Not sure if you've guys seen this yet, but my FLGS does a podcast, and in their latest one they interview Alex Davy.

Initially it's mostly talk about Alex himself, but eventually they get into X-Wing design stuff.

EPISODE HERE

I smell a TLT nerf in the air.

I smell a TLT nerf in the air.

Do you have a quote or paraphrase handy, for those of us toiling away at work not listening to podcasts?

I smell a TLT nerf in the air.

Do you have a quote or paraphrase handy, for those of us toiling away at work not listening to podcasts?

I listened to the whole thing and nothing struck me as implying a TLT nerf. but I could have missed something I spose.

Apparently you need a degree in journalism to be a xwing designer

I smell a TLT nerf in the air.

He did comment that they were surprised at the size of its impact, but TLT is NOT like VI Whisper.

Yeah, based on Worlds, he is far from upset by the results.

I believe he said something to the effect of "TLT turned out to be slightly more powerful than we expected, especially in the hands of a skilled player ." (NOT a direct quote) I take that to mean anything that may come will not be a Phantom nerf, but more subtle. There are 100 different suggestions that have been thrown out on these forums, so who knows what it might be...if they do anything at all.

Apparently you need a degree in journalism to be a xwing designer

History is good enough... right?

I appreciate Alex talking about the prequel ships likelihood of getting in the game. I was very pleased with his "Ya, they can get in... If there is absolutely nothing else we have to pull from that we want in." answer.

No, that's not exactly what he said, but that's what I heard.

Where in the podcast do they talk about prequel ships? I want to hear for myself.

I smell a TLT nerf in the air.

Do you have a quote or paraphrase handy, for those of us toiling away at work not listening to podcasts?

wave 9 is done, wave 10 is under way, and no gun boats even through their wave 11 projections.

There are Russians with a Minnesotan accent to their English.

Prequel ships are back on the table. We're getting Rogue One ships and they have plans for next season's Rebels and future movie ships.

Playtesting window is less than 4 months.

Imp Vets soon!

They didn't test 4 tlt lists.

Turrets should have out of arc penalties.

I smell a TLT nerf in the air.

Do you have a quote or paraphrase handy, for those of us toiling away at work not listening to podcasts?

wave 9 is done, wave 10 is under way, and no gun boats even through their wave 11 projections.

There are Russians with a Minnesotan accent to their English.

Prequel ships are back on the table. We're getting Rogue One ships and they have plans for next season's Rebels and future movie ships.

Playtesting window is less than 4 months.

Imp Vets soon!

They didn't test 4 tlt lists.

Turrets should have out of arc penalties.

Prequel stuff a possibility but way down the road. Years he said.

wave 9 is done, wave 10 is under way, and no gun boats even through their wave 11 projections.

There are Russians with a Minnesotan accent to their English.

Prequel ships are back on the table. We're getting Rogue One ships and they have plans for next season's Rebels and future movie ships.

Playtesting window is less than 4 months.

Imp Vets soon!

They didn't test 4 tlt lists.

Turrets should have out of arc penalties.

Assuming you are correctly capturing what he said ... there's some YUUUGE things here!

* Wave 9 is done, Wave 10 is under way...

I have to be honest and say I have had a quiet, simmering worry that this game would start to wind down a bit in terms of releases. Fear alleviated!

* We're getting Rogue One ships...

This is pretty spoilerish for the new movie. I love it! Let the guessing begin!!

* They didn't test 4 tlt lists.

That makes me wonder what other "didn't test [number] [type] lists" situations they had. Could explain why the community finds certain ships overpriced. Because the developers never thought anyone would try to run 5 naked generic T-65s? Or six cannon-carrying Scyks? Hence they never realized they were overcosting certain things to protect against a spam squad that truly wouldn't have been viable in the first place? I would think "SPAM THIS BUILD" is one of the top things on the list of playtester priorities.

* Turrets should have out of arc penalties.

WHOA. Did he really say that???

wave 9 is done, wave 10 is under way, and no gun boats even through their wave 11 projections.

There are Russians with a Minnesotan accent to their English.

