So yeah, no flaws in assertions about power creep in X-wing at all.

Actually, there is power creep in this game. Just not the kind that we gamers generally think of.

Traditionally, power creep means that each successive release is more powerful than the previous one and so (not so) gradually obsoletes the older stuff, forcing customers to buy the new stuff just to keep up.

But there is another kind of power creep. The nature of x-wings releases, with upgrade cards and pilot abilities and the like, means that it is virtually impossible to reduce the power of something once it has been released. That is partly why the cloaking nerf and change to large ship barrel rolls were so noteworthy, because it is so rare for that to happen. All that new releases for this game can do is either maintain power level, or increase it. Now, FFG does a great job maintaining a stable level, but mistakes happen and once in a while something too powerful slips through. When that happens, all they can really do is increase the power level of everything else to match. That's also power creep, and we can see it happening in things like autothrusters. The overall power level of the game is increasing. Now, that isn't too bad as long as it is controlled and remains reasonably balanced, but any rules system can only scale up so far before it breaks. Before that happens, a game needs a major reworking to, basically, reset the power level back to a manageable point. I don't think x-wing is even close to being there yet, but it is a factor that should be kept in mind.

Autothrusters, meanwhile, are a fix for a Wave 2 problem: agile glass cannons aren't an attractive tournament choice when there are ships that can take your hits and ignore your positional tricks.

Critically, I think, those aren't exactly balance problems. They're coming from opposite directions (one too powerful and one not powerful enough), but the problem was never that Interceptors couldn't beat Fat Han--it's that they couldn't do it reliably. In fact, they struggled to win reliably enough against anything, because, you know... Glass cannon. They're both problems with players using metagame strategies to reduce variance and improve reliability.

So while I agree with you in principle about the two kinds of power creep, I don't see any actual examples in X-wing.

Yeah, you just need to see Fel oneshot at Range 3 once to understand where the reason for Autothrusters comes from.

It seems entirely plausible to me that academy pilots are still flying the same TIE Fighters.

One of the things we've seen is power creeping up the floor. The baseline for power/cost is still the AP from Wave 1. Every other ship from Wave 1 fell short of it. As did every other ship from Wave 2- seriously, even the Falcon does poorly against a TIE Swarm.

It wasn't until Wave 4 with the Phantom and the Z-95 that we saw the emergence of archetypes that seriously threatened the TIE Swarm.

What we have seen since then is the raising of past ships to the level of the TIE Fighter. Sometimes a single card can do it. I think half the point of the illicit cloak is to make the Virago worth taking.

I guess it's possible we could see another ship like the Z-95 or TIE Fighter that sets a higher bar for everything else. But I'd guess we'd see more cost overruns and fixes. That's weirdly healthier.

It'll be ok. 30 years actually isn't all that long in the grand scheme of things. For example, some weapons from around WWII remained in use for a long time, such as:

AK-47 (1949-present)

USS Iowa, battleship (1942-1990)

USS Missouri, battleship (1944-1992)

T-34 Soviet tank (1940s-still in use in some places)

They are not going to reboot a 3 year old game. There are spoilers for Wave 8 that will release after September 4th. This is their best selling game by a crazy margin so there is no reason to change it drastically. All the new movies will do is add actual movie ships and will no longer require FFG to scrape the bottom of the EU barrel. You won't be able to get new players into a game when you tell them all of the product on the shelf includes cards that are no longer legal and you have to buy some random updated card pack to use them.

It'll be ok. 30 years actually isn't all that long in the grand scheme of things. For example, some weapons from around WWII remained in use for a long time, such as:

AK-47 (1949-present)

USS Iowa, battleship (1942-1990)

USS Missouri, battleship (1944-1992)

T-34 Soviet tank (1940s-still in use in some places)

And in certain cases, older is better. The F-35 got its ass handed to it in dogfight tests by the F-16, which is older than I am (~35 years).

Now this is podracing!

My favorite line in the whole movie!

A 2.0 does not mean ships become forbidden. They'd get new cards,

Not necessarily even that. I posted in another thread, but I think it got nuked, a second edition could fiddle with the rules to fix a bunch of stuff and leave the cards strictly alone.

Fix the combat sequence so turrets actually function within the rules

Fix the activation sequence so night beast and similar things make sense

Fix timing issues surrounding conners net

Integrate all the new rules (boost, cloak, s-loop, bombs, slam)

Integrate the change to large ship barrel rolls

Fix large ship boosts

Fix ordnance so it works better (by making it so tokens spent to fire them also modify them)

I had a bunch of other stuff in the other list, but that is what I can recall now.

