I agree X-wings need some love. TIE Fighters at least are so dirt cheap its actually an effort to NOT use them, so their meh stats and options arent an issue. Xwings are soooo expensive for what they do and theyre almost as immobile as the Lambda Shuttle (ok that might be a stretch but you know what i mean)

X-wings should get a title card akin to what the Defenders are getting: either some very nice free buffs, or a price cut for the loss of a couple upgrades. I mean, who uses torps anyway? I put them on once in a blue moon when i have 3-4 points lying around and nothing better to snag.

. I mean, who uses torps anyway? I put them on once in a blue moon when i have 3-4 points lying around and nothing better to snag.

I admit I'm continually boggled by how much better missiles are than torpedoes and I've never understood why torps were chosen to be generally so much worse.

I have no problem with certain PILOTS going obsolete, I think that's unavoidable.

But for whole ships to be suddenly silenced..... not good.

We're talking the ship that gives the game its title here. There's another ship that sucks at the moment, the M-3A, and not many people care about that. The T-65 however is probably the second or third most iconic ship in all of Star Wars.

And those who do care about the beloved Scyk are just waiting patiently for it to receive its due in conjunction with the Scum epic ships.

No, ships should not be obsolete. In a perfectly balanced game, there would always be a spot for your favorite ships or flavorful choices.

That said...

There's something to having some ships that are simply stronger and simply weaker than other choices. It gives newb players a 'soft choice' to start with, and experienced players can migrate to the other choices later on.

It doesn't seem to happen with X-Wing, though.

Ideally, every ship in the game would have a role and a niche in its faction. So far they've done well here; the only ships that don't have a distinct 'job' in their fleet are the Scyk, and possibly the StarViper (meant to be a fat ace, but terrible at it).

Ideally, every ship in the game would be the right price. So far they've been honestly pretty good at this - aside from StarVipers, E-wings and Defenders, every ship in the game has generally come out no more than a point or two off. Trouble is, the game is now to the point that 'a point or two' is simply not close enough - you either get the points exactly right, or it's a meta-changer (TLT, U-boats) or almost automatically a dud on arrival. Kithraxz and IA X-wings are both fine, really - they're just a point - a single point! - wrongly priced.

Meanwhile, the meta-shapers cause problems of their own - B-wings were just fine, and Mist Hunters would've been just as solid as an interesting 'slightly more deluxe' version thereof... except that TLT was underpriced by a single point, seeing the B-wing driven from tables and G1a never having a chance. Now U-boats are in fashion, and their ability to annihilate TLT Y-wings leaves B-wings & Mist Hunters's identical defense profiles just as toast. It's not that B-wings were rubbish, nor that G1as would have been rubbish by default... it's that there's simply stuff out there that fills their 'heavy fighter at sub-25pts' role even better.

I kind of wonder if they shouldn't have a second set of 'playtesters' who take a look at 'final version' cards and get to do a final price-check once the design is settled; it might help smooth out those last give-or-take-a-point and no-EPT-no-sale type balancing issues.

Many good points stated here.

I wonder if FFG made a T-65 title card that reduced the ship's cost by 1 if everyone would then be happy? I think people really want the ship to be Tier1/border line OP truthfully.

I think people really want the ship to be Tier1/border line OP truthfully.

I do. I want the X Wing to be a beast. I want it to be one of the gatekeepers of the meta, one of the power builds like Stairmasters or Palp Aces.

Because the X Wing is my favourite ship and IMO the coolest snubfighter in the game. I hate that it's a bottom tier ship.

Card games in some respects can afford to be a little more careless in design because if they fail they can cover it with sheer volume. No one cares about a few dozen obsolete cards when each new release brings hundreds of new cards. X-Wng has a total of 36 ships (not including Huge). They can afford to let even a single one become obsolete. Even though several rarely see play as it is.

