Balance has been a fail forward game as it should be. Try to fix the issue and when you don't get it 100% you try again. In X-wing due to the nature of the product you aim for 80-90% in your fix as an accidental 150% fix is very hard to go back and correct. You can easily increase power levels by adding new upgrade cards or ship cards but dialing it back down is a challenge.

The aim should always be to make as many of the components of your game viable. In a CCG the "put in dumb cards to test deck building skill" is personally to me an excuse for lazy design. Sure, you can actively design bad cards to negatively affect people who aren't indoctrinated in the game but that precludes you were perfectly designing everything in the first place so without the "traps" you could simply assemble decks of random cards and auto win. This is clearly not realistic. It's just an easy way to pad out a CCG expansion, that and endless reiterations of the same stuff.

You could of course design products for specific use in say Campaign formats which were not competitive even in Epic play, but that is a product they have yet to embark on and really, seems needless. Even the Senators shuttle could easily be a useful ship with lots of crew slots and a cool title.

Someone made a comment over on a Punisher thread that the Punisher is a "Heavy Bomber". That got me thinking. Why do we want every ship to be tournament worthy? When you think about real life (can't believe I'm using that term to talk about a sci-fi game) uses of ships like the Punisher, they would be held for very specific roles and used in conjunction with other units in potentially large operations. Some ships just don't lend themselves to 100 point games, against a wide variety of opponents. But they shine in other styles of play. Say against epic ships in the case of the Punisher. I can understand people wanting their favorite ship to see more use, or more ships to see general use. But I think there is room for very specialized ships in this game without having to make them all tournament worthy.

This is the only reason I LIKED Star Trek Attack Wings "Episodes/Arcs". The games for their OP are NEVER, or pretty much never, straight up arena fights. They are story missions where the most powerful ship doesnt ALWAYS win. Of course you look at their Competitive scene and its a arena battle just like X-Wing and suffers the same issues of Uber ships pushing everything else out. I mean at one point the Picard Cube was unstopable, try having TL and Focus on a ship with 8 attack dice against mostly 1-2 agi ships and you having roughly 18 health. Needless to say not much could stop it.

Perfect balance in a game like x-wing is a nice idea but it is unachievable. There are just some cards and ships (or combinations thereof) that will not be as effective in a points/damage as others. This is perfectly okay.

Points are not and can not be a perfect measure of a ship or a card's effectiveness. Example: BTL title on Kavil.

Stressing about how your particular pile of plastic space toys match up against someone else's pile of plastic space toys is much ado about nothing.

There are ships that end up being better in a 100pt tournament setting than others. This is simply a fact that no perfect design for this game exists that would also create a varied and deep game.

And this is totally fine!

Perfect balance in a game like x-wing is a nice idea but it is unachievable.

That's true, but that doesn't mean balance shouldn't be strived for. Which is really what the OP is asking for as far as I can tell, for FFG to make ships and not really worry about them being balanced, that it's ok for them to be below the power curve because they'll still be useful in casual games.

But that's a flawed premise, because a ship that is on or even above the power curve is usable in casual games, even if given combo's do push that ship way above it, those combos can be avoided.

The logical flaw is that if in casual play balance isn't a big deal, then there's no reason to make unbalanced ships for the sake of casual play. Because it doesn't matter how well the ship is balanced in the first place.

Does casual need more ship variety? Is every X-wing ship and upgrade in existence not enough? Because it's really hard to have more options than ALL OF THEM.

I ain't complaining bout it!

Kinda supports it, doesn't it? Defender titles are banned from casual. Xwings not played in tournaments. Totally where we want to be!

If you could direct me to the Casual Banned List...

Balance is one of those nebulous terms. You can have it but you may not always see it all the time.

If we simplified X-Wing to rock-paper-scissors you might say that each of those three components is balanced with the other. However, in a larger scheme when the rules will only allow you to play one that may creates some kind of meta. If the meta is Rock that means Scissors will constantly get crushed which could equate to unplayable; in this meta Paper would be very destructive as it blankets the rocks which nicely push out the Scissor squads that would cut Paper to shreds. In the Rock meta Scissors never win even if they manage to pull out a win or two because there are just too many Rocks around; Paper probably does very well. Seeing Paper do so well the meta may shift away from Rock and onto Paper which then makes Scissors far more playable which then makes Rock appear the odd one out.

