Mainly the correlation between agility and maneuverability. A ship with 3 AGI, if being flown properly, shouldn't be getting shot at in excess (except turrets because turrets) and even against a turret, you have enough movement to stay out of range or go for the doughnut hole. This is a core ideal for a game such as X-wing.

The assumption here is that your Pilot skill is high enough to react. With this mentality, all the low PS arc didgers are out of luck...unless you have a few tricks, like Intelligence Agent.

I think that many people here are simplifying Theorist's conclusions and end up not seeing the broader picture. Ships with 2 and 3 agility are greatly hit by all the attack-buffing cards that we have at the moment in comparison to ships with lower ability. I think he is spot on.

Yep.

Ships that have weak health (hull + shields) and rely on green dice and/or a focus/evade token to save them are the worst ships in the game -- ATM -- because there are many, MANY ways to buff attacks so that you can get past green dice and tokens to force damage onto a ship.

There aren't anywhere near as many ways to buff green dice and tokens (or debuff your attackers red dice) to stop damage from getting through.

The frequently repeated argument that "you just need to fly your high-agility ship better" would be laughable, but it's not laughable because too many people actually believe the lie that the only problem with high-agility, low-health ships is unskilled players with bad piloting skills.

As for the people who claim turreted ships don't have an advantage thanks to Autothrusters, that is only one extra evade. Y-wings with TLTs might have a "doughnut hole" but Y-wings can also K-turn or perform enough slow, tight turns to get you into the primary firing arc ... thus negating the already limited defensive bonus of Autothrusters. Worse still, just look at ships with turreted primary weapons like the Falcon, Outrider, K-wing, Decimator, and Punishing One. These ships don't have a "doughnut hole" (other than HLC builds of the Outrider) so even if Autothrusters gives you an extra evade those ships are eventually going to push through damage on your ship because red dice are more powerful than green dice both in terms of the odds and because of the MANY abilities and upgrades that buff red dice.

Again, I'm not saying the game of X-wing is doomed. I'm saying we are fast approaching the day when every competitive list consists of ships with high health (hull +shields) that consistently deal lots of red dice (with buffs) or lists with medium health ships that deal extremely high numbers of red dice (with buffs) via missiles/torpedoes for one-shot alpha strikes.

In other words, the game is very close to a place where green dice don't matter at all, and the player who brings the most red dice (with buffs) to the table is probably going to be the player who wins (unless that player makes mistakes).

I would personally prefer more variety ... and have X-wing in a place where lists with more green dice are just as likely to win as lists with more red dice.

In other words, the game is very close to a place where green dice don't matter at all, and the player who brings the most red dice (with buffs) to the table is probably going to be the player who wins (unless that player makes mistakes).

The issue is, that you are thinking that this was never the case in X-wing. This was X-wing since day 1.

In other words, the game is very close to a place where green dice don't matter at all, and the player who brings the most red dice (with buffs) to the table is probably going to be the player who wins (unless that player makes mistakes).

I would personally prefer more variety ... and have X-wing in a place where lists with more green dice are just as likely to win as lists with more red dice.

Imperial Veterans says "Hello".

I've read the whole thing, but now I've forgotten all the posts I wanted to respond to, but here we go.

1) Attack dice vs. defense dice. Some of you may not know this, but the first time this game was demoed at GenCon in 2011 (I think?) the attack and defense dice were equal, and there was no such thing as red maneuvers. There were too immediately apparent problems with this. First off, the K-turn situation meant that all the ships did was flip back and forth and roll dice. Second, the games lasted forever because there were so many successful evasions of shots. It was awful. This is why people keep saying that the game has to be the way it is in regards to dice.

I had something else I was going to say about jousting with 4 Alpha Squadron Pilots and a shuttle, but now it doesn't seem relevant to the conversation.

Which does not change that I actually would like to see the T-65 with a white K-turn, but only him. *g*

Ships that have weak health (hull + shields) and rely on green dice and/or a focus/evade token to save them are the worst ships in the game -- ATM -- because there are many, MANY ways to buff attacks so that you can get past green dice and tokens to force damage onto a ship.

There aren't anywhere near as many ways to buff green dice and tokens (or debuff your attackers red dice) to stop damage from getting through.

That must be why ships like Soontir Fel, Whisper, Darth Vader, TIE Fighters, Corran Horn, and the IG-88s almost never see play at top tables.

In other words, the game is very close to a place where green dice don't matter at all, and the player who brings the most red dice (with buffs) to the table is probably going to be the player who wins (unless that player makes mistakes).

