It's quite easy to buff a ship, but how do you nerf one? Especially if they don't have special abilities like Cloak? Or is it just a matter of buffing every other ship if you have a ship that needs to be nerfed? Just a theoretical question.

It's quite easy to buff a ship, but how do you nerf one? Especially if they don't have special abilities like Cloak? Or is it just a matter of buffing every other ship if you have a ship that needs to be nerfed? Just a theoretical question.

Step 1: identify the specific thing about that ship that is causing the problem. You can bet that more often than not, you can find a single thing that makes the whole pile too much. Could be an action that it has, could be an upgrade or upgrade combination, could be that it is underpriced.

The first two can be quickly and cleanly adjusted with an erratum. The latter is the most difficult, but is also the least common. The only real way to repair stich damage would be a banned list. Thankfully, though, I'd say they haven't released any thing that is simply blatantly underpriced. I won't argue either way that there are not OP card combinations, because I don't line to make such judgments, but in general, I'd say the developers have done a good job so far.

This isn't a computer game, you basically cannot lower power levels and buffing everything else is super hard. This is why some things come out under powered, easier to enhance a bit later rather than risk needing to do something horrible like ban something.

Boba Fett

This isn't a computer game, you basically cannot lower power levels and buffing everything else is super hard. This is why some things come out under powered, easier to enhance a bit later rather than risk needing to do something horrible like ban something.

This hits the nail on the head. You can't sneak in on the back end and subtly adjust speed or damage like you can with a software update.

This isn't a computer game, you basically cannot lower power levels and buffing everything else is super hard. This is why some things come out under powered, easier to enhance a bit later rather than risk needing to do something horrible like ban something.

I agree. Hence the question.

Yeah like some others said it's not easy to do. As a direct result ffg always leans weak and fixes later, only having to actually nerf 2 cards total with errata as far as I can tell (the cloaking mechanic and tactician becoming limited)

Han and Luke did it to The Falcon in last month's comic.

Foam?

This isn't a computer game, you basically cannot lower power levels and buffing everything else is super hard. This is why some things come out under powered, easier to enhance a bit later rather than risk needing to do something horrible like ban something.

I agree. Hence the question.

The answer is you can't. You have to ban. There is no feasible method. Erratta is not feasible, recalls are not feasible. It is nonviable to nerf. The cost and customer backlash of the options do not allow for it. You simply have to lean to being conservative and buff as you go.

The best you can do is introduce something new that counters it, and then let the metagame take it's course. As a practical matter, FFG doesn't want to be modifying existing cards to introduce nerfs (so far they have limited themselves to the Cloak action nerf, and errataing Tactician to be Limited).

Foam?

Dammit you beat me to it! But I can do one better!

With a hammer

Don't buy into "you can't".

But why do you need to?

We're talking about the scyk right, that things been OP since day one.

For tournament play you could have a list. Everything on the list costs more or provides a disincentive somehow.

Step one: be scruffy lookin'

Step two: Fly the ships you tend to nerf into a herd of some kind.

Somewhere in there you should also save a princess, but just for the money.

You can't really nerf a ship but you could add in "pen and ink" change erratas to certain mechanics that can nerf a set or a certain type of ships.

So far in X-wing History there has only been 2 nerfs (although some rulings in the FAQ might argue as a nerf for say Fel's Wrath). The Decloak nerf (Which only affected Tie Phantoms at the time as scum didn't have cloaking device <illicit> yet) and the large ship MOV nerf (which was targeting ships like Super Dash, RAC, and Fat Han but also hit Bro Bots and Doomshuttle real hard).

But again you have to nerf not ships but classes or mechanics of ships. The TIE Phantom was easy to target because it was the only ship with a cloaking action decloaking mechanic. Other ships, not so much. The restriction on Tactician was made so that they didn't have to "nerf" the Stress-666 when it hit the tables in wave 7, However it did hit stress shuttle which wasn't used as much.

1. promote good counter-matchups

2. promote better alternatives

3. buff everything around

4. nerf the fugger!

the first is the best, the last is the lousiest variant

Indeed. 1 and 2 tend to be the best approach. The Anti-Thing-Thing is an inelegant method but it works; because if your Thing encounters the Anti-Thing-Thing it falls apart.

The problem is what happens if you get unexpected interactions with the Anti-Thing-Thing, and you need to introduce an Anti-Anti-Thing-Thing-Thing. Down that road madness lies.

It's a short road.

In the game, an example here is cloak. As written, cloak was next to unstoppable without higher PS pilots (the Thing). Which led to the high PS, super-combo-ed-up primary weapon turret being the weapon of choice (there's no single card, but these ships as a whole are the Anti-Thing-Thing, which became game-dominating for a couple of waves). Which, to counteract these, led to the creation of the Autothruster and Twin Laser Turret cards (the Anti-Anti-Thing-Thing-Thing).

And so on.

And guess what? It created diversity!

But the thing suddenly has another niche.

Because the super-predator is gone, it can get into rock-paper-lightsaber and have it's own matchups.

The point is to not drive to extreme YOU DIED matchups. If your squad has different approaches (Deci-fel, Whipster+Miniswarm, ZZZ-Han) you can have chance against other players because application of anti-thing and anti-thing-thing-thing on the field is skill-dependent

Can't say it's bad or inelegant.

Agreed. You'll never get everything 100% balanced as long as you have more than 2 possible lists, and the variation in skill (and luck) level between any two players will be more than non-trivial. As long as you avoid "well what the *&?*%!!! am I supposed to do about that???!?!?!" lists, the game should be okay.