46 minutes ago, Luke C said:

obsentively

You arrogance is undermined by that sort of thing, guy.

As for alternate formats you could also do small base only (Sorry U-wing). That way no Palp, no Manaroo, almost no PWT, but MOAR figher dogfight. (does not do a thing about x7, though, unfortunately).

17 hours ago, CosmicCastawayA90 said:

Your first two points may be a bit too harsh, but the third suggestion regarding stress having more of an effect might be the better way to go.

For your first suggestion, I don't think that the mistake of one ship would or should affect other friendly ships in the way you've suggested. If average players do start learning to fly more effectively, then this rule would become useless for all but newcomers. Those newcomers might simply feel cheated and quit the game altogether, as opposed to encouraging them to improve through taking calculated risks.

(...)

Have to chime in here as well, the first suggestion also removes a tactical niche: Intentionally self bumping some of your ships to slow them down, then giving them TL or focus from an nearby ship (rebels esp have some of those).

6 hours ago, Luke C said:

As more ships come into the game you will not get around this. Duncan Howard is obsentively the best pilot around and even he gave up soontir. The idea that any list can win 6 games in a row at any given event is probably a pipe dream unless your name is Howard, Bunke, Manzano, or a few others. You have to pick your ships carefully, practice, and then you will have a good shot.

Except at the recent Regional where I believe neither Howard made the cut because flying is now significantly less of a factor in success.

41 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

Except at the recent Regional where I believe neither Howard made the cut because flying is now significantly less of a factor in success.

I strongly disagree with this. Reverting to a wave 1 meta would not make flying more of a factor in success- it would make dice more of a factor in success as the game got simpler and more degenerate.

I know this 'wave 1 meta' straw man you've constructed makes for an easy opponent, but I don't think anyone is actually suggesting it? I'm not sure what you're trying to prove.

1 minute ago, Stay On The Leader said:

I know this 'wave 1 meta' straw man you've constructed makes for an easy opponent, but I don't think anyone is actually suggesting it? I'm not sure what you're trying to prove.

Well, if you remove every potent mechanic that sits on upgrade cards, you get back to the early wave meta, where points-efficient ships dominated. That seems to be what you want.

Just now, Panzeh said:

Well, if you remove every potent mechanic that sits on upgrade cards, you get back to the early wave meta, where points-efficient ships dominated. That seems to be what you want.

Ummm... nope? I think I've been quite consistent in what I've said, personally, which is that I would 'remove' Push The Limit and Attani Mindlink because they discriminate too strongly based on the maneuver dials ships have.

If I had utter free rein I would rebalance points on maybe a dozen other cards by a point or two - some up, some down. The only other card I would 'remove' would possibly be Zuckuss, because I think he's an example of a card that very rarely sits in the goldilocks zone of acceptable cost/reward.

1 hour ago, Stay On The Leader said:

Except at the recent Regional where I believe neither Howard made the cut because flying is now significantly less of a factor in success.

Er, this is somewhat undercut by the fact that Duncan's RAC/Carnor list went on to win the ACT regional...and that same Rochester regional was won by a Vader / QD Palp aces variant, which clearly isn't about the flying.

I'm sympathetic to many of your specific points SotL, but I find the quality of the supporting arguments can be...variable.

4 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

Ummm... nope? I think I've been quite consistent in what I've said, personally, which is that I would 'remove' Push The Limit and Attani Mindlink because they discriminate too strongly based on the maneuver dials ships have.

If I had utter free rein I would rebalance points on maybe a dozen other cards by a point or two - some up, some down. The only other card I would 'remove' would possibly be Zuckuss, because I think he's an example of a card that very rarely sits in the goldilocks zone of acceptable cost/reward.

Well, both the interceptor and A-wing were obviously made with PtL in mind. If you want to legislate them out of the game, be my guest.

The A-Wing is doing very nicely thankyou in multiple configurations without Push The Limit, I think A-Wing Test Pilot is a great upgrade that will always give A-Wings at least a niche role through the combinations of EPTs they can take.

The Interceptor is a different case and I agree that it's a fundamentally weaker design that has basically existed on the crutch of PTL for too long, and even then basically only one pilot in one specific configuration. I'd take PTL away to reset the ship and then buff it in a different way to try and find it a role in the game, it's an iconic ship that should be played more often and more widely than 'Soontir or bust'.

