2 hours ago, PremiumGoldLeaderDeluxe said:

Have been reading through this thread, only point I agree with amongst all the arguing over trivial matters is that the tournament format is actually the main problem with this game.

This game will be 5 years old soon and the designers are still working to the same format, and putting out several expansions a year, each one having to bring something new to the game AND stand up to some of the previous expansions which are perhaps a bit too powerful. So they come up with new features, conditions cards etc. Eventually it gets to a point where the game being played at tournaments and the game you learn out of the box is just so distorted that new players are put off almost immediately.

I think new tournament formats could help with this. After almost 5 years 100/6 has become so well practiced and analyzed that its now restrictive to the development of the game. Introducing competitive objective modes such as CTF, Territories or even Epic would really change how players approach list design and move the game away from the current staleness that is deathmatch.

It would also open tournaments up to different kinds of players. Not every player is good at/enjoys coming up with the most deadly/exploitative combo of upgrades. Different people think, plan, and strategise differently. The current format does not allow for a terrific amount of inventiveness - sure you see new top meta lists every wave, but at the end of the day they're all designed to do the same thing.

Heck, you could even get really creative with it and have "cinematic" competitive events where there is a storyline to play out similar to the campaigns that come with huge ship expansions (but designed with better balance for tournament play).

My point is, if you want to play 100/6 and nothing else, then fine - I'm sure that format will always be catered for as its at the core of the game. But going almost 5 years with NO progression or innovation in tournament format design is really holding the game back and is only forcing the designers to go in a direction that encourages power creep or breaks the vision of the core game. Let's have some variety, please.

This is the first alternate that I can agree with. Good job.

16 hours ago, MajorJuggler said:

In my 2016 Regionals thread, I was tracking results statistically and visually plotting Squad Archetypes by % occurrence in Top Cuts (x-axis), and post-cut performance (y-axis). There's a fellow that has started to do some stuff with List Juggler data, I would like to have a similar analysis done now as well. Then you don't need to have "subjective" results.

Right. The last thing I will say about your data is that although good, it's a season behind and the meta has changed fairly drastically since then.

9 hours ago, player346259 said:

But if that is your view, then I can't take it seriously, because it does not seem to be reasonable at all..

Yeah, Copernicus was such a complete idiot, too.

9 hours ago, MajorJuggler said:

@player346259

There's no need to resort to personal attacks.

Argumentum ad hominem, one of the classic fallacies. I guess they don't teach Debate in high school, anymore.

4 hours ago, PremiumGoldLeaderDeluxe said:

Have been reading through this thread, only point I agree with amongst all the arguing over trivial matters is that the tournament format is actually the main problem with this game.

20 pages of 50 people with (mostly) 1 point.

OTOH, you get a Gold Star for reading for content

3 hours ago, BlodVargarna said:

I think 100/6 will actually kill the game eventually. PGLD makes a great point: the game is 5 years old and FFG is stuck in 100/6. That's stagnation.

I really hope FFG is following this thread. . .

1 hour ago, Darth Meanie said:

OTOH, you get a Gold Star for reading for content

In all seriousness, he really does get a gold star for reading through the thread and giving good reasoning as to why he agrees or disagrees with a potential fix for the game. Maybe this thread can get back on track after all.

6 hours ago, PremiumGoldLeaderDeluxe said:

Have been reading through this thread, only point I agree with amongst all the arguing over trivial matters is that the tournament format is actually the main problem with this game.

This game will be 5 years old soon and the designers are still working to the same format, and putting out several expansions a year, each one having to bring something new to the game AND stand up to some of the previous expansions which are perhaps a bit too powerful. So they come up with new features, conditions cards etc. Eventually it gets to a point where the game being played at tournaments and the game you learn out of the box is just so distorted that new players are put off almost immediately.

I think new tournament formats could help with this. After almost 5 years 100/6 has become so well practiced and analyzed that its now restrictive to the development of the game. Introducing competitive objective modes such as CTF, Territories or even Epic would really change how players approach list design and move the game away from the current staleness that is deathmatch.

