Hey everyone, I know a lot of you will just write no and not contribute at all, but to those who like an intelligent discussion I give you this proposal.

Stress was put into the game to be a limiting factor, trying to convey limitations on pilots due to something negative affecting them. As we know for some ships stress is just another token you have to bring with your list and it means nothing in game terms.

For Zuckuss' crazy cheap price of 1 point, do you think he should be errata'd/FAQ'd to state that, If you do not have any stress tokens you may gain a stress token for each defence die you force your opponent to reroll?

I don't think he should be gimped, but things like the Party Bus, Dengaroo are the main offenders, stress means nothing to them which I do not think is good for the game. People may say there are BMST and Latts razzi now, but BMST is a 50/50 and an action and Latts is only available on ships that can take crew.

let me know what you think, I dont think FFG would do this, but I think it could be a good way of making stress have an affect on some ships again.

.... now to think on K turning Defenders....

Yes, Zuckuss is too good for one point.

No, he isn't game breaking and the strategies that allow for good ships that don't rely on actions aren't ruining the game.

I crushed a Party Bus pretty hard earlier tonight. My secret? I ran a Decimator. Zuckuss and 4-L0M just kind of shrugged at each other, then exploded.

If you want to punish people who pile stress onto themselves, consider incorporating some Ion effects.

Yes, Zuckuss is too good for one point.

If Zuckuss was too good for 1 point you'd see it on ships that can't simply ignore stress too. You don't.

There was another thread talking about this, and several "fixes" were proposed.

In general, I don't think you will find much support to fix this, since several popular builds rely totally around ignoring stress.

Even when it is an interesting and valid path for list building, empowered by the designers allowing those combos, it is true that Wave 8 feels one of the least well balanced lately, by taking some game mechanics to the breaking point (like ordnance on torpscouts and stress exploiting with Zuckuss and Manaroo).

To contribute to your thread, I would propose an errata to the FAQ that modifies the rules for stress to include this sentence:

"When attacking or defending, if you didn't perform any action this round and have 5 or more stress tokens, you cannot modify attack or defense dice."

With this, it would punish stacking stress mindlessly, without being as severe as the proposals in the other thread (they involved getting damage), and at the same time allowing pilots and upgraded designed and balanced to deal with stress to keep working (in particular, Tycho and "Chopper" crew").

The real trouble with Zuckuss for me is not so much that he's too good, it's more that he makes the game an awful lot less fun when I'm playing against him. Same with jumps. Same with Palp.

Some sort of active measures against stacked stress specifically would help with Zuckuss, I guess. I'm hoping Slicers will scare the zuckuss players enough to avoid him.

The real trouble with Zuckuss for me is not so much that he's too good, it's more that he makes the game an awful lot less fun when I'm playing against him. Same with jumps. Same with Palp.

Some sort of active measures against stacked stress specifically would help with Zuckuss, I guess. I'm hoping Slicers will scare the zuckuss players enough to avoid him.

At least Palpatine costs 8 points, two crew slots, works only once per round, and basically needs its own ship to carry him around, just to modify 1 die.

Zuckuss costs 1 point, 1 slot, works as many times per round as you can attack, and modifies as many defense dice as the player wants. The first time it's used has the inconvenient of stress. Later uses add no additional inconveniences, since the way stress works.

Probably it makes the game unfun for you because it feels like it's unfair.

You feel like you can do little or nothing to counter stress abusing ships, our of proportion alpha strikes that blow you up before you can actually do anything, or ships turning 2 blanks and 1 eye roll into 4 evade rolls, that shrug off your best attacks.

You end like "So, what am I supposed to do?"

When the answer to that question is "Bring specifically X", then we have a warped meta like in the times before the errata to the TIE Phantom.

Pretty much that, yeah. Zuckuss is something that it's almost impossible to actually answer with high agility ships, you just have to hope you get lucky. And the competitive scene in this game is all about making it so you don't have to do that...

The real trouble with Zuckuss for me is not so much that he's too good, it's more that he makes the game an awful lot less fun when I'm playing against him. Same with jumps. Same with Palp.

Some sort of active measures against stacked stress specifically would help with Zuckuss, I guess. I'm hoping Slicers will scare the zuckuss players enough to avoid him.

Correct, There is no obvious counterplay.