That has always been the case.

Ultimately, Attack needs to beat defense, because otherwise the game will never end.

I think the problem with the article itself (rather than Theorist as a peson) is that it assumes Agility should be as viable a method of defense as high hit points.

The problem is that ships with high agility are supposed to use their dials to avoid getting shot at all. Make Green dice as reliable a way of staying alive as face tanking, and you begin to lose sight of the flavour and theme of the game. Tie Interceptors flying headlong at B-Wings should never be a thing.

I think that many people here are simplifying Theorist's conclusions and end up not seeing the broader picture. Ships with 2 and 3 agility are greatly hit by all the attack-buffing cards that we have at the moment in comparison to ships with lower ability. I think he is spot on.

About being a narcissist, well... I know a lot of x-wing players who are, especially bloggers who still write or don't anymore but used to. You can either let that get to you or not.

the problem here is Theorist is over-complicating the problem with 2 agility ships specifically, which is mainly that they suck

except Poe, Dash and hopefully the scouts

as for 3 agi, it's green dice. it'll never be a reliable mechanic

Rustedborg, on 18 Mar 2016 - 09:51 AM, said:

In other words, the game is very close to a place where green dice don't matter at all, and the player who brings the most red dice (with buffs) to the table is probably going to be the player who wins (unless that player makes mistakes).

green dice are only and have only been a reliable source for disappointment and little else

Mainly the correlation between agility and maneuverability. A ship with 3 AGI, if being flown properly, shouldn't be getting shot at in excess (except turrets because turrets) and even against a turret, you have enough movement to stay out of range or go for the doughnut hole. This is a core ideal for a game such as X-wing.

The assumption here is that your Pilot skill is high enough to react. With this mentality, all the low PS arc didgers are out of luck...unless you have a few tricks, like Intelligence Agent.

Even if we assume that this would be true, would this be so bad? Still, it not like outside of other arc dodgers high PS pilots are full of reposition tools. A Fel will for sure beat a low PS arc dodger, but that is basically one of his functions, beating lower PS versions of himself. Wedge Antilles at PS9 against two alpha squadron pilots on the other hand? Quite a different picture

The situation you describe about defense being equal to attack is the real problem that Theorist failed to understand and blamed on highly accurate, 3+ attack dice for some reason. Because that's happening now with Poe, Soontir, Miranda, etc. and all the regen and defensive tech they have. If I had a dime for every time a Poe player got significantly more than a shield upgrade's worth of shields off of a regen droid, I'd probably have a dollar or two, lol.

Theorist doesn't understand that. Highly accurate shots are actually neccesary to break through the equal or better than attack defense these ships have.

Actually he does understand this. I recall having a discussion with him about Palp + Aces back when palpatine was first spoiled. One of the things we both felt was how it makes Soontir 'easy mode' allowing players to simply fly Soontir straight into enemy guns and not worry about arc-dodging because between stealth, his tokens, autothrusters and palpatine, its possible a 'pure jousting list' such as BBBBZ could struggle to kill him with focus fire, and that shouldn't really be possible.

But lots of people have made this realization to some degree. That's WHY Theorist is talking about high accuracy cards being a problem: Everyone building tourney lists is taking upgrades to defeat Soontir (and regen poe and other hard to kill aces). So if every list has these hyper accuracy cards to combat hard to kill ships like Soontir and co, anything else in the game that relies on agility, but doesn't have the damage mitigation powers of Soontir, Poe and the like, becomes easy pickings. Primarily ships with 2/3 agility are hit hardest in this environment because they don't have extra tokens or regen to stop firepower of that magnitude. And that is what he's talking about: the 'bad' ships like T-65, scyk, khiraxz, star viper, etc (he lists all the ships with 2/3 agility that some may agree/disagree are bad, but whatever) suffer because part of their points cost is tied to a stat that is supposed to provide durability but is less able against hyper accurate attacks.