It would also open tournaments up to different kinds of players. Not every player is good at/enjoys coming up with the most deadly/exploitative combo of upgrades. Different people think, plan, and strategise differently. The current format does not allow for a terrific amount of inventiveness - sure you see new top meta lists every wave, but at the end of the day they're all designed to do the same thing.

Heck, you could even get really creative with it and have "cinematic" competitive events where there is a storyline to play out similar to the campaigns that come with huge ship expansions (but designed with better balance for tournament play).

My point is, if you want to play 100/6 and nothing else, then fine - I'm sure that format will always be catered for as its at the core of the game. But going almost 5 years with NO progression or innovation in tournament format design is really holding the game back and is only forcing the designers to go in a direction that encourages power creep or breaks the vision of the core game. Let's have some variety, please.

Honestly, everything you've written here is very well said, and I thank you again for bringing the thread back on track. I agree with everything you've written here, more game modes would do an incredible job of bringing all ships back into the fold of the game. The objectives, opening up to new players, the potential for cinematic events, and breaking out of the standard deathmatch mode we have now are all incredible reasons as to why new game modes should be implemented. I think FFG should go another step further, and really start supporting community made missions and modes.

The easiest way they could do this would be to simply create a sub-forum for custom game modes. I can't believe that this at least hasn't been done yet. Giving a sub-forum for players to post the rules and set-up for their own games would be a fantastic way to set up a standard for custom modes in the community. But I don't think FFG can do just one of these potential ideas for new game modes, I really think that they need to do both.

Think about it, how great would it be that instead of a new wave being released, they released a new toolkit for game modes? They could certainly use the objectives that already exist, but what if they also created competitive modes with this theoretical toolkit? Then they'd not only get players fired up about new modes existing in tournaments, but they would also release a method for the community to practice playing the coming modes, AND the community could cobble together their own game modes, which they can then post to a newly created sub-forum for custom modes and missions to be shared with others.

Boom, all ships have their purpose restored (or at least the potential to be restored), the game has new life breathed into the tournament, competitive, and casual communities, and potentially unlimited creativity can keep the game going for the future.

4 hours ago, Luke C said:

This is the first alternate that I can agree with. Good job.

I would just like to point out that this has been suggested before, by myself and others. So maybe instead of just blindly disagreeing with everyone and trolling a thread, you could actually read what others are suggesting, and find at least one or two points you can agree with them on.

55 minutes ago, CosmicCastawayA90 said:

I would just like to point out that this has been suggested before, by myself and others. So maybe instead of just blindly disagreeing with everyone and trolling a thread, you could actually read what others are suggesting, and find at least one or two points you can agree with them on.

Yes but the difference is all the others want "fixes" to ships as well. I strongly disagree to the other fixes that the tournament game needs to incorporate new game formats.

I will I'll buy into the idea to have more game modes for more people. Just don't fix the current tournament structure that many many many people are having fun with.

to that point though, there is nothing stopping anyone from designing their own tournaments. Be the change you want to see in the world.

8 hours ago, PremiumGoldLeaderDeluxe said:

I think new tournament formats could help with this. After almost 5 years 100/6 has become so well practiced and analyzed that its now restrictive to the development of the game. Introducing competitive objective modes such as CTF, Territories or even Epic would really change how players approach list design and move the game away from the current staleness that is deathmatch.

Heck, you could even get really creative with it and have "cinematic" competitive events where there is a storyline to play out similar to the campaigns that come with huge ship expansions (but designed with better balance for tournament play).

My point is, if you want to play 100/6 and nothing else, then fine - I'm sure that format will always be catered for as its at the core of the game. But going almost 5 years with NO progression or innovation in tournament format design is really holding the game back and is only forcing the designers to go in a direction that encourages power creep or breaks the vision of the core game. Let's have some variety, please.

I would really enjoy something like this.

Bringing new types of oficial matchs seems to be a healthy way of shaking the meta.

7 hours ago, BlodVargarna said:

I think 100/6 will actually kill the game eventually. PGLD makes a great point: the game is 5 years old and FFG is stuck in 100/6. That's stagnation.