That is the essence of each NPE: The lack of obvious counterplay. No in case of jumps there is counterplay, but it is incredible hard to do and thus a lot of people hate them. Against Soontir and Palatine there is counter play, but Zuckuss on the right ship just does his stuff. On ships which care about stress you get counter play via the now smaller dial which can be abused to your advantage.

Counter play is the most important thing to make a competitive game fun and should be a key consideration when designing a game element. In case of zuckuss their counter play mechanic fails sometime to work and thus the unhappy post about it.

The real trouble with Zuckuss for me is not so much that he's too good, it's more that he makes the game an awful lot less fun when I'm playing against him. Same with jumps. Same with Palp.

Some sort of active measures against stacked stress specifically would help with Zuckuss, I guess. I'm hoping Slicers will scare the zuckuss players enough to avoid him.

Correct, There is no obvious counterplay.

That is the essence of each NPE: The lack of obvious counterplay. No in case of jumps there is counterplay, but it is incredible hard to do and thus a lot of people hate them. Against Soontir and Palatine there is counter play, but Zuckuss on the right ship just does his stuff. On ships which care about stress you get counter play via the now smaller dial which can be abused to your advantage.

Counter play is the most important thing to make a competitive game fun and should be a key consideration when designing a game element. In case of zuckuss their counter play mechanic fails sometime to work and thus the unhappy post about it.

First of all, IMO Zuckuss himself is a counter-play to something. If builds that can turn stuff like Focus, Blank,Blank into 4xEvade didn't exist, then my bet is that Zuckus and 4LOM wouldn't exist either.

Secondly, there are counter-plays to Zuckuss:

-Have tokens for defense (Zuckuss can't make you re-roll Evades and is way less effective if you have Focus).

-Arc-dodge the Party Bus. It's a ship with a pretty limited dial (worse than an X-wing once it takes stress).

-Kill Manaroo, thus making Dengar suffer the full and extremely significant downsides of having used Zuckuss.

Have Tokens isn't always possible. Not every ship can get evade tokens, and having only one token just means it gets 4LOMmed by the party bus anyway (though focus/evade works wonders on Dengaroo of course).

Arc-dodge the Party Bus if all well and good if you have repositioning and the bus has been flown badly enough that you CAN arcdodge it without getting Feedbacked.

Killing Manaroo is probably the most difficut of the three here. Manaroo is definitely non-trivial to kill.

This is what I was getting at, it's a massive NPE experience for me when no matter how I fly, a turret with Zuckuss will make me reroll my evades and there isn't a **** thing I can do about it, it isn't player skill that's winning, it's sitting in the middle of the board letting RNG do all the work. People have bought up some very valid points and I appreciate the feedback, I just hope FFG have a bit of a look to get this style of NPE out of the Meta ASAP.

Have fun and thanks again!

#allstatuschangesmatter

"When attacking or defending, if you didn't perform any action this round and have 5 or more stress tokens, you cannot modify attack or defense dice."

Way too clunky. Make Zuckuss " you may take up to 2 stress ..." or " you may not re-roll more than one of the same symbol " to still allow for lucky multi-symbol rolls to keep something against him. Examples:

In the first case, you rolled 3 eyes? Great, your Focus token still guarantees at least one evade.

In the second, you rolled 2 evades? Great, you're still guaranteed at least one evade regardless of tokens.

Isn't the main problem that the jumpmaster dial is just too good? That is why Dengaroo and U-Boats are great.

And the Partybus' dial is "bad" enough not to care about stress either, since Dengar is good enough to guarantee a decent amount of hits.

I think the partybus' is ok as it is. The YV was a decent ship since it came out and now it's pretty good. Scum has just a few vialble choices, but those are really good. The crew slot is what makes scum so great, I would rather not have those cards turned down.

So I would rather tune down the jumpmasters dial so the stress matters more.

Brainstorming an EPT, since I believe a counter of sorts should come from an upgrade card that is available to most ships, barring balancing, but also not available to swarm since this type of card would probably be too powerful in a swarm capacity. Was thinking of something like this (All of these "or"s are just for brainstorming, not actually options on the cards):

"Suppressive Fire" or "Suppressor"

2 or 3 pts

During your activation (or beginning combat), you may lower your attack dice by 1 to declare a target with a stress (or multiple stress tokens) token. Targeted pilot loses it's pilot ability for the rest of the round. (Was mainly interested in trying to limit pilot abilities, which to my knowledge isn't part of the game yet)

OR (remember, only brainstorming for card types, not actually an "OR" on the card)

During your activation (or beginning combat), you may lower your attack dice by 1 to declare a target with a stress token. Targeted pilot loses 1 attack die for the rest of the round.

