Honestly there aren't that many ships that are truly under powered.the T-65, the Scyk, the Defender and E-Wing are the only ships right now that are truly bad. The Defender will be fixed soon.The T-65 will likely get some love this Dec from the Rogue One pack.

You need to add the StarViper to this. And I don't think the T-65 needs too much anymore. Just maybe a little sumpin sumpin with Rogue One.

The Starviper isn't "truly bad". It could stand to be a little cheaper or to just natively have the slots from the Virago title. It's got what is probably my favorite small ship dial in the game.

and lots of people yelling about fixes doesn't necessarily mean things need to be fixed.

The problem is I think you have a case if "my side", "your side" and the truth. I've seen a number of people say a given ship is under powered and needs a buff. I've also seen a number of people say that the same ship doesn't need a buff because they can use it effectively.

But regardless of anecdotal evidence there are ships that are truly under powered and need to be fixed. Just because someone can't use the ship effectively doesn't mean it's a bad ship, but at the same time, just because someone won a game with it doesn't mean it's fine.

Between the cries for "fixes" and the fact that almost every ship seems to get 2 releases, it really makes me wonder what happens in X-Wing R&D for each Wave.

Between the cries for "fixes" and the fact that almost every ship seems to get 2 releases, it really makes me wonder what happens in X-Wing R&D for each Wave.

After wave 3 the design team changed. You can blame them for the Phantom and wave 5.

Just about every ship has a decent or competative configuration. Unfortunately not every pilot is viable. For some reason there's a vocal group that wants EVERY pilot to show up on the table. Not sure why, at least at the 100 pt death match level of play. There's other modes besides that, like Epic where generic X-wings can shine or other builds that were too expensive could now be affordable at 300 or more points total. Missions are another greatly ignored play mode in this game, one that highly maneuverable aces and PWTs might not be the best.

But then this has been hashed over again and again.

Getting a little tired of it.

Going to try to take a nap now.

I'm old.

To be fair, X-wing is an incredibly difficult game to design.

Eh, not really. All games are difficult to design to a degree, but this is a game where all the ships use identical attacks with identical dice results. Everything is shooting, everything uses the same red and green dice with the same likelihood of success per die roll. They all use identical movement templates, share classes of base sizes, etc.

Compare this to a WW2 game that has infantry that have to shoot and engage in hand to hand, enter and exit buildings, interact with terrain and other units. Has armored vehicles that have to drive, interact with terrain and other units, then shoot and be shot at, and X-Wing is fairly simplistic.Compare it to 40K, which is a mess because it has to have all the same things as above, but then try to figure out how to balance armies that are significantly different in how they approach the game (some armies prefer close combat, some prefer ranged combat), it's like trying to balance a game of medieval knights vs WW2 Wermacht, lol.

X-Wing is fairly well done. But in terms of game design, it's not "incredibly difficult".

I disagree to an extent; while those types of games are undoubtably more complex, new units and armies only need to be balanced versus existing armies and units. Generally upgrades and options are unique to that army/unit. X-Wing designers need to consider this as well as the effect all the new upgrade cards will have on every other ship and with other existing cards.

My ship (assault gunboat) isn't even in the game...

A lot of ships that people say are broken were only recently running really well - Stressbot, Corran Horn, (both of which helped win worlds iirc), BBBBZ.

I quite like the balance at present. The problem (if there even is one) is more the lack of variety that 'poorer' ships have. The Ywing, Ewing, Khirazx, Scyk, and others could use a generic EPT ship like the jump master and a-wings.

They're not really broken, they're just slightly suboptimal in competitive setting. People exaggerate.

I quite like the balance at present. The problem (if there even is one) is more the lack of variety that 'poorer' ships have. The Ywing, Ewing, Khirazx, Scyk, and others could use a generic EPT ship like the jump master and a-wings.

The Scyk and Kihraxz HAVE Generic EPT ships

I quite like the balance at present. The problem (if there even is one) is more the lack of variety that 'poorer' ships have. The Ywing, Ewing, Khirazx, Scyk, and others could use a generic EPT ship like the jump master and a-wings.

The Scyk and Kihraxz HAVE Generic EPT ships

overpriced by one crackshot though

all for 1 PS, which could be useful but imo they just did it for the sake of balancing the worst scum card ever made (bodyguard) which is just silly

Just about every ship has a decent or competative configuration.

Is the fact that Corran is actually good reason enough to say the E-Wing doesn't need any help? The problem being that if you do 'fix' the E-Wing and make the generics worth using does Corran become too good, Wedge and Luke could have similar issues.

