And with the new Gozanti TIE pilots, I think both Scourge and Chaser deserve some attention, as they work much like Backstabber/Mithel or Night Beast respectively. Scourge, like his earlier counterparts, has a condition that can lead to him getting an extra die (one that's arguably easier to achieve than the other two), while Chaser (like Night Beast) can essentially have a poor man's PTL. Could even throw the rarely seen Targeting Computer on either of them, negating the need to have Howlrunner along.

Oh certainly! And that's before we get to the TIE/FO Fighters. Look at Zeta Leader!

I think what people tend to forget is that the more expensive a ship is, the fewer ships you can fit in your list, the more it _needs_ to do damage _every_ round. And yes: the easiest way to design that is to toss more dice. 29 points-before-upgrades Darth Vader was simply not ever going to have a hard time justifying himself at 2 dice. He simply won't hit often enough. I do think there's a case to be made for Accuracy Corrector + Juke on Darth.

Haven't read the whole topic, but my gut reaction is:

FFG lost control over red dice from the beginning when they underestimated the value of the base TIE fighter. Howlrunner may be what pushes it over the edge (essentially making it a near 3R ship) but its also just a little too durable for a game system that feels like it was initially built around having 3 ships on the table.

I'm not exactly sure what was undervalued; 3G? The Evade/Focus action? Howlrunner, pretty much everything since has been about releveling the game with the TIE Swarm as a baseline. That means that it's incredibly hard to justify a 2R ship that doesn't break 3G reliably.

FFG is completely aware the TIE Swarm is the defacto standard for damage in/damage out. 21 health backed up by 3 greens. Pretty much everything we've seen has been built to not fall completely flat against that.

Wampa and the Emperor need to get Corran in arc twice to kill him. No. Matter. What.

Unless you have Colzet too and get lucky on the draw.

Mary sue inside a Mary sue with 4 more onboard

Rebels in a nutshell

You mean the writers of Rebels see themselves as freighters/shuttles?

Nah I mean all the characters are complete and utter failure of writers, filled with Special Snowflake cream.

All the character set is just a bluntest example of quotas on aliens and females...ahem...

And then these mary sues are put into "OMG MARVEL OF SCIENCE" shuttle inside of "OMG MARVEL OF SCIENCE!" ship

and given complete losers for adversaries.

p.s. still better than re-telling New Hope TFA though, with their "Like T-65 but better! Like TIE\Ln but better! Like Deathstar BUT BETTER!" bantacrap

*stops rambling*

what was the thread about?

Firepower?

Apparently, 2 women and 2 aliens in a main cast of 6 is too much for poor Warpman to handle. He longs for the days of A New Hope when the Rebellion was 99% white human males with the only exceptions being the Wookie smuggler and the princess.

Also the days of no boosting, but that goes without saying.

As a long time gamer, and avid studier of game design, I don't know how this isn't just an understood thing. As I put it, it's a law of game design that states: "For any game that has expanding content, power creep will occur."

This game has power creep. Period. It follows that law. It's not as apparent until you go to get someone new into the game and they ask you how to build a list and you look through their upgrades like wow... I can't do anything with these. It's natural to have that. What's important is to control it's speed. Which they do a fairly good job of, though it's slipping a little as of late.

I would not call it Power Creep. There is more optimal way to use a ship, but I don't consider it power creep, or everybody would just fly the same thing. But the game has certainly evolved a lot since Wave 1.

But, it is getting harder to sell the game when you have to tell a new player that if they want to bring Vader into a tournament, they'll have to buy that 100$ ship too that they might never get to use. They could do without the Raider of course, but in that case there would be a better way to spend those points.

It's more than that. Put it this way: is the T-65 under powered, or is everything released overpowered? Common group think is that the X-wing was under powered. But how can that be if it came out first? It had some trouble with swarms to be fair. But it also has two upgrade slots per ship to build it out, over that Swarm.

Or look at action economies. Wave 0, max actions per round was 8, one per ship on eight ties. Note it's like a 3:1 actions to ship ratio, pulling 9 actions on the ships. Or more.

Then thanks to all those actions, damage averages are going way up with all the dice modifiers.

But again, difficult to notice that sometimes. Why? Because all the factions and the top tier lists are getting that kind of power level. But to get it they all had to creep up to it. Which is one of the ways FFG if actually on top of it, since they are controlling the dispersion.

As a long time gamer, and avid studier of game design, I don't know how this isn't just an understood thing. As I put it, it's a law of game design that states: "For any game that has expanding content, power creep will occur."

This game has power creep. Period. It follows that law. It's not as apparent until you go to get someone new into the game and they ask you how to build a list and you look through their upgrades like wow... I can't do anything with these. It's natural to have that. What's important is to control it's speed. Which they do a fairly good job of, though it's slipping a little as of late.