Prequel ships are back on the table. We're getting Rogue One ships and they have plans for next season's Rebels and future movie ships.

Playtesting window is less than 4 months.

Imp Vets soon!

They didn't test 4 tlt lists.

Turrets should have out of arc penalties.

Assuming you are correctly capturing what he said ... there's some YUUUGE things here!

* Wave 9 is done, Wave 10 is under way...

I have to be honest and say I have had a quiet, simmering worry that this game would start to wind down a bit in terms of releases. Fear alleviated!

* We're getting Rogue One ships...

This is pretty spoilerish for the new movie. I love it! Let the guessing begin!!

* They didn't test 4 tlt lists.

That makes me wonder what other "didn't test [number] [type] lists" situations they had. Could explain why the community finds certain ships overpriced. Because the developers never thought anyone would try to run 5 naked generic T-65s? Or six cannon-carrying Scyks? Hence they never realized they were overcosting certain things to protect against a spam squad that truly wouldn't have been viable in the first place? I would think "SPAM THIS BUILD" is one of the top things on the list of playtester priorities.

* Turrets should have out of arc penalties.

WHOA. Did he really say that???

The 9 and 10 stuff was a paraphrase but nearly a direct quote. The host asked a question about wave 11 where he discussed how they select ships. That led to the prequel/rebels/movie stuff.

He did the same chuckling decline to comment that he usually does when they have something in the works that he's not allowed to talk about, when asked about Rogue One.

His two biggest surprises in wave 7 were the popularity and success of tlt and crackshot. He didn't foresee how powerful it would be "in the hands of skilled players or en mass."

And yes, he said turrets should have penalties out of arc. It's one of the biggest things he'd try to change if he was starting the game from scratch. That, ordinance, and increasing to 200 points.

FYI, I'm listening to it now. For those who want to get right to the X-Wing, it's not until about the 17:00 mark that they get directly to X-Wing.

They had a "next to nothing blip of knowledge" about The Force Awakens when they made the TFA Core Set, which only was done in September. A little after the 20:00 mark.

"Wave 9 is all designed and wrapped up and pretty exciting." Just before 22:00.

I smell a TLT nerf in the air.

Didn't come from the audio.

He did comment that they were surprised at the size of its impact, but TLT is NOT like VI Whisper.

Yeah, Whisper couldn't win worlds at its peak on the power curve.

"Prequel stuff a possibility but way down the road. Years he said."

When that happens it means it's time to leave the game.

When asked about the prequel stuff, I hear it as him struggling to find a polite way to say no.

28:00 "It's possible at some point, years down the road, we would consider jumping into prequel-era stuff, but nothing official on that front has been decided. ... No real need to jump into the prequel era yet. There's still a lot of stuff from The Force Awakens to explore, Rogue One will be coming out soon..."

29:00 "Actually I know a lot more about Rogue One than I did about The Force Awakens."

I smell a TLT nerf in the air.

Didn't come from the audio.

He did comment that they were surprised at the size of its impact, but TLT is NOT like VI Whisper.

Yeah, Whisper couldn't win worlds at its peak on the power curve.

It made it to the Finals, and only lost because it was unlucky enough to be facing Paul Heaver.

I mean, did you see that 4 forward and boost he did?

And yes, he said turrets should have penalties out of arc. It's one of the biggest things he'd try to change if he was starting the game from scratch. That, ordinance, and increasing to 200 points.

He didn't specifically say that turrets should have penalties out of arc - he said that if he was starting from scratch, he would use some mechanism to give primary weapon turret ships an incentive to keep the target in arc. He didn't go into detail or suggest actual penalties.

Also, just to clarify the 200 points thing, he wasn't proposing bigger games but saying he would have liked more granularity in design. My explaination of that would be to imagine the game was 200 points but all the costs were basically doubled - it allows finer precision in point costs. For example, VI is clearly a great 1 point upgrade but might not be very good at two points - a 200 point scale would let you price it at 3 points (essentially 1.5 in the current game).

31:00

When comparing Armada to X-Wing, he said the lack of physical space on X-Wing's cards is a sort of design constraint to the game.

Also, stuff he comments about hindsight does not equal upcoming changes.