TIE advanced got a fix, Y-wing got a fix (Technically two, if you count Scum&Villiany as one and Wave 7 extra munitions/TLT as the other), TIE fighter.... didn't really need a fix but they still are making pilots for it that give it more options(Gozanti/Synergy with F/O pilots). Point being, all other ships from wave one have gotten some major boost to keep them at least playable in the game. The T-65 has yet to recieve its fix. The Transport did give it more options,But it didn't have any useful fixes, and Integrated Astromech is nice, but it's really designed for the T-70, which already has the boost action, and Talon Roll. The T-65 needs a slight fix so that it's post movement action economy doesn't leave it a sitting duck, which it currently does. Boosting can be fixed with Engine upgrade, but that also get's rid of IA, which the T-65 also sort of needs. And barrel rolls can be solved with either Expert Handling OR BB-8, but this limits your movements severely because T-65's have a hard time clearing stress (Unless your porkins. Also, look at that dial). So yes, FFG is going to give us some good fixes for our beloved wave 1 ship at some point.

And no, The T-65 will not go quietly into the howling dark, for if it does, other ships shall soon follow it.

Simply put, the T-65 was screwed when TFA was written. As game design is concerned, a T-70 X-Wing should be much like a T-65, but better (i.e., more advanced version, like Xbox 360 vs Xbox). As similar as the two are, one was bound to seem overpriced compared to the other, and the T-65 was already feeling a bit overcosted before the new X-wing launched. Much like the Rebellion/New Republic, we found that evolving conditions made our beloved, multi-role star fighter less and less effective. Effectively, it becomes useful under the hands of a few unique aces, but our FFG overlords chose to apply "fixes" by introducing a new model, just as Incom did in the Star Wars universe.

Does that mean they won't do anything to make the T-65 more useful later? No. They still may offer something more than integrated astro. They also may not. In the meantime, just look at the array of astromechs, pilots and so forth, play with the synergies, and see what you can do. The T-70 may very well be our flagship X-Wing, now...

I think people really want the ship to be Tier1/border line OP truthfully.

I do. I want the X Wing to be a beast. I want it to be one of the gatekeepers of the meta, one of the power builds like Stairmasters or Palp Aces.

Because the X Wing is my favourite ship and IMO the coolest snubfighter in the game. I hate that it's a bottom tier ship.

The X-wing isn't a bottom tier ship. Your forgetting the scum ships(Scyk, Star Viper) that are consider not even playable. The T-65 is at least considered a good ship just not great.

FFG created the game, and have experience playtesting for many years now. Surely at this stage there shouldn't be any oh we didn't think that would happen releases. Its not really hard to piece together deadeye, R4 torps etc and based on the preview FFG were fully aware the trip torp boats would happen which looks exactly like a money spinning exercise for all those people who would buy 3 of them.

Fun fact: The T-65 has already been fixed. With Integrated Astromech and a 1 point Astromech it's pretty much a B-Wing statwise with a better dial. Assuming R2 Astromech, that more than makes up for the no barrel roll.

The problem is that B-Wings have been power crept out of the game. Ships like the Inquisitor, Soontir, Poe, etc. are all more efficient jousters than ships normally considered, "jousters" and they also have omniscient arc dodging capabilities. If you end up successfully blocking an Acewing, that hurts your squad's overall jousting efficiency because now you're down 1 shot.

So it's no wonder that the /fixed/ T-65 is obsolete and already needs a second fix.

It moves once.

Since it doesn't have boost, sometimes it needs to K-Turn to get shots instead of a 2 hard green and angled boost every turn. This hurts its action economy.

It gets an action if it hasn't bumped or stressed.

It gets to attack something once, if it has something in arc.

That's it. It cannot pull 3 evade results out its ass on a completely blank roll, it cannot see where you have moved to and boost and barrel roll reactively, it cannot get 3 actions a turn, it does not have a turret.

So yeah, of course it blows. How to fix the problem? Make bank boost red. Ships with innate boost in their action bar can equip Engine Upgrade at a discount in order to turn their bank boosts white. This dampens reactive post-dial shenanigans, or forces a mod slot to be spent on EU instead of Autothrusters. This gives ships without post dial shenanigans a chance.

Before you criticize my idea and say that it hurts (for example) Brobots too much, consider this: A lot of boosting is done just to account for your opponent's boosting. Nerfing boost would mean you would have to do less counter boosting yourself.

1.) Ships should not be allowed to become obsolete.

2.) However, normal 'jouster' ships are obsolete.