A game like this gradually adds more and more stuff, making it harder and harder for players to keep track of it all. A second edition is actually badly needed at this point to smooth out all the accumulated rules detritus.

This.

For some reason people tend to think that stuff is impossible out of reaction. Few things are impossible, while most are possible, it's just a matter of effort and timing.

They could definitely change rules and keep everything people have bought relevant. It'll just require quite a bit of work and testing. Also, if they ever want to rework some rules without upturning the game and upsetting customers, now is the perfect time. The earlier the better, and a new movie is a great time to throw out an updated starter set for many reasons.

It'll be ok. 30 years actually isn't all that long in the grand scheme of things. For example, some weapons from around WWII remained in use for a long time, such as:

AK-47 (1949-present)

USS Iowa, battleship (1942-1990)

USS Missouri, battleship (1944-1992)

T-34 Soviet tank (1940s-still in use in some places)

And in certain cases, older is better. The F-35 got its ass handed to it in dogfight tests by the F-16, which is older than I am (~35 years).

But on point: The US still flies U2's to the day, so longevity isn't a bad thing.

All this talk of hypothetical "X-wing 2.0" sounds very stupid in my opinion. Your going to shelve 6 years worth of ships, upgrades, and fixes for a whole new system? I think not.

Honestly, I think all the 2.0 talk comes from GW related trauma.

Well you have two options: Continuous "fix" upgrades as power creep pushes ships out of the game, or the occasional cost reboot to keep everything right.

You're completely right about power creep. I only lose about 50% of games to well-flown TIE swarms, especially pure Wave 1 swarms with Howlrunner. You almost never see Wave 2 ships, either, except for Interceptors and Firesprays and the Millennium Falcon. And Wave 3 is almost entirely gone from the game, except that people run B-wings a lot, and the Shuttle is perennially popular with people who like to experiment, and Bombers are a great way to take advantage of new changes to ordnance.

So yeah, no flaws in assertions about power creep in X-wing at all.

Or did you mean hoe interceptors needed the autorhrusters fix, and how you say ill win half the time against a perfectly flown swarm list?

Why didn't you include A wings that got their cost reduced by two due to creeep or advanced which got their cost knocked down 4? I mean, people still played Vader and Tycho so I guess they were always perfectly coated even after they got cheaper.

Why didn't you include A wings that got their cost reduced by two due to creeep or advanced which got their cost knocked down 4?

You seem to be confusing things that needed to be fixed with powercreep. Just because a few people used Tycho or Jake doesn't mean A-Wings were fine, and no one really used Vader.

The other stuff you mention like bombers is not an example of power creep...

The B-Wing could be considered power creep, but really it's just that the B-Wing is fairly priced and the X-Wing isn't.

It'll be ok. 30 years actually isn't all that long in the grand scheme of things. For example, some weapons from around WWII remained in use for a long time, such as:

AK-47 (1949-present)

USS Iowa, battleship (1942-1990)

USS Missouri, battleship (1944-1992)

T-34 Soviet tank (1940s-still in use in some places)

And in certain cases, older is better. The F-35 got its ass handed to it in dogfight tests by the F-16, which is older than I am (~35 years).

No it didn't. An F-35 with both hands tied behind its back and stripped of all it's tech(ie, everything that's supposed to make it better) lost in a drill.

You're half correct. The F35 is built to engage at long range using stealth as its defense, striking before its detected. In a close-range dogfight, the F16 is indeed the superior aircraft and it defeated the F35 soundly. So if a Mig or similar a/c ever get within pissing range of an F35, its dust. That is somewhat alarming despite its intended tactic.

Why didn't you include A wings that got their cost reduced by two due to creeep or advanced which got their cost knocked down 4?

You seem to be confusing things that needed to be fixed with powercreep. Just because a few people used Tycho or Jake doesn't mean A-Wings were fine, and no one really used Vader.

The other stuff you mention like bombers is not an example of power creep...

The B-Wing could be considered power creep, but really it's just that the B-Wing is fairly priced and the X-Wing isn't.

But some see them as one in the same. Perhaps we are debating the definition rather than the practical application. Practically speaking one needs to purchase Star Vipers to make their TIE Interceptors more viable. That may more of a fix than power creep but... It does two things:

A) It requires a new purchase

B) The overall capability of the unit with the fix is uniquely different and better than the unit without the purchase

Isn't that, practically speaking, about the same as power creep?

