Deadeye: Worth Removing From The Game?

By Firespray-32, in X-Wing

Exactly. And because Deadeye Jumps get used instead LRS bombers haven't really been tested.

Deadeye bombers have barely been tested either though. Why? Because Uboats do it better.

People aren't using other ordinance upgrades because they're not using other ordinance ships in the first place, whether those ships can equip Deadeye or not.

Edited by WingedSpider

That's a balance argument again.

Whether or not ordnance needs Deadeye to be tournament competitive is completely irrelevant to the argument I'm making. If ordnance is underpowered without Deadeye FFG can simply buff it again. It may not even need buffing: Deadeye is such a simple option that there's no real incentive to explore the limits of LRS and the Thread Tracers.

My case is that using ordnance is tactically deeper without Deadeye: it's a mechanical issue rather than a costing one. It's a gripe that has nothing to do with power whatsoever.

Harder to pull off is not "tactically deeper". What you are talking about is akin to artificial difficulty in some video games.

I also entirely disagree with deadeye being such a simple option. There are other ways outside of LRS and tracers to get Target locks on ships. There is plenty of incentive to use LRS, and that is so you can now focus on making sure you get your shot in and even with better results as well as making sure your hits stick with the use of crackshot. Also LRS and deadeye are not exclusive to each other and compliment each other very well.

Deadeye is such a simple option that there's no real incentive to explore the limits of LRS and the Thread Tracers.

The incentive is saving points or being able to take a different EPT.

I can take a Gamma Squad Veteran with Deadeye for 20. Or, I can take the same Gamma Squad Veteran with Crack Shot for 20 and have a better alpha striker (which is a big part of why I'm taking ordnance at all) provided I can find a way to make ordnance work sufficiently well. Or, I can take a much cheaper Scimitar Squadron for 16 if I don't need an EPT at all. At this price point, saving 4 points is quite a lot per ship and multiplied when you're taking multiple ships. The big incentive to not needing Deadeye is that now I've got three times as many options which means a lot more list building flexibility.

That's a balance argument again.

Whether or not ordnance needs Deadeye to be tournament competitive is completely irrelevant to the argument I'm making. If ordnance is underpowered without Deadeye FFG can simply buff it again. It may not even need buffing: Deadeye is such a simple option that there's no real incentive to explore the limits of LRS and the Thread Tracers.

My case is that using ordnance is tactically deeper without Deadeye: it's a mechanical issue rather than a costing one. It's a gripe that has nothing to do with power whatsoever.

Guess what? In a point based game, balance is literally EVERYTHING. The percentage of people who care that a game mechanic makes sense is really really low. I mean, BMST literally make no sense. I mean, how does the pilot being stressed give a hacker the ability to do physical damage to the ship? But no one cares because it balances out some important aspects of the game, namely it makes carrying stress more of an actual penalty.

If firing a missile or torpedo went like this, we wouldn't be having this discussion because Deadeye wouldn't be needed: acquire target lock, shoot missile (without consuming target lock), then deal damage with the ability to burn the target lock on the roll.

But that's not how they set it up. So since the original rules made missiles and torps a literal waste of points, it needed to be fixed to keep things more interesting.

"but that's the balance argument again". You're freaking right it is. If the game didn't obsessively care about balance, Vader could just force choke an opposing pilot and kill him with an action. No rolling for damage, just get close enough and kill. Or he could use the force to negate your movement dial and crash you into an asteroid. But you can't do any of that, even though that last one is actually done by Luke in a book, because it would be TOTALLY unbalanced.

I mean, you're obviously not going to change your mind. No matter how sensible the argument is (because there have been LOTS of very sensible arguments presented), you just ignore them and go back to saying in a tl;dr form "I don't like Deadeye, it shouldn't be in the game".

We might as well be arguing with PGS about the Palpatine card, albeit with less jackassery.

If deadeye was broken people would have complained about it back in wave 2 when it first came out or even wave 7 when all the new missiles and torpedoes and related upgrades were supposed to make things better.

