor and Whisper my Delta Squadron pilot proceeded to solo the Falcon and two As, because **** you that's why.

The most miserable game I ever had was chewie with falcon title and 3OP, I won but it was a dull long game I'd never want to replay.

The most miserable game I ever had was chewie with falcon title and 3OP, I won but it was a dull long game I'd never want to replay.

what? you mean you don't like rolling dice regardless of you or your opponent's actions :P?

about the only fun game I had against a PWT was flying Dash against Han (imitation versus original!), because at least I had to manage positioning thanks to the doughnut-hole and being superior at range 3 while trying to get the most out of his ability.

that's all on Dash's unique combination of talents forcing the turret to care about maneuvering (and possibly the HLC too, I don't think it would have been possible to win a one-on-one with a mangler without getting exceptionally lucky), though. I can't imagine how ass numbingly dull the dice-off would have been if I had been flying a PWT too

Edited by ficklegreendice

I might have missed it but in the 23 games won buy non-turretted ships, how many of those BEAT a turretted ship? I a gree with Blue Five regarding winning the meta. Play the game, have fun and don't worry about turrets. There's at least one plyer out there working on a counter.

I guess I'm so new at really playing, but I killed my first large based ship (Firespray-31) the other day. I can't imagine that killing a 'fat' ship would be much different.

I have yet to play against one, but I've been messing around solo (pun inteneded) with a YT-1300, and I can appreciate the flexibility of having a turret.

I guess I'm just not afraid of them, or think they are game breaking.

If I'm reading the Regionals results correctly, 28 winners included a turret, 23 didn't.

Does this really justify a fix, errata, nerf?

Yes. It's not so much that they're OP and that certain OP things will naturally rise to the top in any game, it's that turrets strip much of what's fun about this game away.

I'm still seeing Phantoms winning, do they require another nerf?

ACD should have just never existed in the first place, but they seem toned down enough. They're still obnoxious though. Personally I'd just ban ACD/make the free cloak happen during the end phase. The way generic Phantoms play seems to be how they intended the ship to work, then they seemed to break it immediately with ACD.

I think people continue looking for problems where there are none.

~55% of winning lists being dumb fatties that ignore what makes this game great, that isn't a problem to you?

Huh. I thought what made this game great was that it was about the ships of the Star Wars universe.

55% of winning lists including one type of game element indicates pretty good balance to me. I'm used to games where the problem element (a specific element, not a class) exist in nearly all winning lists. If almost half of the winning lists are doing it without the class of element that some think problematic, that's pretty good competitive balance, IMO.

Edited by elfholme

I might have missed it but in the 23 games won buy non-turretted ships, how many of those BEAT a turretted ship? I a gree with Blue Five regarding winning the meta. Play the game, have fun and don't worry about turrets. There's at least one plyer out there working on a counter.

That's a good question. I counted 9 I think, but some didn't have the full lists, just the winners.

These are just the non turret lists that beat a turret in the FINAL, mind you. It would be fun to skim through and see how many beat turrets at least once in their match ups. Any win against a turret in an elimination round speaks tenfold though, as these were obvious the best players there.

I might have missed it but in the 23 games won buy non-turretted ships, how many of those BEAT a turretted ship? I a gree with Blue Five regarding winning the meta. Play the game, have fun and don't worry about turrets. There's at least one plyer out there working on a counter.

It is important though to speak up though, FFG really should be printing more tools to use in creating lists that beat turrets because while not necessarily unhealthy, they are the dominant strategy and can be slowly brought in line with new releases.

I'm sure some of the issues are ego related. Losing to an opponent who was flying a turret that you "feel you are better than" and that they only won because they flew a turret (and being mad about it) is pretty much in line with a stereotypical gamer mentality.

I think a better metric than anything would be asking the people who have accomplished tournament victories in this game how many times some chump with a PWT beat them when they weren't playing a turret?

I read Paul Heaver's 2014 Worlds report when I first got into this game 6 months ago. It is very telling that through playtesting he determined the best list to win was Fat Han. I wonder what he'd say if he had to play Worlds tomorrow...