I would not call it Power Creep. There is more optimal way to use a ship, but I don't consider it power creep, or everybody would just fly the same thing. But the game has certainly evolved a lot since Wave 1.

But, it is getting harder to sell the game when you have to tell a new player that if they want to bring Vader into a tournament, they'll have to buy that 100$ ship too that they might never get to use. They could do without the Raider of course, but in that case there would be a better way to spend those points.

It's more than that. Put it this way: is the T-65 under powered, or is everything released overpowered? Common group think is that the X-wing was under powered. But how can that be if it came out first? It had some trouble with swarms to be fair. But it also has two upgrade slots per ship to build it out, over that Swarm.

Or look at action economies. Wave 0, max actions per round was 8, one per ship on eight ties. Note it's like a 3:1 actions to ship ratio, pulling 9 actions on the ships. Or more.

Then thanks to all those actions, damage averages are going way up with all the dice modifiers.

But again, difficult to notice that sometimes. Why? Because all the factions and the top tier lists are getting that kind of power level. But to get it they all had to creep up to it. Which is one of the ways FFG if actually on top of it, since they are controlling the dispersion.

I see it more as the game is evolving, not that there is powercreep. The closest we got to powercreep was during wave 4-5 with the release of the Phantom and then fat turret everywhere. They acknowledged their error by nerfing the Phantom and then including the large base half point rule, or by reducing the impact of a large base barrel roll. I think they do a wonderful job keeping the powercreep out of this game, they either upgrade or downgrade a ship depending on what's needed to keep it in line.

But, with now soon 8 wave of ship, of course a ship made during the first wave might have trouble following. At first the only action available was Focus, Evade, Target Lock and Barrel Roll. Then came Boost, then the mines, then cloak/decloak, then advanced Slam... as far as maneuver, at first it was straight, bank, hard, k-turn... now they introduced S-Loop and Talon-Roll. But is it powercreep, no. it's just more option, the evolution of the game. If during a tournament, the only unit we saw was units from the latest wave, or always the same unit on and on and on, then I would start to worry. The way I see it, the game is evolving and it is only natural that the ships from the first waves need some attention to keep them relevant with a flavor of their own.

Powercreep is making a new unit more powerful than a previous one so that it sells. Looking at the past 2 wave, I didn't see that happening. Wave 6 brought us the Scyk, the Starviper and the Aggressor. Wave 7 brought us the K-Wing, the Tie Punisher, the Kirhaxz and the YV-666. Of all those units, is there one really dominating the game? The closest we have is double IG, but it doesn't dominate the game. It's just a new build coming in, evolution of the game. There is some upgrade here and there that see the table more often, but they were brought into the game more as to correct the error from the past, when the game was young, than to have a powercreep. Interceptor was always meant to be a arc-dodging glass cannon, but I don,t think they understood how weak they were to turrets, so they created Autothrusters. Y-Wing was never really a part of the meta (except maybe in wave 1 when you could only pick a Y-Wing or a X-Wing, and even then), so they finally created a turret to bring them into the game for the first time. Same for the Advanced title, since wave 1, that ship never saw the table, it needed a boost. Not because of the powercreep coming into the game, but just to make it relevant to the game for the first time. Same thing should happen with the Scyk. Notice that everytime they boost a ship, it's because it was behind from the moment it was created. FFG (with some exception here and there, they're not perfect) seems to prefer to make a ship weaker at first to prevent the problem a powercreep unit would brought. Then, once they have a real feel of the impact of the unit, they issue a card to bring it into the game.

That's the practice I have more trouble with, because as I said, it makes the game harder to sell. But at least, I'm confident that when a unit or an upgrade come into the game, it won't break it.

• A-Wing: Great little ships in my opinion. Cheap, hard to kill, and the action bar + dial to be nasty blockers. Their top aces are still seeing common play among Rebel players, and any pilot with a natural EPT slot ends up with excellent action economy and positioning to help nullify the failings of only two dice. They're also a natural fit for Proton Rockets to help punch through up to a whopping five damage once a game. I think Arvel Crynyd, and to a lesser extent Gemmer Sojan, are the only ones here not feeling a lot of love.

I think people underestimate Arvel. He can RAM someone, and then fire prockets, while the only thing the opponent can do about it is role a dice. works great with kyle katarn.

As a long time gamer, and avid studier of game design, I don't know how this isn't just an understood thing. As I put it, it's a law of game design that states: "For any game that has expanding content, power creep will occur."

This game has power creep. Period. It follows that law. It's not as apparent until you go to get someone new into the game and they ask you how to build a list and you look through their upgrades like wow... I can't do anything with these. It's natural to have that. What's important is to control it's speed. Which they do a fairly good job of, though it's slipping a little as of late.

I would not call it Power Creep. There is more optimal way to use a ship, but I don't consider it power creep, or everybody would just fly the same thing. But the game has certainly evolved a lot since Wave 1.