Also, tied into this is the pilot skill bid. I don't think a lot of people are understanding the problem here. I read comments along the lines of 'its a star wars game, heroes are supposed to defeat the generics!' Which completely misses the point. The fact is, if you take a generic of a particular ship you pay less points than unique pilots, and therefore, generally speaking you can fit more ships into your list. By taking named pilots, you pay a premium in points for the pilot skill (and also the pilot's ability) and therefore generally speaking will have less ships. Back in Wave 1 - 3, having fewer ships, despite the higher Pilot Skill and cool abilities was a risk (in a tournament setting). You would have less firepower, less overall health (compared to a similar list with generics, and therefore more ships), but you would hope to overcome these drawbacks by careful positioning and trying to leverage the special abilities/upgrade cards you had to help you even the odds. Now however, the slew of damage increasing cards have reduced the risk that used to exist for high pilot skill lists vs generic lists with greater numbers. Why take Blue Squadron Novice at 24 points when you can have Poe at 31 points? He gets better value out of the regen droid for greater durability, can better utilize autothrusters, and for firepower, has his own ability plus the possibility of some strong EPT cards. Not to mention +6 pilot skill. He's more than worth the extra 7 points.

So while I don't believe X-wing is 'broken', its definitely skewed in certain directions and I believe Theorist's article at least points out an underlying problem as to why there are some imbalances in the game (particularly with certain ships, especially the ones that EVERYONE knows are weak right now!). Of course the game can go on fine as is and is for the most part 'healthy', but in order for certain ships to move out of their bottom-tier status, they are going to need something to help them in this higher PS, higher damage environment that currently exists, and I don't think the game designers are completely oblivious to the current state (afterall, they spoiled the x-7 title which is exactly the sort of fix that addresses this issue).

Going back to Soontir though, 'defensive fixes' have to be very carefully implemented. Obviously they can't benefit him (or other ships already capable of excellent damage mitigation). And obviously defensive buffs cannot equal offense. I think that everyone (including Theorist) understands that in order for a game to end, it has to be ultimately easier to deal damage than to mitigate it, but for the current 'bottom tier' ships to get better, something has to be done that allows them to survive better than they can at the moment...

survival isn't an issue for bottom tier ships, damage is

if your X-wing lives a bit longer, it's not going to solve the issue that it can't put damage on soontir

all you'll accomplish with a more durable X is a greater waste your time and your opponent's

basically, you need something to actually reward you for getting an ace in a mook's arc other than bouncing off of green dice

we need more things to stiff agility-based defense, not less. More crackshot! more feedback!

Fight the fickle!

(black squadron already figured it out)

I see a lot of 2 PS 2 ships should beat Acewing comments, both in the article and here, but it brings up the question in my mind of what's expected to beat that? That was generally the biggest balance fail in the original game after all, with there being no real advantage to all the cool named characters and the vast upgrade system when it boiled down to you getting to take one early shot that was unlikely to get a kill and then die to 3 TIEs in response.

Frankly, I'm not sure where the demand for generic pilots even comes from. There are so many interesting unique pilots in the game and by being unique, they actually demand a little variety in list composition. When Generics are at the top of the game, there's no reason to take anything but the single most efficient option available. Generics are the reason the TIE swarm, BBBBZ, 4 X-Wings, and every other homogeneous spam works. Isn't the game more interesting with 3 completely different ships in a squad?

The one thing I will say is that I think there's always been a bit of a disappointment in how many ships fit in a list. From the beginning I think people want something more akin to 5-6 ships, say Wedge/Biggs/Luke and a Pair of Y's instead of the 2-4 range we have. I think the issue has always simply come down to generics creating a spam environment. I'd actually be curious if limiting them to pairs or 3's would have been a good route for the game in general, but that's a ship long since sailed.

Actually he does understand this. I recall having a discussion with him about Palp + Aces back when palpatine was first spoiled. One of the things we both felt was how it makes Soontir 'easy mode' allowing players to simply fly Soontir straight into enemy guns and not worry about arc-dodging because between stealth, his tokens, autothrusters and palpatine, its possible a 'pure jousting list' such as BBBBZ could struggle to kill him with focus fire, and that shouldn't really be possible.

How do Autothrusters help Fel when he's flying "straight into enemy guns"?

But lots of people have made this realization to some degree. That's WHY Theorist is talking about high accuracy cards being a problem: Everyone building tourney lists is taking upgrades to defeat Soontir (and regen poe and other hard to kill aces).

First, which upgrades do you mean?

Second, do you recognize that killing Soontir and killing Poe + R2-D2 are almost completely different tasks? The problem with Soontir is that you need a huge spike to get through his stack of tokens. The problem with killing Poe is that he gets +1 health every turn, so you have to get very consistent damage and sustain it over multiple turns.

This is what I meant upthread: it's not useful to treat Agility and hit points separately, unless you can demonstrate that a particular upgrade has a differential effect on one of the inputs. And there are very few offensive upgrades that really do that. TLT is the most prominent, but curiously Theorist ignored it almost entirely as a component of the current metagame.