Just now, Stay On The Leader said:

The A-Wing is doing very nicely thankyou in multiple configurations without Push The Limit, I think A-Wing Test Pilot is a great upgrade that will always give A-Wings at least a niche role through the combinations of EPTs they can take.

The Interceptor is a different case and I agree that it's a fundamentally weaker design that has basically existed on the crutch of PTL for too long, and even then basically only one pilot in one specific configuration. I'd take PTL away to reset the ship and then buff it in a different way to try and find it a role in the game, it's an iconic ship that should be played more often and more widely than 'Soontir or bust'.

Well, the interceptor is- Carnor Jax gets some play.

I think you're barking up the wrong tree with PTL though- it opens up more doors than it closes. I mean, even Dash has the same greens as an X-wing but superdash has always been a thing, even before Kanan. The comments about mindlink and PTL just come off as "I don't like action economy so I want to remove it."

No, because I specifically AND REPEATEDLY say it's about the two action economy that are both better than any other action economy options and discriminate based on green maneuvers on the dial. There are loads of other action economy cards and I talk about none of them.

Caveat: I would probably make Fire Control System cost 3, just because it's 98% of all points spent on System slots and you'd want to make that more diverse, but that's about it.

6 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

No, because I specifically AND REPEATEDLY say it's about the two action economy that are both better than any other action economy options and discriminate based on green maneuvers on the dial. There are loads of other action economy cards and I talk about none of them.

Caveat: I would probably make Fire Control System cost 3, just because it's 98% of all points spent on System slots and you'd want to make that more diverse, but that's about it.

A lot of the imperial ships are made to have green maneuvers that make PtL viable on the ships, for example. Removing PtL would mostly reduce the Imperial field to defenders, which already bring their own action economy. I think your opinion is poorly thought out. Attani doesn't even care that much about ships' dials. The power of mindlink mostly comes from having 3-4 ships with EPT slots(don't people want those kind of lists with a bunch of mid PS pilots to be viable?). The greens don't really factor into it that much aside from resistance to stress attacks.

12 minutes ago, Panzeh said:

A lot of the imperial ships are made to have green maneuvers that make PtL viable on the ships, for example. Removing PtL would mostly reduce the Imperial field to defenders, which already bring their own action economy. I think your opinion is poorly thought out. Attani doesn't even care that much about ships' dials. The power of mindlink mostly comes from having 3-4 ships with EPT slots(don't people want those kind of lists with a bunch of mid PS pilots to be viable?). The greens don't really factor into it that much aside from resistance to stress attacks.

Which is, of course, why Attani Mindlink was immediately very powerful on release and didn't need to wait for two Scum ships with green hard turns to be released in Wave 9. When Attani sits on ships with bad greens then stress becomes a significant counterstrategy - there's a reason why the 186 Squadron's Mindlink lists failed to reach the top tier while Paratanni and Fennaroo got there right away. Partly it's the power creep of the pilot abilities, yes, but the green turns are just as important because it means people aren't even bothering to try stressing Attani lists, because the stress doesn't really affect them.

And I believe it's actually the opposite, because if you remove PTL/Mindlink from the field then the hyper-tokened defences don't appear anywhere near as much and the attacks from the rest of the Imperial field start to matter again. I mean you're basically pretending that the Imperial fleet hasn't already just been whittled down to the Defenders, which the new meta-wing tool proves has already largely happened. If you took PTL away from Ryad then she can't Focus/TL on a K-turn, which means Vessery can't pick up the TL - they'd both have to play Predator instead (for instance) which not only costs more points for weaker attacks but also removes the slot for Juke.

Push The Limit is the best offensive upgrade, the best defensive upgrade and the best positioning upgrade. It's not the most expensive upgrade despite being better than all other upgrades AND far more versatile than all other upgrades. It discriminates which ships can use it effectively, meaning that ~50% of all ships released are immediately at a disadvantage. I think if you made PTL cost 5pts (to reflect that it's the best EPT) it would still see a lot of play - you'd see about as much 60pt Dash as you do 58pt Dash - because when a ship is able to make good use of PTL then almost any cost is worth paying. That's a bad sign.

1 minute ago, Stay On The Leader said:

Which is, of course, why Attani Mindlink was immediately very powerful on release and didn't need to wait for two Scum ships with green hard turns to be released in Wave 9. When Attani sits on ships with bad greens then stress becomes a significant counterstrategy - there's a reason why the 186 Squadron's Mindlink lists failed to reach the top tier while Paratanni and Fennaroo got there right away. Partly it's the power creep of the pilot abilities, yes, but the green turns are just as important because it means people aren't even bothering to try stressing Attani lists, because the stress doesn't really affect them.

