You are comparing apples and oranges.

No I'm not. He had an idea that may or may not improve the game and asked for peoples opinions on if it would make the game better or not. Any discussion that could lead to improving the game as a whole is worth having. If we accept that something can't be improved, then progress stops.

OP suggests hindering actions rather than enhancing or replacing those actions with something better.

And if hindering those actions make the game better then that's something we should look at. The goal is to make the game better. Simply adding more stuff to it doesn't inherently do that.

Sometimes the best thing you can do is make something that is too good worse. EU on large ships being a primary example of where making the action less efficient could make the game as a whole better.

If the only options we can consider is to make individual parts of the game better, or a counter to something else, then we have entered a world of warp speed power creep and the game is doomed.

Too late to implement that now, although I do like the concept. Repositioning is just such a dominant strategy right now that it, in some cases, takes away from the game. However changing this now would legitimatly kill the TIE-Interceptor, a ship that has a lot of fans and is iconic for the way the game is played. A-Wings also wouldn't like it. You already saw the flaws, but I think you underestimated them.

Thoroughly against it both for small and large ships, boost and barrel-roll is one of the main defining characteristics of the Empire faction, and also what defines the interceptor role. Even on large ships, the engine upgrade is arguably one of the key factors in survivability. Boba fett/Kath (or any firespray) is **** near useless without it, and would be taxed way to hard, similar for the Brobots, also Chiraneu need it to make his ability work, or get to range 3 and get that one agility dice. In fact, I think only SuperDash and Fat Han gets “too much” out of the upgrade, but then with the TLT and the large ship MOV penalty, I am not seeing those ships flying around much, so not really sure there is an issue.

I think arc-dodging is one of the key “skill” elements of the game, which you can learn and become increasingly better at while have a lot of fun doing – lets keep the fun in the game.

Too late to implement that now

Actually, as it doesn't relate to any card text they fairly easily good. I very much doubt they ever would because it'd be a drastic shakeup for a questionable benefit, but it'd be false to say that they couldn't.

However changing this now would legitimatly kill the TIE-Interceptor, a ship that has a lot of fans and is iconic for the way the game is played. A-Wings also wouldn't like it. You already saw the flaws, but I think you underestimated them.

This I'm not convinced of. The A-wing and the TIE interceptor become the best repositioners in the game because they ditch stress so easily. As for the interceptor being an icon of the gameplay, I'd actually say that like Range 1-3 turrets it's a ship that deviates from the core mechanics because of it's reactive power.

I think arc-dodging is one of the key “skill” elements of the game

Half of it is, the initial dial setting. But the boost-barrel that follows is much like the original TIE phantom in that it's reactive, not predictive. This reactive ability from the TIE phantom is what caused the Wave 4 turret epidemic. Arc dodging works against jousters and lower PS arc dodgers but not against turrets, so the introduction of an apex arc dodger hurts the jousters and not the turrets. As the jousters prey on the turrets, a drop in the jouster population causes a boom in the turret population.

A nerf to arc-dodging is a buff to jousters and therefore a nerf to turrets. The question is how far. Nobody but ParaGoomba wants to recreate Wave 3.

Arcdodging really only involves skill when you can do it without repositioning.

I think the tweak to the idea that should work is this: any ship may perform a boost or barrel roll. If you do not have the action in your action bar, gain +1 stress. This would fix the have/have not repositioning balance by giving all ships some additional repositioning, but rewards those ships with native abilities by letting them do it easier. This would create many more tactical maneuvers and even out a lot of the ships, IMO.

But then you can just add Engine Upgrade and remove the stress penalty, right?

Even on large ships, the engine upgrade is arguably one of the key factors in survivability. Boba fett/Kath (or any firespray) is **** near useless without it...

...what a load of poppycock.

Arcdodging really only involves skill when you can do it without repositioning.

...and at a lower PS than your opponent.

If BR and Boost were red, The Empire Strikes Back would've ended after the Asteroid Field scene.

Arcdodging really only involves skill when you can do it without repositioning.

This topic is bound to be controversial anyways but this particular point is something that pops up around these discussions quite often and I want to address this in particular.

You've made a very specific statement - "arcdodging really only involves skill when you can do it without repositioning" and I offer the counterpoint - NO. It absolutely requires skill to implement correctly and anyone who flies arc-dodgers regularly can tell you all the permutations you go through deciding upon maneuvers.

With a single exception (darth vader) there's always a rather high cost to re-position and it's a cost that's factored in to every maneuver you make both flying the ships yourself and flying against them with your ships. The ships that can re-position pay for that ability either in cost, hull, or action economy and if you do the skill gap is quite high at that range because a single mistake (or even just excellent flying by your opponent) can put your ship in a bad spot. And we all know how easily 3 hull disappears under fire which is why the easiest way to kill super soontir is to either block him or ignore his location entirely with turrets.

Large ships that can re-position are in a bit of a different category but end up paying even a higher premium for the chance to dodge outside of arcs. The barrel roll clarification did a great job of reigning in the power of large ship barrel rolls but even before then you're taking a ship that already has to do a lot of work to kill the equivalent points in jousters and making it even hard for it to deal damage (re-positioning almost always comes at the cost of dice modification).

Quite simply, take re-positioning away from large ships, or small high-agility, low hull ships and you see the empire all but disappear from competitive play while every other list either jousts or....gets chased around the board rolling defense dice until time runs out. Whoot.

On a separate but still related note, any time this props up it sounds like the kid in elementary school who only wants to play a game one particular way and gets upset when others want to explore the variety of options. In this case, it's more than a little condescending to diminish the decisions made by your opponent regarding those actions. It's as silly and reductive for me to say "flying directly at your opponent and rolling dice doesn't involve any skill whatsoever."