I don't understand this. Card games like Magic or Netrunner are pretty much just one format, yet they keep on going. If you want to play something else, that is what casual gaming is for. And I look at lists popping up in the cuts, and I fail to see anything to complain about.

8 hours ago, PremiumGoldLeaderDeluxe said:

Have been reading through this thread, only point I agree with amongst all the arguing over trivial matters is that the tournament format is actually the main problem with this game.

This game will be 5 years old soon and the designers are still working to the same format, and putting out several expansions a year, each one having to bring something new to the game AND stand up to some of the previous expansions which are perhaps a bit too powerful. So they come up with new features, conditions cards etc. Eventually it gets to a point where the game being played at tournaments and the game you learn out of the box is just so distorted that new players are put off almost immediately.

I think new tournament formats could help with this. After almost 5 years 100/6 has become so well practiced and analyzed that its now restrictive to the development of the game. Introducing competitive objective modes such as CTF, Territories or even Epic would really change how players approach list design and move the game away from the current staleness that is deathmatch.

It would also open tournaments up to different kinds of players. Not every player is good at/enjoys coming up with the most deadly/exploitative combo of upgrades. Different people think, plan, and strategise differently. The current format does not allow for a terrific amount of inventiveness - sure you see new top meta lists every wave, but at the end of the day they're all designed to do the same thing.

Heck, you could even get really creative with it and have "cinematic" competitive events where there is a storyline to play out similar to the campaigns that come with huge ship expansions (but designed with better balance for tournament play).

My point is, if you want to play 100/6 and nothing else, then fine - I'm sure that format will always be catered for as its at the core of the game. But going almost 5 years with NO progression or innovation in tournament format design is really holding the game back and is only forcing the designers to go in a direction that encourages power creep or breaks the vision of the core game. Let's have some variety, please.

I don't think missions and epic have the kind of effect on the game that you think they would. You'd really have to make a different X-wing that actually mechanically interacted with missions to make it work. If Epic were played enough, for example, I think people would rapidly realize that some things work and some things don't. The meta lists are versatile and adaptable in a way that most non-meta lists aren't.

17 minutes ago, Sithborg said:

I don't understand this. Card games like Magic or Netrunner are pretty much just one format, yet they keep on going. If you want to play something else, that is what casual gaming is for. And I look at lists popping up in the cuts, and I fail to see anything to complain about.

IMHO, the main difference is the number of new components. CCGs see hundreds of new cards released per year, which allows for an exponentially higher level of combos, exploration, and discovery. X-Wing sees 4 new ships, 2 fixed ships, an one (non-tournament) Epic ship per year. For crying out loud, the entire new Wave has been number crunched, pronounced DOA, exalted, vilified, combo-ed, and meta-ed 4 months before it even hits the shelves.

I don't know Netrunner, but M:TG has not failed to address casual players: Commander Decks, Vanguard play (remember the oversized crew cards that affected you entire deck?), recurring characters, a storyline behind annual releases, and other supplemental materials that have nothing at all to do with successfully winning a tournament. Most importantly, Richard Garfield envisioned the game as Two Friends Playing Cards Over a Friendly Wager (remember Ante?). Tournaments grew out of that friendly game, by organizing a room full of friendly games into a pyramid of winners. X-Wing is exactly the opposite design philosophy--if it works professionally, you can use it casually.

So, I do want to play something else. BUT ALL I GET ARE SHIPS DESIGNED FOR 100/6.

They have been releasing a bit more than that per year. For quite some time.

As for the early declarations of how good a ship is. Remember how the SF was DOA? I'm seeing quite a few SFs, even dual SFs making the rounds at Regionals. Hell, the same was applied to the ARC, and dual ARCs are also making the rounds. Sometimes, despite all the number crunching, people need to actually fly the ships for a bit before they make an impact.

But then again, I don't focus entirely on the top of the top.

And if you want to decry the lack of objectives/missions, too bad. The people responsible for that are long gone from the game. I don't think you really understand the difficulty of completely redesigning the main play format.