I did very well with mindlink lists before wave 9. No one understood it's strengths and weaknesses properly and no one saw Guri, Kavil and Palob coming. Yes, the trendy parrattani (or whatever) is a very strong mindlink list but mindlink did well BEFORE that deathstar came along. It just took more thinking. I believe a regional was won by mindlink sycks and palob before the syck buff. And stress really did little to counter Guri, Kavil, Palob at a few tournaments. The greens help a lot, don't get me wrong. I just disagree it was not immediately powerful. It always has been.

4 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

Which is, of course, why Attani Mindlink was immediately very powerful on release and didn't need to wait for two Scum ships with green hard turns to be released in Wave 9. When Attani sits on ships with bad greens then stress becomes a significant counterstrategy - there's a reason why the 186 Squadron's Mindlink lists failed to reach the top tier while Paratanni and Fennaroo got there right away. Partly it's the power creep of the pilot abilities, yes, but the green turns are just as important because it means people aren't even bothering to try stressing Attani lists, because the stress doesn't really affect them.

And I believe it's actually the opposite, because if you remove PTL/Mindlink from the field then the hyper-tokened defences don't appear anywhere near as much and the attacks from the rest of the Imperial field start to matter again. I mean you're basically pretending that the Imperial fleet hasn't already just been whittled down to the Defenders, which the new meta-wing tool proves has already largely happened. If you took PTL away from Ryad then she can't Focus/TL on a K-turn, which means Vessery can't pick up the TL - they'd both have to play Predator instead (for instance) which not only costs more points for weaker attacks but also removes the slot for Juke.

Push The Limit is the best offensive upgrade, the best defensive upgrade and the best positioning upgrade. It's not the most expensive upgrade despite being better than all other upgrades AND far more versatile than all other upgrades. It discriminates which ships can use it effectively, meaning that ~50% of all ships released are immediately at a disadvantage. I think if you made PTL cost 5pts (to reflect that it's the best EPT) it would still see a lot of play - you'd see about as much 60pt Dash as you do 58pt Dash - because when a ship is able to make good use of PTL then almost any cost is worth paying. That's a bad sign.

I think I see Juke, VI, and Crackshot nearly as much. Dash seems to be moving away from the ptl variant to the lone wolf/ rec spec variant to accommodate a fat Miranda.

I also actually hear what you are saying about stress, it's hard to put stress on the table right now, cause so many other lists, like x7 defenders, don't care. It's not impossible but r3-a2 carriers haven't been popular.

1 minute ago, Smutpedler said:

I did very well with mindlink lists before wave 9. No one understood it's strengths and weaknesses properly and no one saw Guri, Kavil and Palob coming. Yes, the trendy parrattani (or whatever) is a very strong mindlink list but mindlink did well BEFORE that deathstar came along. It just took more thinking. I believe a regional was won by mindlink sycks and palob before the syck buff. And stress really did little to counter Guri, Kavil, Palob at a few tournaments. The greens help a lot, don't get me wrong. I just disagree it was not immediately powerful. It always has been.

That Palob list wnt undefeated on the first day of Lothal Open and gathered a lot of attention that way, but it was sadly shot down on the second day rather quickly. U-Boats were just too inconsistent a matchup.

7 hours ago, DagobahDave said:

You arrogance is undermined by that sort of thing, guy.

Ah crap. Proof reading! Ostensibly is what I was going after.

Just now, Smutpedler said:

I did very well with mindlink lists before wave 9. No one understood it's strengths and weaknesses properly and no one saw Guri, Kavil and Palob coming. Yes, the trendy parrattani (or whatever) is a very strong mindlink list but mindlink did well BEFORE that deathstar came along. It just took more thinking. I believe a regional was won by mindlink sycks and palob before the syck buff. And stress really did little to counter Guri, Kavil, Palob at a few tournaments. The greens help a lot, don't get me wrong. I just disagree it was not immediately powerful. It always has been.

I know what you mean, and we had early adopters of Mindlink around me who were proving the upgrade was competitive out of the box, and I was picking them up as well (the same Kavil/Guri/Palob list as yours, most likely). But it had vulnerabilities to go with those strengths and when I played against stress it was extremely difficult, even with two turreted ships who didn't need to be facing their targets.