Increase the X-wing or Kithraxzes attack value by 1 without raising their price and tell me that again.

Jousters would be fine if they were worth their points - but it's the weird ships that are harder to price. Since cost too much and need fixing later (defenders, scyks); others cost too little and push out jousters at their own job description (TLT, jumpmasters).

For the game as a whole, the latter is the first real start towards power creep, and jousters are the canary in the coral mine - unable to do anything *else*, they're either with their points out they're not. Once there's something else that's better value, you end up having to either nerf other stuff or buff the jousters. Crackshot helped the ATT 2 ships pretty good. We'll see what happens to the entire class of ATT 3 ones, I guess.

Thanks for the input everyone! I certainly appreciate you contributing, and it's been very illuminating.

Don't get me wrong, I love the T-65. But I certainly find myself more and more inclined to believe the T-70 is the X-Wing 'fix'.

Well it appears everyone wants the T-65 to be the T-70 but with T-65 pilots. I think the T-65's best chance is to focus on improving it capabilities with torpedoes and make it shine with that. That could be it's nitch and not all the requests for the boost/barrel roll action etc. FFG should come out with some new torpedoes and new mods/astromechs that benefit them by increasing their effectiveness or reducing their costs.

People keep mentioning the Scyk as an example of a terrible ship.

It isn't. It really isn't. It's a TIE fighter that pays 1pt for a shield over a Hull, and 1pt for 1 extra PS over an AP, and trades the Hard 3 for a 1 Bank. Which leaves it, in the current meta, at 1pt overcosted. What it's actually missing is a Howlrunner equivalent, so that S&V have a reason to run swarms and miniswarms. A M3-A pilot that gives ALL unstressed friendly ships at R1 an Evade or Focus token, for example. Or allows them to reroll a blank attack or defence dice. Something to make 4-6 Scyks playable off of it's effect. If TIEs didn't have Howlrunner, they would have been dismissed as unplayable/list filler long ago. The Scyks are just waiting for an S&V card with a decent AoE effect that begs you to get as many bodies on the table as you can.

FFG should come out with some new torpedoes and new mods/astromechs that benefit them by increasing their effectiveness or reducing their costs.

I find it rather strange that a weapon surely designed for use against capital ships and stationary targets should be as effective as other secondary weapons against fighters...I'd like to see some change whereby their ability against large-base ships is maintained or improved [and even more so against Epic ships] and reduced against fighters.

This would counter the threat posed by Jumpmasters [which seem OP against fighters, even if they do present more targets to be attacked] whilst still making them attractive for use against the various large-base builds...and then, if the change is subsequently perceived as overpowered, introduce countermeasures suited to such large & epic scale targets - to me, that would follow "real-world" developments.

I'll now sit back and wait for all the cries of 'ordnance has only just been made effective'

In any progressive conflict, gear is going to get obsolete. The P-40 "Flying Tiger" could be considered iconic for the US in WWII, but it didn't see much action by the end.

The problem with comparing X-wing to a CCG (like M:TG) is that in card games, 1 release brings hundreds of options (cards) to the meta. Some of the fun is finding the gold amongst the chaff. With 4 ships per wave, each one had better be good, and there really isn't any room for a $15 bubble pack of "chaff" both on the FLGS shelf and in the meta.

That being said, I think that a rotation of power should occur, without needing to constantly up-gun every single ship in the game. Making one ship more powerful simply makes another obsolete. I think FFG is working a little bit towards emphasizing use without changing power dynamics by the voting brackets that are using for the current tournament (unless I mistake what is going on there). Having a powerful combo "banned" for a season could make the game more variable without having to invent a silver bullet for every overused meta-tourney combo.

And as far was the icon X-Wing is concerned, there are T-65 A-1 to A-4, T-65Bs, T-65 XJs, and even the StealthX if FFG ever decides to allow the Rebels some cloaking fun.

In any progressive conflict, gear is going to get obsolete. The P-40 "Flying Tiger" could be considered iconic for the US in WWII, but it didn't see much action by the end.

...

May want to check some sources before you go bad mouthing the P-40. It was used throughout the war and by some countries even after the war.

In any progressive conflict, gear is going to get obsolete. The P-40 "Flying Tiger" could be considered iconic for the US in WWII, but it didn't see much action by the end.