But, it is getting harder to sell the game when you have to tell a new player that if they want to bring Vader into a tournament, they'll have to buy that 100$ ship too that they might never get to use. They could do without the Raider of course, but in that case there would be a better way to spend those points.

It's more than that. Put it this way: is the T-65 under powered, or is everything released overpowered? Common group think is that the X-wing was under powered. But how can that be if it came out first? It had some trouble with swarms to be fair. But it also has two upgrade slots per ship to build it out, over that Swarm.

Or look at action economies. Wave 0, max actions per round was 8, one per ship on eight ties. Note it's like a 3:1 actions to ship ratio, pulling 9 actions on the ships. Or more.

Then thanks to all those actions, damage averages are going way up with all the dice modifiers.

But again, difficult to notice that sometimes. Why? Because all the factions and the top tier lists are getting that kind of power level. But to get it they all had to creep up to it. Which is one of the ways FFG if actually on top of it, since they are controlling the dispersion.

I see it more as the game is evolving, not that there is powercreep. The closest we got to powercreep was during wave 4-5 with the release of the Phantom and then fat turret everywhere. They acknowledged their error by nerfing the Phantom and then including the large base half point rule, or by reducing the impact of a large base barrel roll. I think they do a wonderful job keeping the powercreep out of this game, they either upgrade or downgrade a ship depending on what's needed to keep it in line.

But, with now soon 8 wave of ship, of course a ship made during the first wave might have trouble following. At first the only action available was Focus, Evade, Target Lock and Barrel Roll. Then came Boost, then the mines, then cloak/decloak, then advanced Slam... as far as maneuver, at first it was straight, bank, hard, k-turn... now they introduced S-Loop and Talon-Roll. But is it powercreep, no. it's just more option, the evolution of the game. If during a tournament, the only unit we saw was units from the latest wave, or always the same unit on and on and on, then I would start to worry. The way I see it, the game is evolving and it is only natural that the ships from the first waves need some attention to keep them relevant with a flavor of their own.

Powercreep is making a new unit more powerful than a previous one so that it sells. Looking at the past 2 wave, I didn't see that happening. Wave 6 brought us the Scyk, the Starviper and the Aggressor. Wave 7 brought us the K-Wing, the Tie Punisher, the Kirhaxz and the YV-666. Of all those units, is there one really dominating the game? The closest we have is double IG, but it doesn't dominate the game. It's just a new build coming in, evolution of the game. There is some upgrade here and there that see the table more often, but they were brought into the game more as to correct the error from the past, when the game was young, than to have a powercreep. Interceptor was always meant to be a arc-dodging glass cannon, but I don,t think they understood how weak they were to turrets, so they created Autothrusters. Y-Wing was never really a part of the meta (except maybe in wave 1 when you could only pick a Y-Wing or a X-Wing, and even then), so they finally created a turret to bring them into the game for the first time. Same for the Advanced title, since wave 1, that ship never saw the table, it needed a boost. Not because of the powercreep coming into the game, but just to make it relevant to the game for the first time. Same thing should happen with the Scyk. Notice that everytime they boost a ship, it's because it was behind from the moment it was created. FFG (with some exception here and there, they're not perfect) seems to prefer to make a ship weaker at first to prevent the problem a powercreep unit would brought. Then, once they have a real feel of the impact of the unit, they issue a card to bring it into the game.

That's the practice I have more trouble with, because as I said, it makes the game harder to sell. But at least, I'm confident that when a unit or an upgrade come into the game, it won't break it.

It's not a ship powercreep, but it absolutely is an upgrade powercreep.

As a long time gamer, and avid studier of game design, I don't know how this isn't just an understood thing. As I put it, it's a law of game design that states: "For any game that has expanding content, power creep will occur."

This game has power creep. Period. It follows that law. It's not as apparent until you go to get someone new into the game and they ask you how to build a list and you look through their upgrades like wow... I can't do anything with these. It's natural to have that. What's important is to control it's speed. Which they do a fairly good job of, though it's slipping a little as of late.

I would not call it Power Creep. There is more optimal way to use a ship, but I don't consider it power creep, or everybody would just fly the same thing. But the game has certainly evolved a lot since Wave 1.

But, it is getting harder to sell the game when you have to tell a new player that if they want to bring Vader into a tournament, they'll have to buy that 100$ ship too that they might never get to use. They could do without the Raider of course, but in that case there would be a better way to spend those points.

It's more than that. Put it this way: is the T-65 under powered, or is everything released overpowered? Common group think is that the X-wing was under powered. But how can that be if it came out first? It had some trouble with swarms to be fair. But it also has two upgrade slots per ship to build it out, over that Swarm.

Or look at action economies. Wave 0, max actions per round was 8, one per ship on eight ties. Note it's like a 3:1 actions to ship ratio, pulling 9 actions on the ships. Or more.

