Was talking with @geordan the other day, and we hashed out an idea to address a lot of issues in the "would be fine if it cost less" class of balance problems that the current spread of cards have.

The core idea isn't radical: issue a new batch of pilot and upgrade cards with different costs and text.

However, in order for the idea to be feasible, there are a number of key provisions that need to be in place for the resulting state of the game not to suck. First is the big one:

None of the new cards invalidate the old ones, from a strict "tournament legal" sense. All of the new cards would be objectively better than the old (generally, I'm imagining cost reductions and Elite slots on mid-PS generics), but nothing would prevent someone from running a list with the old card if they chose.

This prevents the "why should I have to pay more money to keep playing the ships I already have?" arguments from getting much traction (aside from the chronically grumpy set).

None of the changes require new cardboard. This is pretty obvious; it keeps the cost and size of the box down. A pack of cards would be $10, $15 tops.

Only one physical copy of a mk2 generic pilot is required to field a list using the mk2 stats. This is so that anyone who wants the new cards only ever needs to buy one pack, no matter how many generics they want to fly. Let's say that Rookie Pilots get dropped to 20 points and you want to fly 5x of them. All you need is one Rookie mk2 card, and then you can treat the other 4 original Rookie cards you have as being identical (you need the one card to show your opponent, and then the originals are just proxies for the mk2 card).

The nice thing about this is that makes it trivial to balance E-Wings without making Corran OP. Just don't give him a mk2 pilot card. Same for starvipers, defenders, generic phantoms, a lot of the dud interceptors (many of which could gain an Elite slot), etc.

So it'd be like a little pack of sixty alternate pilot cards?

Only one physical copy of a mk2 generic pilot is required to field a list using the mk2 stats.

Or just package three or four copies of each updated generic in there. Only Z-95s and TIE fighters would really need more, and given the relatively small number of ships you'd recost (TIE defenders, X-wings, Y-wings, E-wings and maybe Scyks) it'd help pad out the size to make it a marketable release.

I doubt very much they'd do it, but it'd be nice.

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Well, to be fair I can't think of a better way to update cards without making them Internet dependant. This could fix all the little niggles in one fell swoop.

Not sure how viable it'd be as a product though.

So it'd be like a little pack of sixty alternate pilot cards?

Yes, and upgrades too. I'm thinking Flight Instructor, Heavy Scyk, etc.

Only one physical copy of a mk2 generic pilot is required to field a list using the mk2 stats.

Or just package three or four copies of each updated generic in there. Only Z-95s and TIE fighters would really need more, and given the relatively small number of ships you'd recost (TIE defenders, X-wings, Y-wings, E-wings and maybe Scyks) it'd help pad out the size to make it a marketable release.

Yeah, you could pack in the most needed for a 100pt game, though that works out to a lot of Heavy Scyk cards. Again, that rule was mostly to head off complains about having to buy multiple copies of the deck to field spammy lists.

I'm also imagining a lot of single-point reductions (or adding elite slots) for the unused pilots.

How about this idea - An internet-only database of fixes for the cards, run by and decided on by us, the community who uses them? We'd need a due process, where people propose on and debate possible amendments, and if they pass some (as-yet-unknown) test, they enter the set.

They obviously wouldn't be tournament legal, but they could be a widely accepted baseline for us to play and have fun with. It could also be a big benefit to FFG, who would, by proxy, get to test-drive possible future tweaks.

We could run a discussion for a few days on problem cards, hear the for and against, and make our decision. This could be reversed if we later discovered that we were wrong! It would be a kind of running series of posts on the forum, with a really interesting end result...

What do you all think?

How about this idea - An internet-only database of fixes for the cards, run by and decided on by us, the community who uses them? We'd need a due process, where people propose on and debate possible amendments, and if they pass some (as-yet-unknown) test, they enter the set.

They obviously wouldn't be tournament legal, but they could be a widely accepted baseline for us to play and have fun with. It could also be a big benefit to FFG, who would, by proxy, get to test-drive possible future tweaks.