[Edit] P.S. Yes the B-Wing, being another purchase, pushed out the X-Wing practically speaking...

Perhaps we are debating the definition rather than the practical application.

I believe that the most common definition is when you have a unit that is clearly better then any existing unit, so you are effectively forced to use it. Which also means you have to buy it. That's why people get so upset with GW and the powercreep in 40k.

The B-Wing could be considered powercreep, because it's better then the X-Wing. But for a game you always have a base line, a unit that everything else is based on. If something is better then it, it should cost more, if it's worse it should cost less. Sometimes a unit may be better, and not cost more but in those cases it's more specialized, and not useful in all situations.

So in order to consider the B-Wing an example of powercreep you'd have to accept the X-Wing as the base line. Which effectively makes nearly every ship in the game too good.

Isn't that, practically speaking, about the same as power creep?

No, because the Starviper itself is not better then other ships that fill the same roll for the same price. Also the autothrusters upgrade works quite well on the Starviper, so the fact that it also fixes an issue with Interceptors is not an example of powercreep.

Autothrusters doesn't push Interceptors above the base line without an increase in cost, so it can't be considered powercreep for them.

Where the upgrade came from has nothing to do with powercreep either, not in any meaningful definition of the phrase. It may be considered unfriendly to consumers, but that's not even remotely related to the power level of the game.

It's also not like you get nothing but that card when buying a starviper.

It'll be ok. 30 years actually isn't all that long in the grand scheme of things. For example, some weapons from around WWII remained in use for a long time, such as:

AK-47 (1949-present)

USS Iowa, battleship (1942-1990)

USS Missouri, battleship (1944-1992)

T-34 Soviet tank (1940s-still in use in some places)

And in certain cases, older is better. The F-35 got its ass handed to it in dogfight tests by the F-16, which is older than I am (~35 years).

No it didn't. An F-35 with both hands tied behind its back and stripped of all it's tech(ie, everything that's supposed to make it better) lost in a drill.

But on point: The US still flies U2's to the day, so longevity isn't a bad thing.

OT: Both hands tied behind its back? LockMart's explanations boil down to: "it wasn't equipped with its BVR stuff so lost in the VR engagement." I think you need to read the report and judge for yourself.

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/read-for-yourself-the-f-35-s-damning-dogfighting-report-719a4e66f3eb

You're completely right about power creep. I only lose about 50% of games to well-flown TIE swarms, especially pure Wave 1 swarms with Howlrunner. You almost never see Wave 2 ships, either, except for Interceptors and Firesprays and the Millennium Falcon. And Wave 3 is almost entirely gone from the game, except that people run B-wings a lot, and the Shuttle is perennially popular with people who like to experiment, and Bombers are a great way to take advantage of new changes to ordnance.

So yeah, no flaws in assertions about power creep in X-wing at all.

So shuttles which are only flown on a lark...

Yeah, a lark like making the top 8 at last year's Nationals with three of them.

...b-wings which have pushed out x wings...

TIE fighters pushed out X-wings. It just took a while for everybody to notice that every major tournament in Waves 1-2 was won by TIE fighters.

...and bombers which were pushed out until the next wave by inferior oridence...

Have you ever seriously played a Bomber list? I once killed off a Chewbacca + 2x Blue Squadron list in three rounds.

Bombers failed to catch on because (a) everyone was really very sure that ordnance was too terrible to be used, and (b) they deal very poorly with arc-dodgers, and arc-dodgers are an important part of the metagame. But neither of those suggests that the TIE bomber has a balance problem--it has a problem of not fitting well into the metagame.

...are examples of no power creep?

Yes.

Or did you mean hoe interceptors needed the autorhrusters fix, and how you say ill win half the time against a perfectly flown swarm list?

Why didn't you include A wings that got their cost reduced by two due to creeep or advanced which got their cost knocked down 4?

You seem to be confusing "things getting fixed" with "power creep". If a racecar's engine is firing on 7 cylinders instead of 8, and the mechanic replaces the malfunctioning valve, does that constitute an unfair advantage over all the other cars?

Is Wave 1 still used? Yes, although one of the ships was slightly overpriced at release and one of them needed a pretty spectacular kick in the pants. Is Wave 2 still used? Yes, although one of the ships was too expensive and another needed a touch-up in order to be as reliable as other similarly-priced choices in a tournament format. Is Wave 3 still used? Yes, and with no touch-ups or fixes at all to those ships. Is Wave 4 still used? Of course, although two ships could use touch-ups in order to remain competitive with Wave 1.