Then thanks to all those actions, damage averages are going way up with all the dice modifiers.

But again, difficult to notice that sometimes. Why? Because all the factions and the top tier lists are getting that kind of power level. But to get it they all had to creep up to it. Which is one of the ways FFG if actually on top of it, since they are controlling the dispersion.

I see it more as the game is evolving, not that there is powercreep. The closest we got to powercreep was during wave 4-5 with the release of the Phantom and then fat turret everywhere. They acknowledged their error by nerfing the Phantom and then including the large base half point rule, or by reducing the impact of a large base barrel roll. I think they do a wonderful job keeping the powercreep out of this game, they either upgrade or downgrade a ship depending on what's needed to keep it in line.

But, with now soon 8 wave of ship, of course a ship made during the first wave might have trouble following. At first the only action available was Focus, Evade, Target Lock and Barrel Roll. Then came Boost, then the mines, then cloak/decloak, then advanced Slam... as far as maneuver, at first it was straight, bank, hard, k-turn... now they introduced S-Loop and Talon-Roll. But is it powercreep, no. it's just more option, the evolution of the game. If during a tournament, the only unit we saw was units from the latest wave, or always the same unit on and on and on, then I would start to worry. The way I see it, the game is evolving and it is only natural that the ships from the first waves need some attention to keep them relevant with a flavor of their own.

Powercreep is making a new unit more powerful than a previous one so that it sells. Looking at the past 2 wave, I didn't see that happening. Wave 6 brought us the Scyk, the Starviper and the Aggressor. Wave 7 brought us the K-Wing, the Tie Punisher, the Kirhaxz and the YV-666. Of all those units, is there one really dominating the game? The closest we have is double IG, but it doesn't dominate the game. It's just a new build coming in, evolution of the game. There is some upgrade here and there that see the table more often, but they were brought into the game more as to correct the error from the past, when the game was young, than to have a powercreep. Interceptor was always meant to be a arc-dodging glass cannon, but I don,t think they understood how weak they were to turrets, so they created Autothrusters. Y-Wing was never really a part of the meta (except maybe in wave 1 when you could only pick a Y-Wing or a X-Wing, and even then), so they finally created a turret to bring them into the game for the first time. Same for the Advanced title, since wave 1, that ship never saw the table, it needed a boost. Not because of the powercreep coming into the game, but just to make it relevant to the game for the first time. Same thing should happen with the Scyk. Notice that everytime they boost a ship, it's because it was behind from the moment it was created. FFG (with some exception here and there, they're not perfect) seems to prefer to make a ship weaker at first to prevent the problem a powercreep unit would brought. Then, once they have a real feel of the impact of the unit, they issue a card to bring it into the game.

That's the practice I have more trouble with, because as I said, it makes the game harder to sell. But at least, I'm confident that when a unit or an upgrade come into the game, it won't break it.

It's not a ship powercreep, but it absolutely is an upgrade powercreep.

At this point, I think we just don't share the same definition of powercreep.

Is Autothrusters an upgrade powercreep? I don't think so, it's more a way to prevent bad match-up that is present since the day the Interceptor came into the game. Interceptor and the Falcon came into the same wave. But without Autothrusters, Interceptors always had trouble being relevant in tournaments, because as soon as it faced a turret, it just relied on the dice god to win. Now, position is relevant, and dice not so much a factor if the Interceptor player can keep outside the Line of Sight. It also tame the turret since now it has a reason to keep its target in line.

Is the Tie Advanced title Powercreep? I don't think so, Tie Advanced was never a part of meta in the first place because it was overpriced from the beginning. Vader was the only exception here and there, but it was never the menace he should be as the Dark Lord, one of the best pilot in the Galaxy.

Is the TLT powercreep? I don't think so. Just like the Tie Advanced, the Y-Wing always had trouble taking a place in the meta. Now, we finally start to see some Y-Wing build and you must plan ahead when you see one from the other side of the table. But Before TLT, meh. They were easy to outmaneuver and keeping at range 3 to prevent their ion turret shot was not that hard. They still go down pretty fast.

As I said, the game is evolving, something natural when there is 7 wave of ship plus ace packs. The good upgrade here and there that come with each wave shake things up, but they don't dominate the game. That's my definition of Powercreep, when a pilot, or an upgrade dominate the game, and I don,t see it. Closest I saw was during wave 4-5, and instead of boosting the other ship like they would have done with a powercreep mentality, they tamed their errors back in line.

At this point, I think we just don't share the same definition of poewecreep.

Is Autothrusters an upgrade powercreep? I don't think so, it's more a way to prevent bad match-up that is present since the day the Interceptor came into the game. Interceptor and the Falcon came into the same wave. But without Autothrusters, Interceptors always had trouble being relevant in tournaments, because as soon as it faced a turret, it just relied on the dice god to win. Now, position is relevant, and dice not so much a factor if the Interceptor player can keep outside the Line of Sight. It also tame the turret since now it has a reason to keep its target in line.

