A case for more erratas and less physical card "fixes"

By Kdubb, in X-Wing

X7 and TIE/D are not auto-include. Neither is chardaan or tie shuttle. I think FFG has a handle on the problem. "Fixes" can hit from multiple directions and pull a ship into multiple roles. As long as that remains true it is better than errata.

I actually particularly like how the TIE Defender was handled. The thing was JUNK before, so any 'fix' involving a title would just be an auto-included title.

Which sucks. For example, compare the TIE/x1 "fix"...yes, it was needed, but...geez, "auto include" cards are so **** boring...

I'd like to thing FFG learned from that one, though, and the Defender fix is INCREDIBLY solid - yes, pulling a title is an auto-include decision (with the exception, arguably, of Brath who does so love his HLC), but it's not a case where you are locked into one card. IE., "oh, I'm flying a TIE Advanced today, guess I need to get my 'x1' ticket punched so I'm allowed to meaningfully fly the fighter".

That's nice. If a fix is needed, introducing it in such a way (possibly with multiple choices) that it IS NOT an auto-include...

Nice!

Its not like FFG fears issuing errata - there are currently 18 cards with errata, after all, one of which is balance-related.

FFG.. Keep up the good work... I don't care for the coreogrand maneuver.. I think it's because it doesn't require any skill to do.. I out flew you 10 to 1 but your one was a coreogrand and all my skill just got dumped on.. But that's just me... I deal with it I study the first 3 maneuvers that the opponent does.. I above all enjoy the game...

My biggest worry is that Ill run out of space on the table to equip every ship with a title and/or mod! Haha.

That's the brilliant part. Fantasy Flight Games gets to sell you $115 worth of models you may or may not even ever use so you can get 5 pieces of worthless cardstock.

Whelp. That's one way to look at it. Alternatively: I get an Awesome Huge ship, a great TIE Advanced, and a StarViper that I run for funsies.

I loved the Proximity Mine buff, for instance, and hope they can find new ways to do things like that.

Proximity mine buff? I don't remember that. What did I miss?

Proximity mine buff? I don't remember that. What did I miss?

It's been a couple years, but the way it used to be, a ship had to fly over a mine for the mind to detonate. Now you can drop mine directly on another ship and have those mines detonate.

Thing is some of these "autofixes" are only auto in certain circumstances. Autothrusters for instance is only great IF your opponents shoot out of arc. If you then play against say jousters then it's 2 wasted points.

So as the meta moves autoincludes will move as well. If say something gets released in the mod slot atm that counters Uboats for arc dodgers, Do you take that or Autothrusters incase a TLT Yswarm or fat Han shows up?

They could create a new Rebalance slot, just like Titles and Modifications, and then issue Rebalance cards that you can equip at no cost.

Give these Rebalance cards with the bigger packages like core sets, large and epic ships, and in tournament kits. Alternatively, include them in reprints of the small packs that have the affected ship.

With the following rules:

- It has the same size as a Rules Card.

- It is not equipped to a ship, but placed face up on the table near one of the neutral edges.

- A player can place up to 3 different rebalance cards on the table before the beginning of the game.

- It has a name a version number, and a main paragraph of text specifying the rebalancing.

- It is considered unique.

- It affects both players.

- If both players place rebalance cards with the same name, only the one with the highest version number is considered in play. The other is flipped face down.

And autothrusters aren't awful in and of themselves. It's the idea that if fixes in the same vain as autothrusters continue, the mod slot will just become the 2nd tier little clean up slot behind titles, at the expense of list building capabilities.

What exactly was Autothrusters a fix for?

I thought it was just a really good modification for ships with Boost.

Thing is some of these "autofixes" are only auto in certain circumstances. Autothrusters for instance is only great IF your opponents shoot out of arc. If you then play against say jousters then it's 2 wasted points.

Unless you're ever, you know, getting shot at at range 3.

Edited by DarthEnderX

The current system is creaking a bit, certainly, and it;s probably going to take something radical to solve it.

Personally, I don;t really understand the level of resistance to recostings. Given that, if you're a tournament player, you're downloading new FAQs every three months anyway, new tournament rules packs every 6, so an extra doc listing errata'd points values for cards doesn't seem like it would be the end of the world.

does anyone really build lists these days with a pen and paper or calculator looking at the values on the cards themselves?

In fact - there's a real opportunity here to not only fix card prices, but deal with the other issue that's become apparent, that 100 points just doesn't offer enough granularity for the game.

make an app / website / PDF, recosting things based on a 1000 point scale. make it part of the tournament rules, but make clear these are optional for casual play. because otherwise, the most likely future is inevitable power creep with fix layered upon fix upon unintended consequences of the last fix, which X-wing's done well to (mostly) avoid in the 3 1/2 years since launch, but arguably may be becoming more apparent.

So I come in from Netrunner, and they had this exact issue there. Basically they screwed up the Core Set and spent 3 to 4 years trying to patch it with silver bullets in future expansions. Unfortunately they got those wrong and had to start making platinum bullets to kill the silver bullets, then uranium bullets to kill the platinum bullets. It was a horrible mess of over-correction.

It's in the design lag - by the time they know something is a problem they've then got to R&D a problem, playtest it, print it, ship it... it takes about 18 months. In that 18 months the game will have continued to develop from 18 months of additional expansions and the solution you made may now not be needed, or may make things worse. Finally Netrunner made the step they probably needed to make early on and errata'ed a bunch of cards from the Core Set to make them harder to play (there's not really a direct correlation in X-Wing, pretend they just made them cost more). As I understand it the game has settled down a bit now that those wild factors are less prevalent.

I'm sure that by now X-Wing are already deep into designing Wave 10, so the only way a fix would be coming in Wave 9 is if they knew they'd dropped a bomb when they made Wave 8 and decided to just let it ride. HOWEVER, when Netrunner said something to that effect "don't worry, there's a fix coming" it turned out that their fix was actually pretty unplayable and it took them that 18 month design lag to address the problem properly.

And autothrusters aren't awful in and of themselves. It's the idea that if fixes in the same vain as autothrusters continue, the mod slot will just become the 2nd tier little clean up slot behind titles, at the expense of list building capabilities.

What exactly was Autothrusters a fix for?

I thought it was just a really good modification for ships with Boost.

It was a patch for fat turrets, along with the change to half-points-mov for large ships at half health. Turrets were previously just death for ships which were formerly arc dodgers, because arc dodging (which is a VERY high cost ability, having boost and barrel roll together comes at a huge premium) gained them nothing against turrets. Now it gets them a powerful defensive modification, as well as allowing more outflying, and more benefit for doing so.

Thing is some of these "autofixes" are only auto in certain circumstances. Autothrusters for instance is only great IF your opponents shoot out of arc. If you then play against say jousters then it's 2 wasted points.

Unless you're ever, you know, getting shot at at range 3.

I don't know if it is just my local meta but range 3 shots do not happen often enough for 2 points to be worth it. With an arc dodger I will either try to back out to range 4, escape arc or boost in and get them first. I might see 1 shot at range 3 at my interceptor per game and that should involve an asteroid too.