What we see in X-wing is that the designers have established a band of acceptable performance for their releases, and have consistently worked to bring underperforming elements into that band. As long as those boundaries of acceptable performance stay fixed, there's no power creep.

What we have never seen in X-wing is the kind of power creep you see in Games Workshop, where units just keep getting more and more powerful until things that used to be viable choices simply aren't any more. What we've also never seen in X-wing is the kind of power creep I saw when I played D&D, where insufficient playtesting and poor editorial control allowed progressively more and more powerful combinations to emerge over the life of each edition.

It'll be ok. 30 years actually isn't all that long in the grand scheme of things. For example, some weapons from around WWII remained in use for a long time, such as:

AK-47 (1949-present)

USS Iowa, battleship (1942-1990)

USS Missouri, battleship (1944-1992)

T-34 Soviet tank (1940s-still in use in some places)

And in certain cases, older is better. The F-35 got its ass handed to it in dogfight tests by the F-16, which is older than I am (~35 years).

No it didn't. An F-35 with both hands tied behind its back and stripped of all it's tech(ie, everything that's supposed to make it better) lost in a drill.

But on point: The US still flies U2's to the day, so longevity isn't a bad thing.

OT: Both hands tied behind its back? LockMart's explanations boil down to: "it wasn't equipped with its BVR stuff so lost in the VR engagement." I think you need to read the report and judge for yourself. https://medium.com/war-is-boring/read-for-yourself-the-f-35-s-damning-dogfighting-report-719a4e66f3eb

It's also not like you get nothing but that card when buying a starviper.

Of course on the face of it it is a good deal. You get ships, cards, etc. Nevertheless just because you get something you don't really want in the package that has the card you really want isn't necessarily a justification for some people.

But getting back I see your point and perhaps we are discussing two different things and what I'm describing doesn't fit the standard definition of power creep.

what I'm describing doesn't fit the standard definition of power creep.

I don't think it is, which isn't to say that I think your point is invalid. But selling upgrades that are useful or even seen as mandatory for other ships isn't powercreep, unless the upgrade in question pushes that ship into the OP'ed status.

For example... Lets say a ship comes out that that has a 0 point upgrade usable by Tie Interceptors, the upgrade is a title and gives lets a Int make a free Boost and Barrel roll maneuver when it gets an evade token. It also turns all maneuvers on the ships dial green, and gives it 2 shields.

So you now have a 2 shield, 3 hull ship with 3 evade, that can boost or barrel roll twice, do the other once and get an evade. That would be OP'ed and that would be an example of powercreep.

But if you take the Raider, it's not. It adds a fair amount of power to the Tie Advanced, but that ship was so underpowered it needed that much boost just to get back to the base line. So that is not powercreep, because it doesn't push the ship above the base line, just brings it up to it.

The fact that the only way to get it is in a $100 package is not powercreep, it's not even IMO pay to win, because the Raider itself is worth that much.

But it is at the same time not super consumer friendly because you are putting some very tasty bait in a box that at least some people wouldn't buy if not for that bait.

It kinda baffles me how people still think that X-Wing is set in some particular year while it's a game that literally spans the whole Galactic Civil War and even a little of what happened after it (E-Wings from the New Republic for example).

This way you can play battles from the whole period without limiting people to pilots only available in that particular year. It's about the whole war.

I wouldn't mind having First Order TIEs and Resistance new X-Wings in the same game as long as they're appropriately priced in points. As mentioned earlier - E-Wings are a very, very late design and Z's are very old. Think of the new X-Wings as refits/newer models like the Abrams tanks used by US Army - they're in use for over three decades and just like modernised tanks are more expensive than those from 80's, so would new X-Wings be more expensive (in points) than regular X'es.

And there is a huge argument against making a second game. Mostly because there's already a second game - Armada. And already in it's case people are saying "I already have a space battle game, why do I need another one" and now you're saying that they should make a game identical to X-Wing just for the new era? Do you want the community to divide over two games rather than have one become richer especially that newest waves show that FFG is running out of spacecraft to put in the game, going for the ridiculous (K-Wing) and obscure (Punisher/Interdictor) designs? I bet it wouldn't be hard to imagine people saying "uh, I have already invested hundreds of dollurs into X-Wing, why would I start over in an identical game?" nor would it be hard to understand that reasoning.