Is the Tie Advanced title Powercreep? I don't think so, Tie Advanced was never a part of meta in the first place because it was overpriced from the beginning. Vader was the only exception here and there, but it was never the menace he should be as the Dark Lord, one of the best pilot in the Galaxy.

Is the TLT powercreep? I don't think so. Just like the Tie Advanced, the Y-Wing always had trouble taking a place in the meta. Now, we finally start to see some Y-Wing build and you must plan ahead when you see one from the other side of the table. But Before TLT, meh. They were easy to outmaneuver and keeping at range 3 to prevent their ion turret shot was not that hard. They still go down pretty fast.

As I said, the game is evolving, something natural when there is 7 wave of ship plus ace packs. The good upgrade here and there that come with each wave shake things up, but they don't dominate the game. That's my definition of Powercreep, when a pilot, or an upgrade dominate the game, and I don,t see it. Closest I saw was during wave 4-5, and instead of boosting the other ship like they would have done with a powercreep mentality, they tamed their errors back.

No, we don't. I mean there's more to this game than just the base ships. Since there are upgrade cards and pilot cards , there are multiple paths, imo, that powercreep can take and one of them is the upgrade cards. I actually think that FFG is deliberately conservative with base ship stats (almost to a fault) but specific pilot abilities and upgrade cards, especially, are where you see it.

If the TLT had made for an interesting choice between a B-wing, for example, a ship that saw a lot of play prior to it, then I could agree with you. But the TLT did a lot more than that. I could say the same for the Crack Shot Swarm and the Emperor as well (He supports two aces significantly better than simply having a third ace, for example).

Autothrusters aren't powercreep (though I guess we could have a healthy debate that they did push out turret upgrades until the TLT). They're now a requirement for survival in a heavy TLT meta. I also don't think the advanced title fits powercreep either.

The fact that there are almost no generics being played without certain upgrade cards and those are almost exclusively recent upgrade cards (not fixes), making up more than their fair share of and/or are the lynchpin of top lists, should be pretty telling.

It's not drastic, but it is there if you are willing to look.

Le good ol' times!

No matter how hard you try, you can't simply ignore the fact that it's a worst case mary sue show.

From droid and crew to shuttle and ship itself.

all in the glory of the mouse

Those tricks you refer to as firepower creep, but they've been a fact of the game since Wave 1: Backstabber and Mithel become three dicers if they pull off an activation condition. More recently, we have Wave 6's N'dru Suhlak for the Z-95. The recent TIE/fos have Zeta Leader (three in exchange for stress), Omega Ace (critical hits) and Omega Leader (prevents modification when locked). Jake and Tycho have abilities that heighten their maneuverability, making Range 1 shots easier. The TAP's Inquistor has three effective dice but can't trigger the Range 1 bonus that super agile ships like his usually rely on.

Hmmm no, the Range 1 effect kicks in whenever he's at Range 2-3 and attacking with primaries. As far as I know there aren't any Range 1-specific upgrades he could take that would interact with this. It's not quite as terrifying as it could be, because it still lets Range 3 targets roll their extra evade die, trigger Autothrusters etc. Likewise, Gemmer Sojan doesn't get +1 green when defending because the Inquisitor upgrade kicks in only during the attacking phase. However, Inquisitor pays for this with a higher embedded cost, and being something of a glass cannon (no native Evade).

I do agree that IA is the T-65 fix we are looking for, though. So what if it's not flashy. It's still the coolest ship in the game. *thumbs nose at Imperials*

Hmmm no, the Range 1 effect kicks in whenever he's at Range 2-3 and attacking with primaries.

he just means you will never see the tears in enemy eyes when you load up 4\4 dice up his side.

Two was standard in Wave 1. It ceased to be by Wave 2: two dice ships then had something else going for them: price/numbers, secondary weapons or abilities.

Two red's problem is that it struggles with mitigation. Bizarrely agility counterintuitively makes it easier to dodge a ton of shots than fewer bigger ones. Likewise the armoured targets like B-wings or Decimators are more vunerable to a thousand cuts than equivalent points of heavy fire. That's one of the setbacks of a coupled accuracy and damage mechanic.

I wouldn't be surprised if a future X-Wing incorporated different colours of attack dice, say, ones with multiple hits but still cancellable by single evade dice representing inaccurate but powerful attacks, or more accurate dice with symbols that evades cancel before hits but which deal no damage for high accuracy low damage.

An important thing to remember when thinking about firepower is price. Two dice is fine in the <20 pt region because you'll probably have swarm numbers. Once you get into pricer ships the number of ships you have goes down. You're now using three dicers but you have fewer of them.