So if every list has these hyper accuracy cards to combat hard to kill ships like Soontir and co...

Which cards? Theorist doesn't say, and neither do you.

survival isn't an issue for bottom tier ships, damage is

if your X-wing lives a bit longer, it's not going to solve the issue that it can't put damage on soontir

all you'll accomplish with a more durable X is a greater waste your time and your opponent's

basically, you need something to actually reward you for getting an ace in a mook's arc other than bouncing off of green dice

we need more things to stiff agility-based defense, not less. More crackshot! more feedback!

Fight the fickle!

(black squadron already figured it out)

Ordnance seems to be their current plan for doing exactly what you describe. Make the shot you get hurt.

I see a lot of 2 PS 2 ships should beat Acewing comments...

Idk about how PS 2+ should be auto-win against aces, if that's the sentiment being expressed, but I do believe that PS 2 generics should have game against Ace-wing

see, Ace-wing seems to have far more advantageous positions against their lower PS counterparts due to the way pilot skill works for arc-dodging and shooting first. Arc-dodging is aokay in my book, because this is a game about maneuvering, but pilot skill (shooting first) and defensive tech combines to make generics seem worthless. The only time generics shine is upon block, which is possible but far more rare than the turns in which aces are not blocked

just imagine the strain you have to endure to get an ace in arc, and then imagine the frustration as your shot whiffs. Then imagine the hairpulling anguish as your next opportunity to shoot is just guaranteed death because the ace will kill you before you fire

nothing should be auto-win against anything in a perfect world, but without TLTs, crackshot, feedback or stuff like Omega Leader (who is basically just a tie fighter against Vader/soontir, as they beat his otherwise high Ps of 8) lower PS can seem incredibly pointless. That's no bueno

when you can play against ace-wing with the above tech, I find myself really enjoying the game though

(also conner nets, but no one uses those...the fools)

survival isn't an issue for bottom tier ships, damage is

if your X-wing lives a bit longer, it's not going to solve the issue that it can't put damage on soontir

all you'll accomplish with a more durable X is a greater waste your time and your opponent's

basically, you need something to actually reward you for getting an ace in a mook's arc other than bouncing off of green dice

we need more things to stiff agility-based defense, not less. More crackshot! more feedback!

Fight the fickle!

(black squadron already figured it out)

Ordnance seems to be their current plan for doing exactly what you describe. Make the shot you get hurt.

it is a wonderful plan, imo

a bit hard to make bombers work with low PS target-lock restrictions, but actually being able to missile down Aggressors is an experience I shall not soon forget

Actually he does understand this. I recall having a discussion with him about Palp + Aces back when palpatine was first spoiled. One of the things we both felt was how it makes Soontir 'easy mode' allowing players to simply fly Soontir straight into enemy guns and not worry about arc-dodging because between stealth, his tokens, autothrusters and palpatine, its possible a 'pure jousting list' such as BBBBZ could struggle to kill him with focus fire, and that shouldn't really be possible.

How do Autothrusters help Fel when he's flying "straight into enemy guns"?

Autothrusters gives Fel a huge defense increase at Range 3, which lets him close the gap to arc dodging range pretty easily in subsequent turns.

One of the sign of a game having a balance problem is when there are only a few list types that can win a game. From what I am seeing on list juggler, this is currently not the case (I am struggling to find the exact same list ending in first place).

A game where you want to have distinct factions, like X-Wing, will almost always have balance concerns. The game will always struggle with it and that's part of the fun. As long as it does not evolve into a problem, then you're good. Otherwise, playing chess would be a better game.

One of the sign of a game having a balance problem is when there are only a few list types that can win a game. From what I am seeing on list juggler, this is currently not the case (I am struggling to find the exact same list ending in first place).

A game where you want to have distinct factions, like X-Wing, will almost always have balance concerns. The game will always struggle with it and that's part of the fun. As long as it does not evolve into a problem, then you're good. Otherwise, playing chess would be a better game.

you gotta hop on over to the chess forums

it's nothing but White-wing over there

The best part was the part about attack dice. So many ships are 3+ now. Even the TIE Advanced with ATC is a 3+, because 2 red dice plus a 100% crit, is better than 3 red dice by a longshot.

we need more things to stiff agility-based defense, not less. More crackshot! more feedback!

Fight the fickle!

(black squadron already figured it out)

Case in point: crackshot. I was playing a crackswarm again friends Wedge (VI, BB-8, IA), Ten Numb (VI, FCS, Mangler, Jan Ors) and Biggs (some astromech +IA).