Brainstorming an EPT, since I believe a counter of sorts should come from an upgrade card that is available to most ships, barring balancing, but also not available to swarm since this type of card would probably be too powerful in a swarm capacity. Was thinking of something like this (All of these "or"s are just for brainstorming, not actually options on the cards):

"Suppressive Fire" or "Suppressor"

2 or 3 pts

During your activation (or beginning combat), you may lower your attack dice by 1 to declare a target with a stress (or multiple stress tokens) token. Targeted pilot loses it's pilot ability for the rest of the round. (Was mainly interested in trying to limit pilot abilities, which to my knowledge isn't part of the game yet)

OR (remember, only brainstorming for card types, not actually an "OR" on the card)

During your activation (or beginning combat), you may lower your attack dice by 1 to declare a target with a stress token. Targeted pilot loses 1 attack die for the rest of the round.

I really like the idea of the first one, ie suppressing Pilot Abilities. But I would think if you had it as if the target has 2 or 3+ Stress tokens the target gains a suppression token. Remove the suppression token once the target is below 3 stress tokens. Just spitballing here too. It wouldn't hurt generics at all, so the party bus is pretty safe, but the abusers such as the JM5k couldn't just go nuts making you reroll your green dice at will. Plus it might bring back tactician etc back into play.

"When attacking or defending, if you didn't perform any action this round and have 5 or more stress tokens, you cannot modify attack or defense dice."

Way too clunky. Make Zuckuss " you may take up to 2 stress ..." or " you may not re-roll more than one of the same symbol " to still allow for lucky multi-symbol rolls to keep something against him. Examples:

In the first case, you rolled 3 eyes? Great, your Focus token still guarantees at least one evade.

In the second, you rolled 2 evades? Great, you're still guaranteed at least one evade regardless of tokens.

Problem is that they don't want to change the text on printed cards, save for really few exceptions, and most of the time they are minor changes to wording. So that leaves you only with changing the tournament game rules, that they can do because they are always superseded by the FAQ document's corrections.

Thread like this in a nutshell:

"Dear designers, please nerf rock, paper is fine." - Scissors

Brainstorming an EPT, since I believe a counter of sorts should come from an upgrade card that is available to most ships, barring balancing, but also not available to swarm since this type of card would probably be too powerful in a swarm capacity. Was thinking of something like this (All of these "or"s are just for brainstorming, not actually options on the cards):

"Suppressive Fire" or "Suppressor"

2 or 3 pts

During your activation (or beginning combat), you may lower your attack dice by 1 to declare a target with a stress (or multiple stress tokens) token. Targeted pilot loses it's pilot ability for the rest of the round. (Was mainly interested in trying to limit pilot abilities, which to my knowledge isn't part of the game yet)

OR (remember, only brainstorming for card types, not actually an "OR" on the card)

During your activation (or beginning combat), you may lower your attack dice by 1 to declare a target with a stress token. Targeted pilot loses 1 attack die for the rest of the round.

I really like the idea of the first one, ie suppressing Pilot Abilities. But I would think if you had it as if the target has 2 or 3+ Stress tokens the target gains a suppression token. Remove the suppression token once the target is below 3 stress tokens. Just spitballing here too. It wouldn't hurt generics at all, so the party bus is pretty safe, but the abusers such as the JM5k couldn't just go nuts making you reroll your green dice at will. Plus it might bring back tactician etc back into play.

Tokens would help to remember, but I think saying just multiple stress tokens will work. You make it 3+ stress and you are literally only countering Zuckuss and if you make a build that has 2-3 sources of stress to dish out a turn. It also doesn't kill all pilot abilities, only ones used in the combat phase, which is when you are being suppressed.

Thread like this in a nutshell:

"Dear designers, please nerf rock, paper is fine." - Scissors

Not at all, Zuckuss is just the example being used, the thread is about making a mechanic that was implemented by the designers at it's creation mean something for everyone, not just another token you have to carry around.