Seriously, this argument needs to stop being used in these discussions.

This seems like it would destroy the most fun, safest mode of barrel rolling and boosting: the default mode, when you can choose to boost or barrel roll by forfeiting your ability to focus that round.

I think the real problem is being able to boost and barrel roll in the same turn, which greatly increases your ability to move after moving, as well as being able to boost or barrel roll and still get a focus token.

So let's start with "You can't perform a barrel roll action (even a free one) if you performed a boost action this round and vice versa. If you perform a boost or barrel roll, lose all focus and evade tokens and you can't gain focus or evade tokens for the remainder of the round" and see how that works.

The pilot skill problem is a much deeper issue. As long as players can choose how to reposition after seeing how other ships finalized movement, provided their ships have higher pilot skill, then there will be a pilot skill war. The only question is "how bad will it get?" Some way of changing pilot skill from round to round, perhaps randomly, would actually start to address the problem.

So let's start with "You can't perform a barrel roll action (even a free one) if you performed a boost action this round and vice versa. If you perform a boost or barrel roll, lose all focus and evade tokens and you can't gain focus or evade tokens for the remainder of the round" and see how that works.

Said that in post 25. Also said that the point of this thread is to speculate on the impact such a change would make, not to make a case for or against it actually being implemented. I think it's fairly obvious to all that it wouldn't be.

I would be ok with doing this for large ships but doing it to small ships would make Imperials unplayable and seeing how I only fly Imperials and scum I really don't want that to happen

This is an interesting thought experiment.

I think this becomes an indirect buff to Phantoms. Arc dodging is powerful. Some units are so fragile that they rely on not getting shot as their main line of defense. Phantoms, Squints, and (to a lesser extent) TIE Fighters are in this category.

If Phantoms are the only unit in the game that can arc dodge without a stress penalty, they get used quite a bit more.

Interestingly: for that same reason we might start seeing a lot more StarVipers with Cloaking Device.

So let's start with "You can't perform a barrel roll action (even a free one) if you performed a boost action this round and vice versa. If you perform a boost or barrel roll, lose all focus and evade tokens and you can't gain focus or evade tokens for the remainder of the round" and see how that works.

Said that in post 25. Also said that the point of this thread is to speculate on the impact such a change would make, not to make a case for or against it actually being implemented. I think it's fairly obvious to all that it wouldn't be.

To ride on the speculation train what if instead of losing focus/evade, you keep the limitation to one or the other and give the ship a free evade if it performs a boost/barrel roll, adding something about "no other actions this turn"?

Thematically, it gives a slight defensive advantage for ships that reposition without allowing powerful arc-dodgers a chance to modify attack dice. And by only allowing a single guaranteed evade on defense dice, it might prevent turrets from automatically wiping all imperial ships from the board while keeping the attack power of those ships down to manageable levels. It makes it a bit more a decision - do I boost to get out of arc and get a free evade? Or do I focus and hope the dice work in my favor on attack and defense?

It would need to be tested tremendously and would still likely remove a bunch of non-jousters from the field (while providing a bit of a boost to fringe ships like Arvel or Kir Kanos).

For the record, I still think it's an overall silly change that doesn't really add anything to the game but it could be an interesting way to dial back some perceived power-level issues with arc-dodgers.

Well, at least Lorrir would not feel so alone...

and we see how often he's used.

Right, let's make turrets and rebel regen even more powerful...

IMO barrel roll shouldn't cause a stress. A TIE Fighter Barrel Rolling or an Ace Barrel Rolling isn't really the problem. It's mostly boost and the angle change it provides.

Honestly just making /bank/ boosts red would fix 70% of the problem. The change in angle that provides is way too good. Straight boosts and barrel rolls offer relatively slight positional changes, you're still headed in the Sam direction. Bank boost gives you a rather significant change in angle that not only helps you the turn you use it to dodge arcs, but also the turn after that to enable you to flip around with a hard turn and another boost instead of having to K-Turn.

I mean, look at LT. Lorrir or Echo. Bank barrel rolling costs a stress and is limited to a single ship. Bank decloaking is limited to a single ship. But bank boosting is innate on every ship with boost, and only a 4 point upgrade away for every other ship in the game.

I think that's reasonable. Also, I've been reconsidering my glorification of wave 3. I was almost going to agree with everyone else and just accept Acewing after being quite handily defeated by a long KineticOperator post directed at me, and then one game I threw a 4/4 hit attack at a 1 health Soontir and my opponent converted a blank blank focus roll to 4 evades with autothrusters, Palpatine, evade token, and a focus token and I kind of instantly just wanted to revert the game back to 8 TIE Fighters vs BBBB because that's a ridiculously negative play experience (NPE) that needs to be stopped at all costs. Currently I think wave 8 will be this game's golden age as long as all green Super Dash and Super Dengar Rendar aren't super common.

Thematically speaking, boosting and barrel rolling were and are both (intentionally) offensive and defensive maneuvers. If either (or both) of them became red maneuvers, they would become less attractive in combination with an offensive intention. Boosting to get a shot, or to get an even better shot isn't going to be as viable if getting the shot means no tokens to make that shot more effective.

If you treated the maneuver as a white maneuver until the end of the turn - meaning you kept the stress token for next round, but got actions in the same round, that would be more palatable. (edit: it would also make the use of these maneuvers a little more strategic).

Intentionally or not, they are SUPER EFFECTIVE maneuvers that lead to the filthy Acewing