Now when your throw Lizard and Spock into the RPS system you still have everything balanced but you throw much more chaos into the mix.

There is a degree of imbalance that is acceptable, even prefrable (perfect imbalance). Right now, we are not even close to that.

Certain upgrades and a handful of pilots are way of the chart. Imo, the most problematic are: inquisitor, omega leader, Soontir, palpatine crew, zuckuss crew, Dengar pilot, Contracted scouts and Vessery (and to some extent all defender pilots).

Here is something I find interesting. I love playing against the Inquisitor, Soontir, Dengar and Contracted Scouts. I'm also fine going up against Omega Leader. But ****, I hate to face x7 Vessery. That is a messed up design, akin to the phantom of old.

Why is it bad? Because perfect imbalnce strives to keep the meta fluid, forcing people to search for new answers to the top performing options. Vessery doesn't do that. Unlike the other ships in the list, Vessery doesn't care for things aces usually hate. Block me? OK, I get 2 actions instead of 3. Stress? Fine, pile it on, still get my two actions, palp backup and possibly a LW reroll. Vader Crew? Fine eat my shields, they are a plentiful. So how do you win? You bring a realy strong alpha strike or, more reliably, higher PS arc dogders. Vessery will not diversify the meta, but instead limit it and cement what we alreaddy see to much of.

If a few ships are lacking a bit, it doesn't really matter much. But the top options needs to be more even and have counters (not only in listbuilding but also in tactics). When playing on Vassal, I have now started to wait my opponent out to select a list of matching power level after seeing what they bring - otherwise it's to much of a risk the game will be a drag for both of us.

Kinda supports it, doesn't it? Defender titles are banned from casual. Xwings not played in tournaments. Totally where we want to be!

If you could direct me to the Casual Banned List...

Edit: forgive me, that was more snark than necessary. I was pointing out that your post not to use the defender titles implied, perhaps unintentionally, that it's too powerful for casual friendly play.

The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of people who play this game, will never play in a tournament. I think the game is fine. This forum just has a lot of loud tournament players who have no concept of fun. I guess I'd aspire to be the "best" at a tiny niche game too if I lived in my mother's basement and that's all I had going for me.*

*Not all tournament players are basement dwelling neck beards

It comes down to a question of theme. The stats are obviously a separate entity from the models, but having an A Wing with Agility 1 and 10 hit-points doesn't gel.

Similarly, the way the rules have forced many ships into 100 point dogfight means they've missed their true purpose. A TIE bomber or Y Wing should *suck* in a 100 point dogfight. They should *shine* in Epic where their large ordnance payloads and enhanced delivery systems have perfect targets in the Epic ships. But instead we almost never see Y Wings employed in their traditional role of bomber/torpedo platform, we instead see them toting TLTs and chewing up snubfighters that SHOULD be eating them for breakfast in 100 point dogfights.

And then you've got things going the other way with ships like the X Wing, which already gains a boost in Epic when compared to the B Wing because of it's more open dial. But since the focus of a 100 point tournament match is that close-range knife-fighting, the X Wing is edged out. So we get Integrated Astro to boost the X Wing in 100 point matches, which has the knock-on effect of pushing B Wings in epic matches further out of consideration.

The other factor to consider is that X Wing tournaments are incredibly sterile and don't reward anything other than killing enemy ships, unlike tournaments for practically every other miniatures game I've ever heard of, where tournaments feature a range of scenarios.

Let's look at this from a historical wargaming perspective! Lets build a fighter wargame covering the 20th Century.

WWI fighters with a single mg were outdated by faster, more agile WWII fighters with multiple mgs which in turn were outdated by jet fighters with more powerful cannons and missiles!

But since its a "game" that guys want to have competitive tournaments for, all the planes must work at a competitive level. Historically, it wont make any sense! That ruins it for the CASUAL players!