First round of shooting, lost one Black Squadron but took Biggs off the board (and one Omega was out of arc). Next turn, Wedge followed with no losses on my end. At this point my opponent conceded.

And these were 2-attack ships. But thanks to crackshot, 2 AGI dice f my opponent were pointless, even the Evade token on Biggs didn't help much.

The best part was the part about attack dice. So many ships are 3+ now. Even the TIE Advanced with ATC is a 3+, because 2 red dice plus a 100% crit, is better than 3 red dice by a longshot.

When 90% of your ships are going to be 2-3 Atk, I am sure it will look like one is skewed. It seems 3 atk is being used about as much as 2 Atk.

we need more things to stiff agility-based defense, not less. More crackshot! more feedback!

Fight the fickle!

(black squadron already figured it out)

But this screws non-Soontir ships even further. Whetever is effective against Soontir, will be super-effective against other ships.

Case in point: crackshot. I was playing a crackswarm again friends Wedge (VI, BB-8, IA), Ten Numb (VI, FCS, Mangler, Jan Ors) and Biggs (some astromech +IA).

First round of shooting, lost one Black Squadron but took Biggs off the board (and one Omega was out of arc). Next turn, Wedge followed with no losses on my end. At this point my opponent conceded.

And these were 2-attack ships. But thanks to crackshot, 2 AGI dice f my opponent were pointless, even the Evade token on Biggs didn't help much.

is it even possible to screw them over more, though ?

they're not good in their own right as is, nothing but a straight specific buff will help them (especially Ten Numb, who is stupidly overcosted for a stupidly situational ability)

I actually think 3 evade dice ships are sitting quite nicely on the top tables and while people often gun for them, they still are a strong contender for any title! As well as the beefcakes in Fat Han or a Decimator. Token defence (I'll add Auto thrusters to this) is probably the strongest defence in the game, then health, then finally green dice. I think the problem that plagues Xwing, not just the game but the ship it's named after, is 2 agility ships have no token or health defence. They hit a strange middle ground where they are not given evade tokens or the health needed to stay alive for long. Rebel Regen fixed that problem, it brought 1 agility and 2 agility ships back from the brink of death and an ability to throw in with the big leagues. Funny enough, Corran and Poe are the only ship that have access to Token, Agility and health defence in the form of Regen, and They use it in a different way but they are a beast on the table when flown correctly!

So, when you look at this, the biggest loser is the Rebel ships with no hope of Regen and Scum with no token or Regen defenses. I feel Scum will be cornered in it's viability by this. The aggressor has the token defence and Agility, Yv-666 has the health, Jumpmaster has a chance for Regen but not token defenses, and Boba Fett's Firepray has token and Agility and health making him a healthy contender.
Yet the Scyk, the Starviper, the Kihrax, and the G1-A as left licking their wounds helplessly. Same goes with Xwing, Bwing, and Generic Kwing. (Generic Ewing as well because without access to an EPT it can't double down on token defense so it's left with a Regen if you pay a lot and agility defence)

Yeah, sadly multiple Crackshot-like cards (Juke etc.) are going to hurt 2 Agility ships harder than 3, because they don't have the agility and action economy to force through enough evades (Focus + Evade + Thrusters), but not enough health that using Crackshot on them is a waste (oh no, you used Crackshot to cancel my Y-Wings single evade).

see, Ace-wing seems to have far more advantageous positions against their lower PS counterparts due to the way pilot skill works for arc-dodging and shooting first. Arc-dodging is aokay in my book, because this is a game about maneuvering, but pilot skill (shooting first) and defensive tech combines to make generics seem worthless. The only time generics shine is upon block, which is possible but far more rare than the turns in which aces are not blocked

Shooting first is generally not that tremendously powerful without both the arc-dodging and dice fixing though. Back in the day (when we walked uphill both ways in the snow) you generally could sometimes arc dodge ok, but have no dice fixing to make it matter, or you could shoot first, which even TIEs have never really been reliably one shot, even with dice fixing, and then got shot 2-3 times in response and likely killed.

I guess my point is.... I don't really care about generics anymore. They kind of made sense once upon a time when there were only 6 rebel uniques to pick from, but now there's enough pilots and ships that I don't really see the point. I kind of like a balance when there's a leader and some fodder and to a degree we actually have that now, but the game has never proven to me it can make generics efficient without devolving into spam and if I can only have one or the other, I'd rather have the game with awesome characters doing awesome things.