Deadeye is fine, It was the deadeye R4 agro combo that was powerful and FFG already removed that. (along with another hammer blow on a dead horse called blaster turret)

Can you read?

The thread is not about balance . The point is discussing how deadeye supresses an interesting point of gameplay (in the current meta, obviously, not back in wave 2 when low PS generics didn't have access to it).

Because Luke Turning off his targeting computer and using the force was not interesting. Which dead eye does. But sure no one puts dead eye on Luke because there are so many other things that work better.

Seriously secondary weapons can be interesting and 3 is not a low PS for non-unique pilots (Blackmoon Squadron, Onyx Squadron). Do thing is deadeye opens up an interesting mechanic that previously was NEVER used even though it has been available and that is expendable weapons. Before the U-boats the only expendable weapon was an EPT called crack shot and that was the best munitions in the game. Now there is a couple of options, proton for low and unshielded ships or plasma for high defense shielded ships. If that is not interesting to you well sorry but nothing can help it for you, and if you bother not to read this reply then you have no right to ask me if I can read.

Thinking about it some more, I think what OP hopes to achieve is impossible without a full overhaul of x-wing rules, for balance reasons.

Dropping Deadeye makes ordnance singnificantly harder to use for low and mid PS. Assuming this is what you want you'd have to significantly buff ordnance on order to make the reward of pulling off a shot worth it. If you singificantly buff ordnance however, it becomes overpowered on high PS ships, which have no difficulty pulling it off every round.

IMO Ordnance is fundamentally flawed. The difficulty of getting a shot off scales so drastically with decreasing PS that, without a Deadeye equivalent to level the field a bit, it's almost impossible to make something that's worth using at low PS and not overpowered at high PS.

Having to outplay your opponent to use expensive upgrades isn't fun or interesting play to me. In some cases, you still need to outplay your opponent to take a shot with Deadeye. High PS is still a big advantage even with Deadeye in play.

I don't get the argument that Deadeye is a dumbing down of ordnance but LRS, Tracers and action/token passing abilities aren't.

If deadeye was broken people would have complained about it back in wave 2 when it first came out or even wave 7 when all the new missiles and torpedoes and related upgrades were supposed to make things better.

Deadeye is fine, It was the deadeye R4 agro combo that was powerful and FFG already removed that. (along with another hammer blow on a dead horse called blaster turret)

Can you read?

The thread is not about balance . The point is discussing how deadeye supresses an interesting point of gameplay (in the current meta, obviously, not back in wave 2 when low PS generics didn't have access to it).

Another thing:

How come none of you are complaining about how Advanced Sensors in a B-Wing suppresses an interesting point of gameplay. Surely the game would be more interesting if ships where punished for red maneuvers and didn't just get to completely ignore the limiting dial they had?

I get what you and Blue Five are trying to say. I just think it's ridiculous that it's being applied specifically to Deadeye and nothing else that similarly ignores interesting game mechanics, and then you guys insist on it not being a balance thread. It seems suspicious to me. It seems like the reason you're targeting Deadeye and not other "game mechanic simplifier/ruiner" cards is that you hate U-Boats and want them balanced.

Also, I'm still salty about the thread I created similar to this one where I stated how poorly designed Palpatine is and how it has no range restrictions or action requirements compared to TIE Shutles with Fleet Officer, Howlrunner, Esege, Kyle Katarn, etc.

If deadeye was broken people would have complained about it back in wave 2 when it first came out or even wave 7 when all the new missiles and torpedoes and related upgrades were supposed to make things better.

Deadeye is fine, It was the deadeye R4 agro combo that was powerful and FFG already removed that. (along with another hammer blow on a dead horse called blaster turret)

Can you read?

The thread is not about balance . The point is discussing how deadeye supresses an interesting point of gameplay (in the current meta, obviously, not back in wave 2 when low PS generics didn't have access to it).