Same thing with XWing, some ships just stink! Some are just outdated. Live with it!

In this analogy wouldn't you be able make the planes using the older technology much cheaper? Therefore fielding many more of them at the same cost which would at least somewhat balance the numbers out. I don't think anybody has a problem with some ships being better than others; I believe it is when a ship isn't as good as another, but costed the same or more. The issue with the punisher seems to be that it is a less effecient version of the bomber without being able to do much that the bomber can't already do and seems to charge for upgrade slots that would be a huge point sink to fill anyways because the ship doesn't have anywhere close to the durability to use them all. I'm pretty new to the game though, so I could be very wrong in my understanding of it.

The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of people who play this game, will never play in a tournament. I think the game is fine. This forum just has a lot of loud tournament players who have no concept of fun. I guess I'd aspire to be the "best" at a tiny niche game too if I lived in my mother's basement and that's all I had going for me.*

*Not all tournament players are basement dwelling neck beards

You do realize most people go to tournaments because they consider it fun right? Why else would they spend money and time on going to tournaments?

Also, I keep hearing 'the vast majority of people who play this game, will never play in a tournament' and I kinda doubt it's as true as people try to make it.

My local community is rather small, but here almost everyone goes to tournaments. We play at at a FLGS that does weekly x-wing nights (here large retail chains don't carry x-wing and without the FLGS it would be quite hard to find people to play with). The FLGS does tournaments atleast 1/month, and people come simply to play more x-wing.

So I wonder for big communities: are there that many people who play completely unattached to a FLGS community? Are there that many people who, despite being attached to a FLGS community don't take part in any tournaments that community might organize?

If every ship was tournament viable, what exactly would be the downside of that to casual play?

Scenarios, player counts, variants, that kind of thing, that'll never be something tournaments are particularly good at.

You misunderstood my question. What I meant was: let's assume FFG somehow makes all ships viable for 100 tournaments. How would that negatively affect casual play?

Because casual play includes a 300-point version of the game. For example, there is some debate that the Punisher, while a slug for 100/6, has some serious potential in 300 point play.

To wit, as an Imp player, I'm tired of waves that release yet another Imperial starfighter that in tournament play is only used for the highest PS ace in the card set, and in casual play leaves you with 3 other pilot cards that are more-or-less the same as the last 50 Imperial starfighter possibilities (the TIE Defender being a notable exception with Imp Vets). That is not supporting the casual side of the game at all, unless you want to casually play Palp Aces like everybody else.

And as a player at 300 points, I need 3x the fleet of the tourney players, so don't give me no B.S. that I'm not driving FFG sales.

There is a degree of imbalance that is acceptable, even prefrable (perfect imbalance). Right now, we are not even close to that.

Why is it bad? Because perfect imbalnce strives to keep the meta fluid, forcing people to search for new answers to the top performing options. Vessery doesn't do that. Unlike the other ships in the list, Vessery doesn't care for things aces usually hate. Block me? OK, I get 2 actions instead of 3. Stress? Fine, pile it on, still get my two actions, palp backup and possibly a LW reroll. Vader Crew? Fine eat my shields, they are a plentiful. So how do you win? You bring a realy strong alpha strike or, more reliably, higher PS arc dogders. Vessery will not diversify the meta, but instead limit it and cement what we alreaddy see to much of.

I agree with all of the above. One "fix" I have often wondered would help is something along the lines of a Death Mark. You see the ship that is going to be the nightmare for the game, and the Death Mark card lets you target it for extra hurt in some way. It would go a long way towards ending one-ship-rules-them-all builds and require more generic pilots.

I would be totally fine with a Senator shuttle expansion being released for casual play. But it would need to be for casual play and marketed as such. That would be fantastic.

But the topic of the post was in fact " Why should every ship be tournament playable? "

I just want to be sure that you are saying Fantasy Flight should make some ships that are not necessarily tournament playable and would be fantastic.

Then we actually are in agreement.

Or, to phrase it another way, Why are there no Small and Large Epic ships?