6 minutes ago, Sithborg said:

I don't think you really understand the difficulty of completely redesigning the main play format.

No need to redesign it - as I outlined in my post, 100/6 should stay as it is of course the very core of the game. But it has been so for 5 years now, and out of necessity the expansions have evolved with each wave release but the core game mode hasn't - and I think that you can see the effects of designing for such a restrictive tournament format more and more as waves come out.

Keep 100/6, but give us new competitive game modes. CTF, Territories etc. can all be very competitive game types, and I think X-Wing is well suited to them. This game just needs something to change up how we think about tournament list design, otherwise we'll just be stuck where we are (divided) with more and more ridiculously powerful ships and abilities and more and more complex additions to how 100/6 is played. I really do not think it is sustainable - again, no need to change 100/6 at all, its a perfectly fine game mode, but the fact that it remains the only tournament game mode 5 years out from the original release is troubling.

I really don't see why people would be objected to this idea - its not taking away anything, its making the game more inclusive for players who feel that the current tournament structure is far too restrictive and only allows for one type of play in what has been shown to be an incredibly versatile game.

23 minutes ago, Sithborg said:

They have been releasing a bit more than that per year. For quite some time.

And if you want to decry the lack of objectives/missions, too bad. The people responsible for that are long gone from the game. I don't think you really understand the difficulty of completely redesigning the main play format.

X-Wing for 2016:

Wave 8b: Ghost, Inquisitor’s TIE, Punishing One, Mist Hunter {released 3/17/2016}

Wave F: Imperial Veterans {released 6/23/2016}

Wave 9: ARC-170, TIE/sf, Protectorate Fighter, Shadow Caster {released 9/22/2016}

Wave G: Heroes of the Resistance {released 10/26/2016}

Wave 10a: U-Wing, TIE Striker {released 12/15/2016}

M:TG for 2016:

Shadows Over Innestrad

Eldritch Moon

Kaladesh

Eternal Masters

So, 13 ships vs. 1,015 cards. I stand by my comparison.

First, thanks for the empathy. Second, I don't give a flying f**k about the main play format. That's the point here. . .FFG may be losing their player base if the don't broaden their horizons. Since someone else used the analogy (and WotC created it. . .meaning they recognize the need to satisfy multiple gamer needs), this entire game is designed for Spike first, Timmy second, and Johnny can just bite it.

Unfortunately for FFG, people pick up a Star Wars game to tap into their inner Johnny.

3 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

X-Wing for 2016:

Wave 8b: Ghost, Inquisitor’s TIE, Punishing One, Mist Hunter {released 3/17/2016}

Wave F: Imperial Veterans {released 6/23/2016}

Wave 9: ARC-170, TIE/sf, Protectorate Fighter, Shadow Caster {released 9/22/2016}

Wave G: Heroes of the Resistance {released 10/26/2016}

Wave 10a: U-Wing, TIE Striker {released 12/15/2016}

M:TG for 2016:

Shadows Over Innestrad

Eldritch Moon

Kaladesh

Eternal Masters

So, 13 ships vs. 1,015 cards. I stand by my comparison.

First, thanks for the empathy. Second, I don't give a flying f**k about the main play format. That's the point here. . .FFG may be losing their player base if the don't broaden their horizons. Since someone else used the analogy (and WotC created it. . .meaning they recognize the need to satisfy multiple gamer needs), this entire game is designed for Spike first, Timmy second, and Johnny can just bite it.

Unfortunately for FFG, people pick up a Star Wars game to tap into their inner Johnny.

13 ships with 4 pilots at least each, multiple slots to fill each, disincluding "bad" upgrades, then factoring in other ships in the composition, your example of cards to squads lacks substance.

Yes those 1k plus cards also can be rearranged, but then you look at the fact that the card distribution is random, some people never get the cards they want to finish a deck, or by the time they do a new set comes out. You are comparing a $1k a year investment to a $300 one.