IMO there is no power creep in the game, but there is power LEAP in the form of fat ships. Remove fat ships, and all the little 2-attack non-AT ships in hiding get to come out and play. For now, most competitive lists consist either fat ships or ships that can survive/kill fat ships, which gives the illusion that wave 0-4 ships are weak. Even swarms struggle against them in timed events, so most people leave the Ties at home in favor of Auto-Fel(cuz AT's). Z swarms have seen a bit more success, thanks to shields and the zapper, but it was ultimately fat ships that filled most slots at regionals and won Nats. As for the Tie Advanced, stop calling it "power creep". Just stop. Creep is when a once good ship is overshadowed by a newer, shiner one. Adv'd were never good from day 1, the meta never had to overshadow or "creep" on them. This buff just brings them up to where they should've been all along.

It kinda baffles me how people still think that X-Wing is set in some particular year while it's a game that literally spans the whole Galactic Civil War and even a little of what happened after it (E-Wings from the New Republic for example).

This way you can play battles from the whole period without limiting people to pilots only available in that particular year. It's about the whole war.

I wouldn't mind having First Order TIEs and Resistance new X-Wings in the same game as long as they're appropriately priced in points. As mentioned earlier - E-Wings are a very, very late design and Z's are very old. Think of the new X-Wings as refits/newer models like the Abrams tanks used by US Army - they're in use for over three decades and just like modernised tanks are more expensive than those from 80's, so would new X-Wings be more expensive (in points) than regular X'es.

And there is a huge argument against making a second game. Mostly because there's already a second game - Armada. And already in it's case people are saying "I already have a space battle game, why do I need another one" and now you're saying that they should make a game identical to X-Wing just for the new era? Do you want the community to divide over two games rather than have one become richer especially that newest waves show that FFG is running out of spacecraft to put in the game, going for the ridiculous (K-Wing) and obscure (Punisher/Interdictor) designs? I bet it wouldn't be hard to imagine people saying "uh, I have already invested hundreds of dollurs into X-Wing, why would I start over in an identical game?" nor would it be hard to understand that reasoning.

I agree with you, except for one key point: why did they make a new, re-branded starter!!??

They should have made straight up expansion packs in the same red and gray livery of the current game.

Nothing in the current game has a nod to its place of origin. The TIE Bomber doesn't have an Empire Strikes Back logo on it, for instance.

I am confused by this (alleged) turn of events.

just to refresh on the history of perceptions regarded wave 1/2 ships

the X-wing was always mathematically inferior to the Tie Fighter, and it was crutching on its named pilots (esp Biggs) from day one

the Tie Fighter was dominating competitive play until m.o.v (and the pre-errata phantom, though really only in wave 5 because whisper + mini-swarm was a thing) was introduced

The Tie Advance was deemed the least competitive ship, having a horrible profile built upon ineffective ordnance

The Y-wing wasn't fixed so much as given new options, from r3-a2 (rebel transport), BTL-A4 (most wanted) + salvaged mechs for scum, and now TLT to diversify it into what is now a versatile and competitive ship

The A-wing was and has always been (until the raider fix) a strictly superior tie advance, but also built upon ineffective ordnance until Rebel Aces fixed that

The interceptor was doomed upon release because it was bafflingly introduced into the game along with unavoidable PWTs. That was perhaps easily FFG's biggest goof to date and continues to be, thrusters or no.

now we look back at the ships in use, and it seems only the X-wing is lagging behind by popular consensus and even they have had some showings at top positions in recent regionals. The other formerly mis-designed ships have been updated and brought back into the bold.

Power Creep, by definition, would be if FFG just left them there to languish or if they did something like release the Y-wing 2.0, the same exact thing as a Y-wing only with 3 attack and a new model that you'd have to buy to completely replace your old Y-wings

There is one good reason to (allegedly) release a new starter set. To sell more starter sets! A new starter with episode VII ships is aimed squarely at new players. Many of us here would buy such an item because we're Pavlov's dogs and FFG be ringing a bell. But! We here are not the intended target of such a hypothetical item. FFG wants a shiny new stand-alone product to grace the shelves at Target and Barnes&Noble to bring in new players. This is good news for us though. More money in FFG's pockets is only good news for the dedicated fan base.

Also, it seems unlikely that the new trilogy of movies would bring in enough ships for an interesting game. The original trilogy only introduced 11 ships if I am counting correctly. Separating sequel ships into a separate game makes no sense at all. Especially in case the new movie(s) turn out to be turds.