I quite like the balance at present. The problem (if there even is one) is more the lack of variety that 'poorer' ships have. The Ywing, Ewing, Khirazx, Scyk, and others could use a generic EPT ship like the jump master and a-wings.

The Scyk and Kihraxz HAVE Generic EPT ships

As an Xbox 360 owner once said: you ain't generic unless you're PS3

I use glue to fix my broken ships.

As an Xbox 360 owner once said: you ain't generic unless you're PS3

HAH! I love it.

I use glue to fix my broken ships.

I use sheer bloody-mindedness.

Compare this to a WW2 game...

Those games are harder to balance, but they also have Much larger rule books. Flames of War or 40k have rule books that are several hundred pages vs X-Wings 24 pages.

X-Wing is fairly well done. But in terms of game design, it's not "incredibly difficult".

Ideal balance is incredibly difficult, perhaps even impossible. But one thing X-Wing has that makes it significantly more complex than 40k, FoW or even Warmahoards is the number of configurations any given ship has.

In 40k, any given unit may have what 4-6 different upgrades? I think the Tau may be the worse with the Crisis suits, they have 6-8 or so. But most units have fairly limited options. X-Wing on the other hand, how many different possible configurations of just the X-Wing are there?

Then every time they release a new expansion they have to consider how an upgrade from there is going to interact with all the existing options for every ship that can take that new upgrade.

All of these X-Wing upgrades don't do anything other than alter the number of dice that are rolled, or how the dice are interpreted. It's literally just making minor adjustments to the way the ship interacts with existing mechanics. Plus ships aren't very distinguished. They have attributes ranging from 0-4, numbers that interact the same way with the dice or tokens no matter what number they are. Clear, repeatable, statistical outcomes. They are still using one set of dice with predetermined and standardized results. There are never more than 2 hits, 1 crit, and 1 focus and 4 blanks on an attack die. A ship will never move further or shorter than the template length unless it hits another ship. There's no terrain other than asteroids and debris, which present predetermined likelihood of damage, but otherwise do not hinder movement on the board. There are no tailing mechanics like more complicated "air" combat games have. It's all just a guessing game. The game is also built around the predetermined 100 point game scale, so cards are pointed according to how significant that total is against that limit.

But your estimate of 40K is woefully short. I mean, there are probably 50 different options available to a Tactical Squad alone, if we're going to suggest that every possible configuration is truly a different option like you're saying cards are in X-Wing. The squad size can vary from 5-10, sergeants can be made veterans, they can add and subtract weapons and options, grenades, special weapons and heavy weapons can be added, and of different types. They can have three to four different types of transports. It's incredibly more complex than just 4-6 options.

But army configuration is small potatoes when it comes to game design, and that all pales in comparison to trying to balance the different modes of gameplay . There is one mode of gameplay in X-Wing. Fly around and shoot. Nothing in the game does anything other than that. Like I said, 40K is like trying to balance modern warfare with ancients. One side is trying to fight with guns and tanks, and the other side with talons and stompy bits. And that's why 40K has never been balanced, because it's nearly an impossible task. What look like relatively minor tweaks in gameplay have shifted the meta in entirely different directions between editions. The closest 40K ever was to balanced was 2nd Edition, when at least every army was capable of being a shooty army. And 2nd Edition had tons of internal balance issues.

If you converted every X-Wing card to text, and added in the FAQ, the rulebook would still be shorter than the combat sections of Chain of Command or Battlegroup Kursk, lol.

But your estimate of 40K is woefully short. I mean, there are probably 50 different options available to a Tactical Squad alone, if we're going to suggest that every possible configuration is truly a different option like you're saying cards are in X-Wing. The squad size can vary from 5-10, sergeants can be made veterans, they can add and subtract weapons and options, grenades, special weapons and heavy weapons can be added, and of different types. They can have three to four different types of transports. It's incredibly more complex than just 4-6 options.

How many of those options are doing something other than changing the basic stats of a unit or giving them a different sort of attack? Many of the effects in X-Wing change the basic rules of the game.

Are there restrictions of how many of a certain type of unit that you can have in your squad depending on the makeup of your squad?

It's also my understanding that 40K isn't particularly concerned about maintaining any sort of balance. Their entire business model is predicated on releasing new codexes that are more powerful than ones that were previously released.

To be fair, X-wing is an incredibly difficult game to design.

Eh, not really. All games are difficult to design to a degree, but this is a game where all the ships use identical attacks with identical dice results. Everything is shooting, everything uses the same red and green dice with the same likelihood of success per die roll. They all use identical movement templates, share classes of base sizes, etc.

I'm not talking about the core game mechanics like shooting and rolling dice.