Even for non-casual players, the Magic to X-Wing comparison is flawed. Competitive MtG players have:

1) Standard (last few releases)

2) Draft (pick one card from a pack and pass it on)

3) Constructed (you get six-seven packs and have to make a deck)

4) Modern (The only legal sets are after 8e where they changed the card design)

5) Legacy (ANYTHING that isn't banned; want to spend $4,000 on lands, play Legacy!)

6) Frontier (everything from M15 on)

Casual players have:

7) Commander

8) Cube (a player makes his own set of cards for people to Draft out of)

9) Other jank (Star multiplayer, Sheriff, Enemy Among Us, so on)

And all but the last category are supported and recognized by the company creating them. Hell, how many Commander sets have there been? Three, or four? That's eight different formats, six of them competitive.

X-Wing has officially supported:

1) Deathmatch 100/6

2) Epic

And they barely do anything with Epic. It's an upsell rather than a seriously considered format: "Own a bunch of ships? Well, buy these really big ships and play a big game! Oh, this really great card you need? It's only in this $100 ship so you may as well buy it..."

As far as missions being hard to integrate into the basic format...

Go look in your starter box. See those satellite tokens? See that Senator's Shuttle? There are missions in the starter box - and they're not badly balanced - but FFG simply doesn't do anything WITH them. A lot of the Heroes of the Aturi Cluster ideas, like using an Escort action to give a friendly ship in R1 an Evade token, came from those mission rules!

It's laziness, pure and simple, that prevents FFG from adding missions. It might be as simple as Round 1 - Deathmatch, Round 2 - Escort shuttle (roll to see who's defender), Round 3 - Satellite Scan...

And players afraid of change, like Sithborg, also make it harder to introduce change at the ground level.

2 minutes ago, iamfanboy said:

Even for non-casual players, the Magic to X-Wing comparison is flawed. Competitive MtG players have:

1) Standard (last few releases)

2) Draft (pick one card from a pack and pass it on)

3) Constructed (you get six-seven packs and have to make a deck)

4) Modern (The only legal sets are after 8e where they changed the card design)

5) Legacy (ANYTHING that isn't banned; want to spend $4,000 on lands, play Legacy!)

6) Frontier (everything from M15 on)

Casual players have:

7) Commander

8) Cube (a player makes his own set of cards for people to Draft out of)

9) Other jank (Star multiplayer, Sheriff, Enemy Among Us, so on)

And all but the last category are supported and recognized by the company creating them. Hell, how many Commander sets have there been? Three, or four? That's eight different formats, six of them competitive.

X-Wing has officially supported:

1) Deathmatch 100/6

2) Epic

And they barely do anything with Epic. It's an upsell rather than a seriously considered format: "Own a bunch of ships? Well, buy these really big ships and play a big game! Oh, this really great card you need? It's only in this $100 ship so you may as well buy it..."

As far as missions being hard to integrate into the basic format...

Go look in your starter box. See those satellite tokens? See that Senator's Shuttle? There are missions in the starter box - and they're not badly balanced - but FFG simply doesn't do anything WITH them. A lot of the Heroes of the Aturi Cluster ideas, like using an Escort action to give a friendly ship in R1 an Evade token, came from those mission rules!

It's laziness, pure and simple, that prevents FFG from adding missions. It might be as simple as Round 1 - Deathmatch, Round 2 - Escort shuttle (roll to see who's defender), Round 3 - Satellite Scan...

And players afraid of change, like Sithborg, also make it harder to introduce change at the ground level.

It's kinda funny how people calling for missions are terrible at the game and think putting in a senator's shuttle will suddenly make them good, or that somehow 4x TLTs won't be able to be really good at the missions designed to help 4-ship builds or whatever.

7 minutes ago, Panzeh said:

It's kinda funny how people calling for missions are terrible at the game and think putting in a senator's shuttle will suddenly make them good, or that somehow 4x TLTs won't be able to be really good at the missions designed to help 4-ship builds or whatever.

Strawman argument. How persuasive. I am convinced.

EDIT: Sorry, appeal to authority (Your win record must be so awesome that it makes you an authority on what's good or bad), and ad hominem attack (our win records must be so bad to want to change the game).