Three dicers are better at dealing with agility because they can spike through it, but conversely three dice doesn't come at half again the cost of two dice: the game is balanced such that 100 pts of 2 dicers is generally going to have more dice in total than the equivalent in three dicers, all other factors being equal. A Z-95 swarm will shred a Lambda faster than its weight in X-wings, but those X-wings will have an easier time nailing an Aggressor (assuming they've got it in arc).

What I'm getting at is once you move out of the teens in points your two dicer needs to have another trick up its sleeve or you're falling behind in firepower. This has been true since Wave 1 with the X-wing TIE fighter comparison, and was the reason the TIE advanced was dead in the water for so long (it cost the same as an X-wing but had no tricks).

If you've got two dice and don't have numbers, you're behind on raw firepower and need something to make up for it. For the A-wing, TAP and arguably the TIE/fo incredible maneuverability helps: an A-wing that can easily hug Range 1 will do more damage than a Z-95 and the same damage as an X-wing that ends up at Range 2 or worse the whole time. The unloaded TIE bomber has a ton of health for very few points (the loaded TIE bomber fights mainly with secondaries and thus I don't consider it a true 2 dicer). Even then, you're still base cost 15 and 16.

Some of these tricks are support, such as Howlrunner, Youngster and Cracken. Some of these tricks push the ship to a pseudo 2.5 dice: a 3 die attack that doesn't always trigger.

Those tricks you refer to as firepower creep, but they've been a fact of the game since Wave 1: Backstabber and Mithel become three dicers if they pull off an activation condition. More recently, we have Wave 6's N'dru Suhlak for the Z-95. The recent TIE/fos have Zeta Leader (three in exchange for stress), Omega Ace (critical hits) and Omega Leader (prevents modification when locked). Jake and Tycho have abilities that heighten their maneuverability, making Range 1 shots easier. The TAP's Inquistor has three effective dice but can't trigger the Range 1 bonus that super agile ships like his usually rely on.

To summarise, if you're relying on 2 dice guns you need numbers and have since Wave 1. Expensive 2 dicers (and by a 2 dicer I mean a ship that relies on that weapon, not a ship that has it as a backup for a more heavily used secondary) put you behind on damage. This is why expensive 2 die ships without support abilities have tricks to improve their firepower through extra dice or improved positioning: they allow the ship to keep up in firepower/point.

And we arrived at the point where "fixing" a ship by adding more HP (T65 and its new über-shield droid) doesn't even work, for what I read here.

Integrated Astromech brings the X-wing up to the B-wing's level. People are convincing themselves it isn't enough because they want a flashy fix like the TIE defender and TIE advanced got. It's just confirmation bias.

Reading yoyr summary also explains beautifully why the Scyk has problem.

All of those ships needed those adjustments...that's why hardly anyone was playing them. The Inquisitor has a good ability but no ship is good enough that it is seen "99%" of the time.

Everyone needs to calm their **** about fixing this or broken that. FFG has never even hinted of ignoring ships left behind or allowing a ship to dominate the meta. Furthermore, FFG has never taken a fix idea from these forums. Let FFG do what FFG has been doing. Which is producing a great game.

I stuffing love you bro!

• A-Wing: Great little ships in my opinion. Cheap, hard to kill, and the action bar + dial to be nasty blockers. Their top aces are still seeing common play among Rebel players, and any pilot with a natural EPT slot ends up with excellent action economy and positioning to help nullify the failings of only two dice. They're also a natural fit for Proton Rockets to help punch through up to a whopping five damage once a game. I think Arvel Crynyd, and to a lesser extent Gemmer Sojan, are the only ones here not feeling a lot of love.

I think people underestimate Arvel. He can RAM someone, and then fire prockets, while the only thing the opponent can do about it is role a dice. works great with kyle katarn.

I think you're overestimating him. Unfortunately his pilot skill is too high to work for someone that you really want to be a blocker. He's in a possibly unique scenario in which he would actually be far better with a lower pilot skill.

Le good ol' times!

No matter how hard you try, you can't simply ignore the fact that it's a worst case mary sue show.

From droid and crew to shuttle and ship itself.

all in the glory of the mouse

Urgh. Sorry. I know it's not a good idea to react to Warpman's constant drip-feed of off-topic delirium but the flesh is weak. Not another off-topic word from me, I promise.

@Red Castle

At the end of the day I think we will have to agree to disagree. That's cool, we'll be better friends for it. This is a stimulating discussion.

I understand where you're coming from, but we need to define the spectrum of power creep. And it's a pretty wide one. You're looking for a step ladder power creep. Which is one extern end of the spectrum. DragonballZ the card game would be a perfect example of this. Every set has Goku, and in every set he's plain better than the last set. Very quantifiable by a number on his card, clearly delineated by sets of expansion. And your right, on the surface, you don't find that here in X-wing.