I'm talking about upgrade cards where one misstep can drastically affect the meta.

Autothrusters affected everything. TLT affected everything. Contracted scouts affected everything. What if the latter two were 1 point more expensive?

The margins for error are small and the impacts are huge because of how few ships there are per squad.

If you want to compare to 40K, imagine if every 40K list was capped at 50 points and was made up of only 2-4 models (most lists nowadays) that all shared the same possible upgrades.

Even a tiny valuation error of 2-3 points could result in drastic meta changes.

The amount of pressure on X-wing designers is way higher than 40K.

To be fair, the Xwing designers could do something cynical yet commercial, like making a Punisher vet pack. But they don't. By all indications they test very carefully the components that make up the new content.

Compared to Gw which does woefully little testing. Moreover margin of error of points is much worse for Xwing. Alex said that he wished TLTs were 1 point more. To put that into context that's like having a 40k unit or upgrade being 50-100 points undercosted.

So, basically, I should just stop reading these boards, and everything would be fine.

OTOH, this thread makes me wonder why everyone compares this game to 40K?? (I have never played it, so it is a useless reference point for me. )

I read the boards. it goes like this. I lost with this ship, it needs a fix. my oppent beat me with this other ship, its too strong

Which fixed ship are you suggesting was needlessly fixed?

TTR wasn't saying ships were needlessly fixed only that some players claim descending firmament when their favorite ship doesn't perform to their expectations. If I think 4 X-Wings should be able to take on all challengers and they don't then the X-Wing needs fixed. If i can't beat 3 ace Interceptors, regardless of what I bring to the table, then the 3 ace build is too strong. Play style and ability are not being considered.

A balanced game doesn't necessarily mean that every squad has an equal chance of beating every other squad, only that 1 build isn't unbeatable. I haven't played 40K but I understand that at one time or another there was one build that was considered unbeatable. New codecs were released that swung the balance too far towards another faction. Trading one powerhouse for another.

Something else that I think contributes to the "it's too OP" cries is the spoiling of new content. Guys will start playing the new builds on vassal or the equivalent months before the REAL release. The players that start theory crafting months ahead have an advantage over those that don't.

All of these X-Wing upgrades don't do anything other than alter the number of dice that are rolled, or how the dice are interpreted.

Do you even play this game? Because things like TLT, the Emperor, Juke, ect... Have a much bigger impact on how the game is played then that. A bigger impact than the difference between a power sword vs a power fist.

Game is still vastly more balanced than a LOT of other tabletop games.

Theres a method to balancing that ive been noticing in a lot of mulitplayer games lately: Everything is OP, Everything is Balance. If **** near every ship has some insane killing potential or is really cheap for decent stats, nobody has an overbearing edge. its easier to prevent the obscenely OP spikes in a setting where everything is stronger than it looks than it is in a "balanced" setting.

Course this means everyone cries everything is OP but whatever.

So, basically, I should just stop reading these boards, and everything would be fine.

OTOH, this thread makes me wonder why everyone compares this game to 40K?? (I have never played it, so it is a useless reference point for me. )

Its compared to 40k because its the "other" obscenely popular tabletop game. Up until this year, it was the top selling of any tabletop, which x-wing beat.

The game doesnt play the same at all, doesnt even use the same dice system (obviously). But both are very well known tabletop games.

What is Broken? Define it? Also why do you feel so many ships are broken?

What is Broken? Define it? Also why do you feel so many ships are broken?

well, the pegs from the new core set and onward suck all manner of hell and I've got at least four ships that had to be magnetized because the bit on the ship that inserts into the peg has been snapped clean off...

OTOH, this thread makes me wonder why everyone compares this game to 40K??

A little history lesson may be in order.

In the dark days when there was only war... I mean Warhammer. There was basically two 'mainstream' tabletop war games. Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy Battles. There was a few others but they were hard to find and most were limited to a given group. Warhammer was the only big game.

So in those days you either played 40k, WFB or nothing. That means a lot of us who play X-Wing today used to play 40k or WFB but were never really happy with it. Games-Workshop knew they had the gamer by the <something> and we'd buy what they sold or else.

So when games like Warmachine and other table top games started to be made, people would flock to them, but none of those ever became as popular as 40k.

Then X-Wing was released and it's been growing every year, a lot of that growth being former 40k players who jumped ship. Until now it's may actually sell better than 40k.

But that also means 40k is still the 'gold standard' of games, not in that it's what all games should aspire to, but rather it's what we tend to compare other games to (quite often in the sense of don't do what 40k did) because it's something a lot of us know and it's a good common frame of reference.