It might just be that Attani Mindlink is straight too powerful for the cost and that this was previously not seen because the scum ships were generally underpowered that it sat on. But I think the greens thing is very important - I've played Bobatanni and Paratanni and one of the key strengths Para has over Boba is that much more of the dial is green.

6 minutes ago, Luke C said:

I think I see Juke, VI, and Crackshot nearly as much. Dash seems to be moving away from the ptl variant to the lone wolf/ rec spec variant to accommodate a fat Miranda.

And if I had free rein then VI and Crack Shot would also be getting a trim.

I am curious, why do you think Attanni requires a ban? I would think with how point increases hit that upgrade a lot more efficiently than others that would be the route. At 3 points, it would be like old PTL for each of the ships, but not quite as good.

I think when a card can't be given an appropriate cost (a cost where it's worse but you want to use it) then it's a design issue and the card should be removed, and I think Attani Mindlink fits that bill as any cost increase is multiplied through the copies of the card so you've a lot less fine control over the costing.

If you made it cost 3 you might as well ban it because you're pricing the card to pretty much never see play as it needs 9pts of your list. If you made it cost 2 then the existing Mindlink lists MIGHT be able to adapt, but even if they don't it's going to become something like a Biggs Darklighter that restricts any future design decisions for Scum ships - print the wrong thing and, hey... Mindlink is back!

The solution for Mindlink is probably a range restriction rather than points cost adjustment - it's the lack of a range restriction that makes it difficult to price correctly. It's a card that you want to play in multiples so ideally the cost needs to be low to encourage people to be creative in the lists it fits into.

Anecdote: my current fun list is actually a 4-ship janky Mindlink list. I'll tell you what, though, while I thought to myself while building it "yeah it's Mindlink but the ships are crappy so I don't feel bad about it" I was BATTERING my casual gaming opponent with all those free actions. So part of me wants creative lists like that to be viable, but part of me also realises that even my janky Mindlink list was a pretty negative experience for my opponent because I was so far ahead of him in action economy regardless of stress/bumps etc. I was having fun with my fun list, but he wasn't.


EDIT: it's the same logic behind banning Zuckuss. Designers should be looking to hit a 'goldilocks zone' with each card, where it's not too bad, not too good, but just right. When you have a card like Zuckuss with a massive upside balanced against a massive cost then it becomes extremely difficult to hit that goldilocks zone. Put Zuckuss on most ships and you'll never use him because you can't function with all that stress (too cold), put Zuckuss on the right ship with the right support and you can offset all the costs and benefit from pure upside (too hot). There's very few situations where people are playing Zuckuss and suffering from the stress (just right), because if you use Zuckuss you're building to ignore that stress. That he's also extremely discriminatory in the ships he works best against is the nail in the coffin because not only is he hard to cost-balance but he's warping the game whenever he's viable.

1 hour ago, Stay On The Leader said:

And if I had free rein then VI and Crack Shot would also be getting a trim.

Crackshot +1 means that Juke needs to go +1. The necessity of the evade does not balance the repeated usage. Could you explain why you would increase Crackshot cost?

3 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

Crackshot +1 means that Juke needs to go +1. The necessity of the evade does not balance the repeated usage. Could you explain why you would increase Crackshot cost?

They're no so directly comparable. Juke doesn't cancel an evade it pushes it to a focus, and it does require an evade to activate. Juke says IF I spent actions evading and IF you don't have Focus then it's a damage. If Juke was as good as you're suggesting you'd see Black TIE Swarms running it, not Crack Shots with a few points burned on shields on a couple of /fo.

Part of the suppressive/NPE factor is alpha strikes getting too good. TBH Crack Shot at 2pts would be on my watch list to ban because that's not enough to cut the 6 TIE crack swarms from the meta and they could be oppressively good.

1 minute ago, Stay On The Leader said:

They're no so directly comparable. Juke doesn't cancel an evade it pushes it to a focus, and it does require an evade to activate. Juke says IF I spent actions evading and IF you don't have Focus then it's a damage. If Juke was as good as you're suggesting you'd see Black TIE Swarms running it, not Crack Shots with a few points burned on shields on a couple of /fo.

Interesting. So you would keep Juke at 2?

I think Juke gets strength from numbers. TBH I'm not sure why Black TIE Swarms are NOT a thing - you even have enough points to include Howlrunner. 6 Jukes mean that 4-5 will probably get through. That's an amazing outcome, and from the second time onwards it's better than Crackshot.