Neither of which, I am willing to bet, is true.

9 minutes ago, iamfanboy said:

Strawman argument. How persuasive. I am convinced.

Ad hominem, not strawman. I also disagree with your mission idea. FFG should just make kits for casuals. Simple. The non-tournament crowd gets support and FFG doesn't have to change the standard format. Why can't there be different kinds of tournaments?

Regarding unbalance, I think FFG addresses obsolescence with updated printings, like the Mist Hunter is an upgrade of the B-Wing. It generates them revenue and it keeps old printings relevant. Three Mist Hunters and a Z-95 just won a regional.

4 hours ago, Panzeh said:

It's kinda funny how people calling for missions are terrible at the game and think putting in a senator's shuttle will suddenly make them good, or that somehow 4x TLTs won't be able to be really good at the missions designed to help 4-ship builds or whatever.

I assume you've the evidence to support your wild claim that everyone calling or missions are terrible at the game...?

Take you're time; we'll wait.

2 hours ago, Dr Zoidberg said:

I assume you've the evidence to support your wild claim that everyone calling or missions are terrible at the game...?

Take you're time; we'll wait.

Well, if you think you have some kind of evidence that missions suddenly fix everything with the game, you can bring that, too, but I base my opinion of people calling for it on the ridiculous statements that people calling for missions make. It seems like people who don't even really play the game at a high level, because i'll see statements like 'The x-wing is actually a very versatile ship' or 'This will bring new list variety' in vague. ill-defined ways.

When I see 'the ships in the meta are extremely specialized ships good at only one thing', I think that person has no understanding of the game.

I do struggle to see how missions would change a whole lot, but then I haven't looked at any of the missions in expansions.

I'd tend to assume that if I've got a good 100/6 list I'll just destroy all your ships then do the mission.

6 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

I do struggle to see how missions would change a whole lot, but then I haven't looked at any of the missions in expansions.

I'd tend to assume that if I've got a good 100/6 list I'll just destroy all your ships then do the mission.

It isn't as easy, often there are time (round) limits that would prevent you from doing that.

54 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

I do struggle to see how missions would change a whole lot, but then I haven't looked at any of the missions in expansions.

I'd tend to assume that if I've got a good 100/6 list I'll just destroy all your ships then do the mission.

If you award VP based on the objectives (whether or not you get destroyed) it makes listbuilding much less predictable - the tendency would be towards three or four ships rather than double-ship lists. Even a filler Academy Pilot or Bandit Squadron can be an 'objective runner' while your list engages - and even then it still might turn up Deathmatch so you have to be careful.

The main issue that you would have, however, is that action economy ships are still overpowerful, and I agree wholeheartedly. Mindlink/PTL/x7 are just very strong - remember when people said Mindlink was a dead card a year ago? I was laughing then and I'm laughing now.

The whole pricing system is just out of whack. It's flawed; there's not enough granularity to distinguish between ships. There is no freaking way that Rookie Pilot with R2/IA is an equal value to Countdown with title and LWF!

For me it really does all come back to that issue. The point system is borked. Early ships cost way too much, newest ships are priced on a different scale than even the middle-wave ships, and the developer line about Veteran Instincts sums up the whole situation: "Too cheap at 1 point, too expensive at 2; 1.5 would have been perfect."

But I did my time creating a points system back when CGL first released their Alpha Strike version of Battletech, and found out several years later that I backed the actual developers into a corner: Their first system looked WAY too much like mine, and they were forced to abandon it early on for a hideously complicated one lest it look like they were taking from a fan's work.

It's a touchy subject for game companies. If they look like they're accepting fan-made work then they get flooded with it, and the signal/noise ratio is WAY too bad. Take that fanmade 2.0 on page 2; hideously complicated for no reason other than "I like complicated things." Imagine pages and pages filled with that sort of garbage; dozens of different would-be developers with their own damfool and radically different ideas - and ALL of them have the delusion that their vision will be recognized as 'perfect'. Barf.