Ballooning power creep, on the other end of the spectrum, is more what we see in our game, and that's good because it's usually the type in games that survive. Axis and Allies. Not as perfect an example but as close as I've ever found. Most every new edition of that game, more units are brought in, given interactions, some units are occasionally made cheaper to build, research is expanded on, etc. But every player has access to those new things and no player particularly gains an edge because of it. That is to say the nature of the base game still shows through, and doesn't make the various players game plan change much. Russia still builds a crap ton of infantry for instance. But maybe now a tank or two occasionally.

As a reminder, in my explanation power creep is a constant. It happens when a game is expanded. But it's not very easy to define with just a straight line scale. So I put the two spectrums perpendicular to eachother and plot it on the two axes. So if I'm trying to quantify power creep of X-wing to someone of explain that in terms of step ladder creep is very low. Like a 5-10% since wave zero. Citing things like TLT, Autothrusters, Fel (Was much higher pre nerfings they did recently) but the ballooning power creep is more like 30-50% since initial release, citing action economy and reduction of average squad ship count. In the end it's like a what, 27% increase overall? Something like. But it strongly favors ballooning style, so we're good.

Now you'll never see me disagree with you that the game has evolved. I'm with you there. As soon as that one really great player comes around and shows the designers basically how to play their own game, the basic thought processes in designing and playing it evolve right after that. But to say it had evolved and not experienced power creep is like not seeing the forest for the trees. We could debate specifi cards and stuff but I think this is sufficient for one discussion on the topic.

Edit, this was supposed to post like 20 hours ago. Sorry.

@ForceSensitive

Fair enough! I think it just boils down to how we perceive the term 'Powercreep'. I personally see it as pejorative , and assossiate it with Power Gamers that always want more power more, more, more! I think FFG made a wonderful job keeping this mentality out of this game and don't think they release a unit with the idea of it dominating what came before just so that players buy it.

But I understand your position more with your explanation and it makes sense. Thanks, it's been an entertaining discussion.

@ForceSensitive

Fair enough! I think it just boils down to how we perceive the term 'Powercreep'. I personally see it as pejorative , and assossiate it with Power Gamers that always want more power more, more, more! I think FFG made a wonderful job keeping this mentality out of this game and don't think they release a unit with the idea of it dominating what came before just so that players buy it.

But I understand your position more with your explanation and it makes sense. Thanks, it's been an entertaining discussion.

But they can make ships that hold upgrades that are so mind-defyingly good that even people who'll never ever take one buy 1-2-3 boxes

guess what ship gathers dust on the shelf of each Empire player?

the most badass-looking and weird ship ever.

and no way, they never tried to keep this "mentality" out. it's always there, lurking just beyond the veil,

they say your brain shuts down during tournament play, all but the powerplay side, the sportsmanship side

People keep making arguments, how FFGs trend of "fixing" old ships is a sign of power-creep in the game, but the truth is that almost all the ships that have been or going to be fixed (Tie Adv.,

Didn't you get the memo? It is not called the 'Tie Adv.', it's the 'TIE Advanced', and that is an extremely important distinction! If you get these mixed up, the sky will fall.

...A-Wing, Defender, Y-Wing...) where never considered good to begin with. the only case I can think of where an old ship was marginalized because a new one came out and did the same thing but better was when the B-Wing replaced the X-Wing and that was all the way back in wave 3.

Actually, the list is somewhat longer than that. In addition to the TIE Advanced, Defender, A-Wing and Y-Wing and X-Wing, there were more ships that are considered weak to begin with: the Firespray, the Lambda, the TIE Bomber, the TIE Interceptor, the HWK, the E-Wing, the T-70, the TIE/fo, the Punisher, the Scyk, the Starviper, and the YV-666. I might have forgotten a few.

Some days ago there was a debate about whether or not some ships were kept deliberately underpowered to sell new expansions with upgrades that amount to nothing more than errata for which we are all happily paying money. Note the word 'deliberately' - there is nothing to suggest this is an evil masterplan, but do we really care when the effect is the same, regardless of malice or simple good ol' stupidity.

Which is it? Let me put it this way: I'm sure they mean well. FFG is probably as dedicated to 'not being evil' as Google.

The Bomber is getting an upgrade. The Lambda still has some niche builds. Corran dominates, and flies an E-Wing. The Punisher and YV-666 are solid as long as you don't load them out too much. Soontir Jax and and the other high PS Interceptors still se plenty of play from what I've seen. Poe dominates in a T-70, and Asty's pretty good as well. I've seen fo lists win big. Their dial is better than people generally give it credit for. Firespray is a solid ship. I don't see where all of these 'these ships suck' claim comes from.

People keep making arguments, how FFGs trend of "fixing" old ships is a sign of power-creep in the game, but the truth is that almost all the ships that have been or going to be fixed (Tie Adv.,

Didn't you get the memo? It is not called the 'Tie Adv.', it's the 'TIE Advanced', and that is an extremely important distinction! If you get these mixed up, the sky will fall.