Another thing:

How come none of you are complaining about how Advanced Sensors in a B-Wing suppresses an interesting point of gameplay. Surely the game would be more interesting if ships where punished for red maneuvers and didn't just get to completely ignore the limiting dial they had?

I get what you and Blue Five are trying to say. I just think it's ridiculous that it's being applied specifically to Deadeye and nothing else that similarly ignores interesting game mechanics, and then you guys insist on it not being a balance thread. It seems suspicious to me. It seems like the reason you're targeting Deadeye and not other "game mechanic simplifier/ruiner" cards is that you hate U-Boats and want them balanced.

Also, I'm still salty about the thread I created similar to this one where I stated how poorly designed Palpatine is and how it has no range restrictions or action requirements compared to TIE Shutles with Fleet Officer, Howlrunner, Esege, Kyle Katarn, etc.

Not really, no, since I didn't ever play against U-boats ^^ I dislike Deadeye because it means you can get rid of this interesting element of gameplay on several ships at a time ; like I said before, I find it fluff-wise interesting, and OK as a special talent, hence my plea for making it unique, and not removing it entirely. Having 1 ship doing it is not a problem to me (after all, the point of an EtP slot is giving your pilot a special talent), but an entire list getting rid of that limitation is too much for my taste.

And btw, Adv sensors don't negate the red move entirely, yes, you can have an action, but it still reduces drastically your dial for the next turn.

(You get all my support about Palp !)

That's a balance argument again.

Whether or not ordnance needs Deadeye to be tournament competitive is completely irrelevant to the argument I'm making. If ordnance is underpowered without Deadeye FFG can simply buff it again. It may not even need buffing: Deadeye is such a simple option that there's no real incentive to explore the limits of LRS and the Thread Tracers.

My case is that using ordnance is tactically deeper without Deadeye: it's a mechanical issue rather than a costing one. It's a gripe that has nothing to do with power whatsoever.

Your own argument does not hold. Deadeye adds an element to ordnance. You now have the option to fire a focus+target lock high precision shot with dead-eye. Or you can decide to to go for a low precision quick shot from the hip with no modifications at all, something which will do usually less damage than even a simple primary attack.

As well it forces your opponent to take this into consideration. As mentioned the math for approaching an alpha strike ship with deadeye is significant different than the math for approaching a ship which needs to lock you first at range 3 and then get you again out of range 1.

Deadeye adds to the game, it does not take away, the old options are still there and they are in many builds even more valid (not a balancing argument, but an argument about options and decisions as game mechanics).

Speaking of decisions, it adds as well more decisions into list building and does not take away from the importance of target locks either, as focus and target lock are both essential attack modifiers still. You still want to have them both, you are now free to choose which one you have to spend / have for your attack.

Lastly, again your interesting element ain't interesting. The mechanic does not work out in an interesting way. It only superficial interesting, because one you figure out how the range bands work, it becomes rather easy to play around the mechanic. Now if you could target lock up to range 4, things might have been different.

Edited by SEApocalypse

And again, you can't really separate the two.

I disagree.

I'm of the view that there are upgrades that should not be made regardless of how expensive they are. Deadeye I simply dislike but it's certainly possible to design a card that's not unbalanced yet terrible for the game.

I certainly agree with this sentiment. Not in regards to Deadeye, but stuff like Super Dash is so obnoxious that I don't care that it doesn't place high at tournaments anymore. Talk about a ship that ignores everything interesting about the game Jesus Christ.

I understand what you're saying about Deadeye. But on the list of cards/pilots/combos that simplify or obliterate certain game mechanics, Deadeye is low on that list.

I'd also like to bring up a counterpoint. I think Deadeye overall adds to squad building choice and the ordnance mechanic as a whole. You can do funky things with it like combo Deadeye with Overclocked R4 and double tap Advanced Proton Torpedoes with Dengar, or put Deadeye and rec spec on Nera for easy APT's.

I'd also like to remind you that the low PS TL acquisition problem is quite significant, and Deadeye dumbing down munitions firing can give lower PS ships a chance. Calming down the PS race is a good thing, we need less advantages that high PS ships can abuse.