We could run a discussion for a few days on problem cards, hear the for and against, and make our decision. This could be reversed if we later discovered that we were wrong! It would be a kind of running series of posts on the forum, with a really interesting end result...

What do you all think?

I think this is a smart idea to do once X-wing stops getting official releases (which will probably and hopefully be a loooooong time from now). Heroscape still has big custom and re-costing groups which keep the tournament scene going even though that game has been canceled for a while.

How about this idea - An internet-only database of fixes for the cards, run by and decided on by us, the community who uses them?

...

They obviously wouldn't be tournament legal,

For me, tournament legality is required to be interesting. Community curated content has the issue where a large chunk of the community thinks that giving the TIE Defender BTL-A4 is a great idea, and another significant chunk thinks that would both be OP and missing the point about what's wrong with the ship. Someone's going to be unhappy with the end result either way.

I think that the MtG Oracle model is awesome, and wish that companies who want to run competitive tournament games would not be nearly as reluctant to adopt the approach for dealing with balance (I think that they typically underestimate their tournament-going fans).

My approach is intended to disrupt the status quo as little as possible, basically as a political ploy to increase the likelihood of acceptance (not because I think it's the overall best approach).

Alex Davy has pretty much said they will never do this when its been discussed in interviews

I'm thinking specifically of the one he did fir scum and villainy last year

PP did this exact thing quite successfully, so i don't see why not.

Alex Davy has pretty much said they will never do this when its been discussed in interviews

I'm thinking specifically of the one he did fir scum and villainy last year

I am getting pretty tired of people relying on this. FFG has clearly changed its mind on many things. "Once upon a time a single company representative said that the company would never do that" is really not that strong of an indicator as to whether or not the forsworn possibility will ever occur. It is a footnote in the discussion as to whether or not the possibility is (1) practical and (2) profitable.

FFG will revisit old pilot card and upgrades if the game continues at its current pace. It will really have no choice. There just aren't that many original ideas left. Whether it revisits them through re-releases or minor tweaks to create new cards, however, remains to be seen. Besides, it is already starting to become obvious that certain ships came from an earlier wave based on the multiple instances or new game developments (like new maneuvers or being misplaced in a faction).

At some point, yes. At a certain point FFG will pretty much have to overhaul the rules, the pilots, and everything else that goes along with this game. They ran into that point with Descent, and I wouldn't be surprised in 5-10 years to see it in X-Wing.

When that happens, I pretty much guarantee we'll see something like "T-65 X-Wing" instead of "X-Wing" on the ship cards. And probably "TIE/ln as well. Maybe the Imperials would even lose the Firespray from their fleet.

And when we do see an X-Wing 2.0, I'm sure they will roll out some card only upgrade packs, similar to how they did it with Descent.

But in the context of an overall rules overhaul, I'm not sure they'd just tweek ships by a point or two. It might well make sense to leave the X-Wing at its current price.

Not a fan, absolutely no excitement for this. I like the fixes they do except for 2 things: the speed they are implemented and packing with expensive huge ships.

/need more sensor jammers too.

How about no.

Upgrade card's don't need fixing, and if FFG decides to revise a pilot card, they'll do it with a title or modification. (Y-wing bomb slot, Chardaan refit, Royal guard title, etc.)

I can't see this being worthwhile, now or ever.

Are you seeing a lot of Flight Instructors and Heavy Scyks in your meta then? Because that's the only charitable explanation I have for thinking upgrades don't need fixes too.

A big part of my issue with the current approach is that it has to be a pretty big problem with the entire ship line to justify a fix. Small issues and individual pilots won't be addressed.

Hence my original post.

I have the feeling that FFG just can't release card only expansions because of the license. They have a license to sell minis, and your proposal would have to come in some pack that features some ship, like Most Wanted. Most Wanted could have been a card only expansion pack, because the ywing and z95 minis were available already. If it wasn't, I'm pretty sure it was because they couldn't.