...A-Wing, Defender, Y-Wing...) where never considered good to begin with. the only case I can think of where an old ship was marginalized because a new one came out and did the same thing but better was when the B-Wing replaced the X-Wing and that was all the way back in wave 3.

Actually, the list is somewhat longer than that. In addition to the TIE Advanced, Defender, A-Wing and Y-Wing and X-Wing, there were more ships that are considered weak to begin with: the Firespray, the Lambda, the TIE Bomber, the TIE Interceptor, the HWK, the E-Wing, the T-70, the TIE/fo, the Punisher, the Scyk, the Starviper, and the YV-666. I might have forgotten a few.

Some days ago there was a debate about whether or not some ships were kept deliberately underpowered to sell new expansions with upgrades that amount to nothing more than errata for which we are all happily paying money. Note the word 'deliberately' - there is nothing to suggest this is an evil masterplan, but do we really care when the effect is the same, regardless of malice or simple good ol' stupidity.

Which is it? Let me put it this way: I'm sure they mean well. FFG is probably as dedicated to 'not being evil' as Google.

The Bomber is getting an upgrade. The Lambda still has some niche builds. Corran dominates, and flies an E-Wing. The Punisher and YV-666 are solid as long as you don't load them out too much. Soontir Jax and and the other high PS Interceptors still se plenty of play from what I've seen. Poe dominates in a T-70, and Asty's pretty good as well. I've seen fo lists win big. Their dial is better than people generally give it credit for. Firespray is a solid ship. I don't see where all of these 'these ships suck' claim comes from.

I think the only ships currently in the game that genuinely need a "buff" are the Scyk and the TIE Defender (one of which is already slated to get a HUGE one).

It is my firm belief that every other ship is capable of being not just playable, but viable in the right hands. Heck, some people can actually get surprising mileage out of the Scyk or pre-Veterans Defenders right now. And you can also throw in a few pilots to the list, though beyond a handful of generics, "Fel's Wrath", and maybe a couple other named pilots (poor Graz, if he was only a point cheaper I'd be much more tempted to take him over a Black Sun Ace with GlitterCrack!)... there's a spot for most anything, as long as someone is willing to try.

Which, if anything, is the real problem: most players aren't willing to experiment with what's been deemed not the cream of the crop, which makes it all the more wonderful when squads that don't have "Tier 1" ships/pilots or make use of "trash" and then proceed to succeed.

That said, I still think it'd be fun to sort of craft a "tier" listing of all the ships and pilots. Tier 1: Soontir Fel and Poe Dameron! Tier 98659659: "Fel's Wrath"

@ForceSensitive

That's well put, and it would be both fun and illuminating to argue the fine points.

A lot of times in an RPG, characters and players level up by getting bigger numbers- and do so slightly before their opponents do. I get _very_ bored with games like that. In my mind, that's power creep. And that seems to be the kind of creep the OP is talking about. Because eventually, yes: given that kind of power creep 2 red dice become impossible to use.

One thing that we're seeing with the expansion of options is that the _skill cap_ is being raised. Phantoms- even prefix- are freaking hard to use! Yes, even with ADC. Anyone who disagrees is welcome to look at the results of the 2014 Worlds. They are very fragile, and very much dependant on precision maneuvering. It takes lots of practice to get good enough with them to do some work.

Similarly: Dash gets 4 Red Dice or zero red dice. And when you get zero red dice, it's because your opponent gets an extra die. Avoiding that requires some strong maneuvering.

And the Ghost? Oh man. The firing arc is ~15% bigger than a small ship, and the hit box is _4 times as big_ as a small ship. You're gonna need to predict your opponent's well.

Etc and so forth. You need to play well to get use out of these new toys. Honestly? That's part of why the T-65 is struggling: it doesn't have much room to let a great player shine.

@ForceSensitive

Fair enough! I think it just boils down to how we perceive the term 'Powercreep'. I personally see it as pejorative , and assossiate it with Power Gamers that always want more power more, more, more! I think FFG made a wonderful job keeping this mentality out of this game and don't think they release a unit with the idea of it dominating what came before just so that players buy it.

But I understand your position more with your explanation and it makes sense. Thanks, it's been an entertaining discussion.

But they can make ships that hold upgrades that are so mind-defyingly good that even people who'll never ever take one buy 1-2-3 boxes

guess what ship gathers dust on the shelf of each Empire player?

the most badass-looking and weird ship ever.

and no way, they never tried to keep this "mentality" out. it's always there, lurking just beyond the veil,

they say your brain shuts down during tournament play, all but the powerplay side, the sportsmanship side

I'm sorry Warpman, but you're one of the 3 members that I don't really care about his opinion on the state of the game, so we're better to just leave it at that.

Have fun playing the game!