Last time I played X-Wing my opponent threw in a Z-95 with a Concussion Missile and chips. It moved at PS3 before my Inquisitor, so it wasn't in range for a TL. Then Next turn I just did a 4 straight right into it and overlapped him. No shots on the Inquisitor that round, and I killed the Z next turn.

Speaking of decisions, it adds as well more decisions into list building...

So true - good strategic planning involves choosing the right weapons/skill/contingencies for the fight.

Some may consider that to be Deadeye, but you can be sure others will have different ideas (and hopefully test them out).

- - - - -

All this talk about Deadeye... what sort of debate will arise from 'Snap Shot '( ? ) when we see it revealed (since, anecdotally, it could be speculated that it will mess with target acquisition and attack timing too).

Edited by ABXY

Speaking of decisions, it adds as well more decisions into list building...

So true - good strategic planning involves choosing the right weapons/skill/contingencies for the fight.

Some may consider that to be Deadeye, but you can be sure others will have different ideas (and hopefully test them out).

- - - - -

All this talk about Deadeye... what sort of debate will arise from 'Snap Shot '( ? ) when we see it revealed (since, anecdotally, it could be speculated that it will mess with target acquisition and attack timing too).

Considering that HotR and the Upsilon Shuttle both come with 2 copies of it, it's probably going to be a huge meta shifting card like Autothrusters or Guidance Chips.

Considering that they're giving Palp Aces the ability to ******* coordinate which would make Palp Aces ridiculously stronger, I think they expect Snap Shot to so radically change the meta that current Palp Aces is no longer playable, and they're going to try to shift Palp Aces use to the Upsilon and have Coordinate make Palp Aces playable again.

That's a balance argument again.

Whether or not ordnance needs Deadeye to be tournament competitive is completely irrelevant to the argument I'm making. If ordnance is underpowered without Deadeye FFG can simply buff it again. It may not even need buffing: Deadeye is such a simple option that there's no real incentive to explore the limits of LRS and the Thread Tracers.

My case is that using ordnance is tactically deeper without Deadeye: it's a mechanical issue rather than a costing one. It's a gripe that has nothing to do with power whatsoever.

Guess what? In a point based game, balance is literally EVERYTHING. The percentage of people who care that a game mechanic makes sense is really really low. I mean, BMST literally make no sense. I mean, how does the pilot being stressed give a hacker the ability to do physical damage to the ship? But no one cares because it balances out some important aspects of the game, namely it makes carrying stress more of an actual penalty.

If firing a missile or torpedo went like this, we wouldn't be having this discussion because Deadeye wouldn't be needed: acquire target lock, shoot missile (without consuming target lock), then deal damage with the ability to burn the target lock on the roll.

But that's not how they set it up. So since the original rules made missiles and torps a literal waste of points, it needed to be fixed to keep things more interesting.

"but that's the balance argument again". You're freaking right it is! If the game didn't obsessively care about balance, Vader could just force choke an opposing pilot and kill him with an action. No rolling for damage, just get close enough and kill. Or he could use the force to negate your movement dial and crash you into an asteroid. But you can't do any of that, even though that last one is actually done by Luke in a book, because it would be TOTALLY unbalanced.

I mean, you're obviously not going to change your mind. No matter how sensible the argument is (because there have been LOTS of very sensible arguments presented), you just ignore them and go back to saying in a tl;dr form "I don't like Deadeye, it shouldn't be in the game".

We might as well be arguing with PGS about the Palpatine card, albeit with less jackassery.

Literal spit take here. Blue five, stand down man. Just...no mas.

Speaking of decisions, it adds as well more decisions into list building...

So true - good strategic planning involves choosing the right weapons/skill/contingencies for the fight.

Some may consider that to be Deadeye, but you can be sure others will have different ideas (and hopefully test them out).

- - - - -

All this talk about Deadeye... what sort of debate will arise from 'Snap Shot '( ? ) when we see it revealed (since, anecdotally, it could be speculated that it will mess with target acquisition and attack timing too).