So, we all know what stress is in X-wing (I looked again):

"A ship is stressed while it has a stress token assigned to it. A stressed ship cannot execute red maneuvers or perform actions, even free actions. A ship receives one stress token when it executes a red maneuver and removes one stress token when it executes a green maneuver. A ship can have more than one stress token assigned to it. Stress tokens are not removed during the End phase. When a ship executes a green maneuver, it removes one stress token from itself even if it moves through or overlaps an obstacle or another ship. A stressed ship cannot execute red maneuvers or perform actions. If a stressed ship reveals a red maneuver, the opposing player chooses any non-red maneuver on that ship's dial for that ship to execute."

Seems to me, the easiest way to elevate this stress piling issue is to simply change the one sentence in bold to limit the number of stress tokens.

Problem. Solved.

Thread like this in a nutshell:

"Dear designers, please nerf rock, paper is fine." - Scissors

Mostly it's actually been 'please nerf hyperrock, uberscissors and superpaper' - rock, scissors, and paper.

Isn't the main problem that the jumpmaster dial is just too good? That is why Dengaroo and U-Boats are great.

And the Partybus' dial is "bad" enough not to care about stress either, since Dengar is good enough to guarantee a decent amount of hits.

I think the partybus' is ok as it is. The YV was a decent ship since it came out and now it's pretty good. Scum has just a few vialble choices, but those are really good. The crew slot is what makes scum so great, I would rather not have those cards turned down.

So I would rather tune down the jumpmasters dial so the stress matters more.

I think Tobbert nailed it. Zuckuss on the partybus doesn't bother me as much as Zuckuss on Dengar. The YV666 takes one magnificent shot a turn. Yeah, it hurts, particularly to fragile TIEs, but that's it. And the YV666 can't turn worth a Hutt once it's stressed out.

The Jumpmaster on the other hand... Yeah... You really need to either out think your opponent (not something I myself apparently am capable of yet) or depend on rolling better dice on attack than your opponent does.

So, we all know what stress is in X-wing (I looked again):

"A ship is stressed while it has a stress token assigned to it. A stressed ship cannot execute red maneuvers or perform actions, even free actions. A ship receives one stress token when it executes a red maneuver and removes one stress token when it executes a green maneuver. A ship can have more than one stress token assigned to it. Stress tokens are not removed during the End phase. When a ship executes a green maneuver, it removes one stress token from itself even if it moves through or overlaps an obstacle or another ship. A stressed ship cannot execute red maneuvers or perform actions. If a stressed ship reveals a red maneuver, the opposing player chooses any non-red maneuver on that ship's dial for that ship to execute."

Seems to me, the easiest way to elevate this stress piling issue is to simply change the one sentence in bold to limit the number of stress tokens.

Problem. Solved.

Tycho Celchu would like to have a word with you...

He's barely even played and doesn't have an issue with piling stress balance wise like others in the game. Plus with my suppressing thought dealing with pilot abilities wouldn't nerf him more because his pilot ability is during his activation phase.

Isn't the main problem that the jumpmaster dial is just too good? That is why Dengaroo and U-Boats are great.

And the Partybus' dial is "bad" enough not to care about stress either, since Dengar is good enough to guarantee a decent amount of hits.

I think the partybus' is ok as it is. The YV was a decent ship since it came out and now it's pretty good. Scum has just a few vialble choices, but those are really good. The crew slot is what makes scum so great, I would rather not have those cards turned down.

So I would rather tune down the jumpmasters dial so the stress matters more.

I think Tobbert nailed it. Zuckuss on the partybus doesn't bother me as much as Zuckuss on Dengar. The YV666 takes one magnificent shot a turn. Yeah, it hurts, particularly to fragile TIEs, but that's it. And the YV666 can't turn worth a Hutt once it's stressed out.

The Jumpmaster on the other hand... Yeah... You really need to either out think your opponent (not something I myself apparently am capable of yet) or depend on rolling better dice on attack than your opponent does.

Or maybe it's time to accept that in the current x-wing meta not everything has a shot at beating everything else.

There are plenty of lists that ruin Degnaroo's day just fine. Pretty much everything that either tanks by HP instead of green dice or is mobile enough to go after Manaroo is a big problem for Dengaroo to handle.