But if the company get sloppy and/or lazy, and the fans put out something better, then what can they do? Seriously, what kind of co-op campaign mode COULD FFG create that wouldn't look like Heroes of the Aturi Cluster, or close enough to make a lawyer go, "Uhhhhh..... you can't do this."

20 minutes ago, iamfanboy said:

If you award VP based on the objectives (whether or not you get destroyed) it makes listbuilding much less predictable - the tendency would be towards three or four ships rather than double-ship lists. Even a filler Academy Pilot or Bandit Squadron can be an 'objective runner' while your list engages - and even then it still might turn up Deathmatch so you have to be careful.

The main issue that you would have, however, is that action economy ships are still overpowerful, and I agree wholeheartedly. Mindlink/PTL/x7 are just very strong - remember when people said Mindlink was a dead card a year ago? I was laughing then and I'm laughing now.

The whole pricing system is just out of whack. It's flawed; there's not enough granularity to distinguish between ships. There is no freaking way that Rookie Pilot with R2/IA is an equal value to Countdown with title and LWF!

For me it really does all come back to that issue. The point system is borked. Early ships cost way too much, newest ships are priced on a different scale than even the middle-wave ships, and the developer line about Veteran Instincts sums up the whole situation: "Too cheap at 1 point, too expensive at 2; 1.5 would have been perfect."

But I did my time creating a points system back when CGL first released their Alpha Strike version of Battletech, and found out several years later that I backed the actual developers into a corner: Their first system looked WAY too much like mine, and they were forced to abandon it early on for a hideously complicated one lest it look like they were taking from a fan's work.

It's a touchy subject for game companies. If they look like they're accepting fan-made work then they get flooded with it, and the signal/noise ratio is WAY too bad. Take that fanmade 2.0 on page 2; hideously complicated for no reason other than "I like complicated things." Imagine pages and pages filled with that sort of garbage; dozens of different would-be developers with their own damfool and radically different ideas - and ALL of them have the delusion that their vision will be recognized as 'perfect'. Barf.

But if the company get sloppy and/or lazy, and the fans put out something better, then what can they do? Seriously, what kind of co-op campaign mode COULD FFG create that wouldn't look like Heroes of the Aturi Cluster, or close enough to make a lawyer go, "Uhhhhh..... you can't do this."

This is a pretty good point. I thought mindlink was a dud at the time because I didn't see anything that amazed me with it, but that's changing, and I had a bad understanding of the potential of the card, with the 4-ship gand findsmen+kaato build being one that got me out of nowhere. Action economy has significantly improved as the game has gone on, and I think if FFG were to go back, they would add a lot more granularity to everything in the game, from attack/defense dice to points. Imperial Assault and Armada have a lot more things to tweak on ships to make them good, but in X-wing, 2 attack dice is 2 attack dice.

Unfortunately, all of the ships that should be simple, one-action ships were made in the first few waves and costed when FFG had less of a good idea of how the game should be. It was unbalanced from the start, with the TIE Fighter significantly outperforming the other wave 1 ships and from there on, making mathematically efficient generics(and Biggs) superior to all of the other options. This changed as ships with more upgrade slots and better upgrades to fill them filed into the game, and suddenly action economy becomes more available, making ships that cost more than 22-25 points more viable.

The jumpmaster 5000 is an interesting ship- it has a lot of builds available for it, 3/4 viable pilots(rare in X-wing to see a ship like that), and an upgrade bar that lets you do a lot of different things, from ordnance carrier, to double-reposition ace, to support ship, to dedicated blocker. I think every ship should be on that level of interesting play or have the points efficiency to compete with it, and unfortunately X-wing isn't there right now.

Then again, I remember a year ago people said they wanted to see the mid-PS guys get some love, and, well, here you go, the meta is full of mid-PS ships. Mission accomplished.

The thing is, what makes the Jumpmaster viable in all those roles is that it's way more cost-efficient than anything else in the game so it's allowed to be an all-rounder because it's all-round better than anything else for the cost.

Make other stuff as good as the Jumpmaster and the Jumpmaster becomes the unplayed 'all-rounder' that the T-65 is.