Considering that HotR and the Upsilon Shuttle both come with 2 copies of it, it's probably going to be a huge meta shifting card like Autothrusters or Guidance Chips.

Considering that they're giving Palp Aces the ability to ******* coordinate which would make Palp Aces ridiculously stronger, I think they expect Snap Shot to so radically change the meta that current Palp Aces is no longer playable, and they're going to try to shift Palp Aces use to the Upsilon and have Coordinate make Palp Aces playable again.

We ought to think again.

Coordinate action, unlike HUGE ship version, is performed at PS of coordinator.

at that moment PTL aces are usually still stressed from previous turn.

so FFG actively tries to make imps look at other cards instead of slapping PTL everywhere.

most likely it's an action card that makes you perform an attack, blasting token-stackers and arcdodgers before they turtle up and get out of arc

Speaking of decisions, it adds as well more decisions into list building...

So true - good strategic planning involves choosing the right weapons/skill/contingencies for the fight.

Some may consider that to be Deadeye, but you can be sure others will have different ideas (and hopefully test them out).

- - - - -

All this talk about Deadeye... what sort of debate will arise from 'Snap Shot '( ? ) when we see it revealed (since, anecdotally, it could be speculated that it will mess with target acquisition and attack timing too).

Considering that HotR and the Upsilon Shuttle both come with 2 copies of it, it's probably going to be a huge meta shifting card like Autothrusters or Guidance Chips.

Considering that they're giving Palp Aces the ability to ******* coordinate which would make Palp Aces ridiculously stronger, I think they expect Snap Shot to so radically change the meta that current Palp Aces is no longer playable, and they're going to try to shift Palp Aces use to the Upsilon and have Coordinate make Palp Aces playable again.

We ought to think again.

Coordinate action, unlike HUGE ship version, is performed at PS of coordinator.

at that moment PTL aces are usually still stressed from previous turn.

so FFG actively tries to make imps look at other cards instead of slapping PTL everywhere.

most likely it's an action card that makes you perform an attack, blasting token-stackers and arcdodgers before they turtle up and get out of arc

If anything coordinate makes PtL better,by giving you reposition before you move when needed.

Edited by LordBlades

Speaking of decisions, it adds as well more decisions into list building...

So true - good strategic planning involves choosing the right weapons/skill/contingencies for the fight.

Some may consider that to be Deadeye, but you can be sure others will have different ideas (and hopefully test them out).

- - - - -

All this talk about Deadeye... what sort of debate will arise from 'Snap Shot '( ? ) when we see it revealed (since, anecdotally, it could be speculated that it will mess with target acquisition and attack timing too).

Considering that HotR and the Upsilon Shuttle both come with 2 copies of it, it's probably going to be a huge meta shifting card like Autothrusters or Guidance Chips.

Considering that they're giving Palp Aces the ability to ******* coordinate which would make Palp Aces ridiculously stronger, I think they expect Snap Shot to so radically change the meta that current Palp Aces is no longer playable, and they're going to try to shift Palp Aces use to the Upsilon and have Coordinate make Palp Aces playable again.

We ought to think again.

Coordinate action, unlike HUGE ship version, is performed at PS of coordinator.

at that moment PTL aces are usually still stressed from previous turn.

so FFG actively tries to make imps look at other cards instead of slapping PTL everywhere.

most likely it's an action card that makes you perform an attack, blasting token-stackers and arcdodgers before they turtle up and get out of arc

Unless somebody actually thinks 1 turn ahead or you can do the following: Coordinate, PtL, clear stress, do a 3rd action, rinse and repeat.

If anything coordinate makes PtL better,by giving you reposition before you move when needed.

Better yet it lets you keep the action economy, while not being limited to greens and PTL

Predator? Lone wolf? Outmaneuver? Juke?

Juking Jax? Awww yisss!

We ought to think again.