...

May want to check some sources before you go bad mouthing the P-40. It was used throughout the war and by some countries even after the war.

I am well aware of the P-40 excellent performance among the AVG and at Pearl Harbor. It's strengths included durability and speed, but it had notoriously poor climb rate due to its heavy engine, and could not handle a Zero one on one unless it started at a higher elevation, which led to the USN tactic of paired pilots flying missions. . .one to act as bait, and the other to slide behind the overzealous Zero pilot for an unhappy ending.

My point is not that it totally disappeared or was a bad fighter, but that by the end of the war the P-51, P-47, F4U, and F6F had replaced in most theaters. An of course it was used by other countries after the war. . .because the U.S. had sold it to them because the U.S. had better aircraft. Perhaps the better term here is not obsolete, but obsolescence.

All of these factors could be applied to the game. . .emphasizing ship appropriate tactics, different theaters of conflict ("banning" certain ships), etc. I think there need to be more cards that emphasize inter-pilot synergy, rather than Heroic Unique Pilots or Superior Ship Statistics.

I think part of the problem is that it's almost impossible to price a dial and post-maneuver actions.

A ship can be worth 100 points if it's effectively impossible to get it in arc. And a ship that can never get an enemy in arc is worth zero points.

Flip-flopping, post-move-boosting ships have rendered, almost from day one, the 'jouster' (by which I mean a ship that has to play with it's dial only) dead in the water. And the only way to fix that, IMO, is with a blanket change to post-maneuvere actions. I think you should only be able to move a ship ONCE after revealing your dial. Or before, in the case of BB-8 and other pre-dial shenanigans. No boost+barrel roll each turn.

The other alternative is to give EVERY ship a barrel roll at minimum, and then we can ALL flip-flop all over the place. But that seems boring.

I think part of the problem is that it's almost impossible to price a dial and post-maneuver actions.

A ship can be worth 100 points if it's effectively impossible to get it in arc. And a ship that can never get an enemy in arc is worth zero points.

Flip-flopping, post-move-boosting ships have rendered, almost from day one, the 'jouster' (by which I mean a ship that has to play with it's dial only) dead in the water. And the only way to fix that, IMO, is with a blanket change to post-maneuvere actions. I think you should only be able to move a ship ONCE after revealing your dial. Or before, in the case of BB-8 and other pre-dial shenanigans. No boost+barrel roll each turn.

The other alternative is to give EVERY ship a barrel roll at minimum, and then we can ALL flip-flop all over the place. But that seems boring.

Expert Handling?

Every ship has at least one pilot that can BR except the Space Cow and I think the K-wing, either by their action bar, their pilot ability, EPT slot or Astromech slot. Just because not every pilot can do it doesn't mean generic 'jousters' need to be dead in the water. Munitions seem to be making a lot of unpopular pilots attractive again, if not exactly top tier viable.

I think part of the problem is that it's almost impossible to price a dial and post-maneuver actions.

A ship can be worth 100 points if it's effectively impossible to get it in arc. And a ship that can never get an enemy in arc is worth zero points.

Flip-flopping, post-move-boosting ships have rendered, almost from day one, the 'jouster' (by which I mean a ship that has to play with it's dial only) dead in the water. And the only way to fix that, IMO, is with a blanket change to post-maneuvere actions. I think you should only be able to move a ship ONCE after revealing your dial. Or before, in the case of BB-8 and other pre-dial shenanigans. No boost+barrel roll each turn.

The other alternative is to give EVERY ship a barrel roll at minimum, and then we can ALL flip-flop all over the place. But that seems boring.

Again, ship-to-ship synergy would be a cool way to make this happen.

Step one: identify what makes 'good' ships 'good'

Aces, they can reposition after all other ships have moved. Generics that can reposition are basically blockers, not arc Dodgers.

Toilet seats can reliably fire torpedoes due to combo of EPT generics with a higher than average PS for generics and Astromech slot that allows mods for torp shots (action economy). Good amount of health behind average green dice, and priced aggressively for great efficiency.

Crack swarms: another type of 'alpha strike' that lets low attack ships punch thru damage when it counts.