Coordinate action, unlike HUGE ship version, is performed at PS of coordinator.

at that moment PTL aces are usually still stressed from previous turn.

so FFG actively tries to make imps look at other cards instead of slapping PTL everywhere.

most likely it's an action card that makes you perform an attack, blasting token-stackers and arcdodgers before they turtle up and get out of arc

We do this already anyway, neither OL, nor Echo/Whisper nor our filler Wampa will be stressed, Carnor Jax and Inquisitor can destress before VI-Ren must take his actions. And so can the PTL-Countess, speaking of her, all the defenders would love a PS 8 barrel roll to bring arcs onto PS8 aces.

Edited by SEApocalypse

We ought to think again.

Coordinate action, unlike HUGE ship version, is performed at PS of coordinator.

at that moment PTL aces are usually still stressed from previous turn.

so FFG actively tries to make imps look at other cards instead of slapping PTL everywhere.

most likely it's an action card that makes you perform an attack, blasting token-stackers and arcdodgers before they turtle up and get out of arc

We do this already anyway, neither OL, nor Echo/Whisper nor our filler Wampa will be stressed, Carnor Jax and Inquisitor can destress before VI-Ren must take his actions. And so can the PTL-Countess, speaking of her, all the defenders would love a PS 8 barrel roll to bring arcs onto PS8 aces.

PTL+Isard says "who needs PS8 when you can have PS13 one" xD

PTL+Isard says "who needs PS8 when you can have PS13 one" xD

PS23 actually thanks to Huge Ships.

Edited by Blue Five

From re-reading everything, I don't think Dead Eye is the problem. The problem is the target lock mechanic does not have enough risk/reward for ordnances. I like Dead Eye and how it works (plus thematically), but it does by-pass an aspect of gameplay. At this point in the game low PS almost need Dead Eye to compete.

The easiest fix would be that target locks are not lost after firing an ordnance. This gives a Target Lock reroll as well which most ordnance carriers would not normally get, and dead eye would still being useful. Granted this would not effect the U-Boats, but there should be exceptions. That way Dead Eye is only half of Target Lock.

PTL+Isard says "who needs PS8 when you can have PS13 one" xD

PS23 actually thanks to Huge Ships.

truly can't remember any action that triggers off further than that.

ah, yes, the interceptor that gets to boost after attacking.

still, good call.

The easiest fix would be that target locks are not lost after firing an ordnance. This gives a Target Lock reroll as well which most ordnance carriers would not normally get, and dead eye would still being useful. Granted this would not effect the U-Boats, but there should be exceptions. That way Dead Eye is only half of Target Lock.

Problem is that even then we'd end up in situations when low-ps takes the TL too late, and as such gets an enemy at R1 failing the whole ordnance fun.

or gets outdodged. not really a problem especially considering that you won't get to attack another one.

deadeye allows you to have multiple choices.

a great card overlooked for so long because other ordnance flaws (lack of mods, expensiveness) were unattended.

now they are and ordnance can put a ditch in regenners and tokenstackers alike.

truly can't remember any action that triggers off further than that.

ah, yes, the interceptor that gets to boost after attacking.

still, good call.

Phennir is combat phase which has its own order.

I was thinking PS0-9 on Huges.

You're not going to be able to run Palp Aces with the new shuttle that has the coordinate action. Because that shuttle costs 8 more points than a Lambda. And that means a lot fewer upgrade points left over for those 2 aces, making them exponentially less potent.

You're not going to be able to run Palp Aces with the new shuttle that has the coordinate action. Because that shuttle costs 8 more points than a Lambda. And that means a lot fewer upgrade points left over for those 2 aces, making them exponentially less potent.

Not sure that's the correct use of exponential but hey.

We don't actually know the generic cost of the new shuttle but it's worth remembering that the Lambda in the most common PalpAces variant is upgraded with a Sensor Jammer. You lose a bit from the aces, yes: that's called balance. You need to make up for it with the firepower of the Upsilon and by working that Coordinate action.

That, or don't run Palpatine. Sure, it's not PalpAces then, but aces are still better with good support.