1 minute ago, Darth Meanie said:

OTOH, HotAC is not player vs. player, so there is still hope. Rebellions live on hope, I've heard.

I think you misheard, rebellions are built on hope, they live on blowing up stuff

16 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

OTOH, HotAC is not player vs. player, so there is still hope. Rebellions live on hope, I've heard.

If I'm remembering it correctly, the HotAC guy said in the Shuttle Tydyrium podcast interview, that if he were offered a buy-out by FFG he would not be interested. Cause he would loose creative control.

2 hours ago, iamfanboy said:

That's why we have these little things called 'statistics' that tell us how much a ship wins and does not win to back up our arguments, versus someone whose evidence is "The game is fine! I don't know what you guys are complaining about!"

How do we know that Soontir Fel is weak? Because he isn't making the cut. Bad players steer away from Soontir because he's so skill intensive, and good players lose despite taking him. At one point, he was 20% of Imperial lists making the cut - now, he's at a bare 1%. Declining by a factor of twenty is NOT a good indication.

I have been thinking about Soontir a bit, and I believe his problem doesn't lie with himself, but rather with the ships availiable to fly with him. Fenn Rau sees play, because Parattanni offers him very beefy ships that counter his counters, the minelayers. Soontir doesn't have that. A single Decimator tends to not be enough.

I also wouldn't say Soontir is a hard ship to fly in any matchup that isn't stress or mines, sinc he has all the tools to avoid punishment for bad manouvers (high mitigation and easy repositioning).

Call me odd I still have problems listening to that podcast. I don't know why. I prefer S&V, Nova and Kessel for my podcasts. That's just me though.

However I find the topic on obstacles to be rather disagreeable or too abstract. They spent more time on Sun Tzu instead on the details of the turn 0 construction. Sure it is better to attack from obstacles but they don't explain what the advantages are only that it is advantageous. Also not describing the differences between the two terrain types, soft and hard. More of an abstraction of a terrain field.

1 hour ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

I have been thinking about Soontir a bit, and I believe his problem doesn't lie with himself, but rather with the ships availiable to fly with him. Fenn Rau sees play, because Parattanni offers him very beefy ships that counter his counters, the minelayers. Soontir doesn't have that. A single Decimator tends to not be enough.

I also wouldn't say Soontir is a hard ship to fly in any matchup that isn't stress or mines, sinc he has all the tools to avoid punishment for bad manouvers (high mitigation and easy repositioning).

No, the problem is Soontir. He's now woefully underpowered.

Just now, Stay On The Leader said:

No, the problem is Soontir. He's now woefully underpowered.

Wouldn't call him woefully underpowered, because what would you call all the ships he invalidates, then?

Well if he can't get on the table he's not invalidating anything.

4 hours ago, iamfanboy said:

That's why we have these little things called 'statistics' that tell us how much a ship wins and does not win to back up our arguments, versus someone whose evidence is "The game is fine! I don't know what you guys are complaining about!"

How do we know that Soontir Fel is weak? Because he isn't making the cut. Bad players steer away from Soontir because he's so skill intensive, and good players lose despite taking him. At one point, he was 20% of Imperial lists making the cut - now, he's at a bare 1%. Declining by a factor of twenty is NOT a good indication.

How do we know that the X-Wing is weak? Because despite being taken as 10% of all Rebel Ships (and only 5.8% of them Biggs), 7.3% of Rebel ships making the cut are Biggs - the other .4% include all other X-Wing pilots). And .3% of that is Garven. When a ship with 8 pilot cards to its name has only ONE that matters, that's another bad sign of imbalance and power creep.

Note that List Juggler has better than 20,000 points listed just in results that make the cut. When you look at those numbers and realize that there were a total of 91 points spent on Soontir Fel among top lists during the entire month of February which made it in... maybe things have gone a little far?

When a player can put a Countdown with Title and a Rookie X-Wing pilot with R2/IA next to each other and realize that the game considers these two ships to be worth the same amount, that's a terrible sign for game balance and a clear indication for power creep.

Making our own version of whatever isn't a very good option. As I said before, game companies are in a bad spot when it comes to fanmade stuff. If they release something of their own that's too close to the fanmade items, then they run the risk of toxic publicity, or being sued. If they outright buy it from the fan, they get a poisonous amount of fanmade stuff from people who don't know a **** thing - and the fans who DO know something are often drowned out by all the noise. If they just ignore the fanmade stuff, then they run the risk of losing their game out from underneath them.

None of those choices are good. I accidentally trashed several months of hard work by game devs I respected when I released my own points system for Battletech's Alpha Strike - the method I used was almost identical to theirs and they couldn't run the risk of doing either 1) or 2). They had to go to a weird fractional formula.

It'd be tragic if what killed the X-Wing Campaign Mode was HotAC. The writer is a professional, but avoiding even the appearance of buying fanmade stuff might well be what stopped it.

We very clearly have a different view of what should be balanced in the game. Unless I'm wrong, it seems like you think, ideally, all the ships throughout the game should be balanced so as many ships as have been released should be viable. I think for all released ships to be viable, the metagame has to be less dynamic and so less desirable. I think it's perfectly normal for old printings to become obsolete to keep any game dynamic. If we were tied to the old printing's point system, we'd be playing games more like we played at previous points in the game. Stagnation is a death sentence to a game's popularity because many players lose interest.

I think balance should be achieved across factions. Each faction should have its own identity and maintaining balance between the factions means players with different tastes always have a viable, competitive option that suits their tastes. I think we have that right now. It doesn't matter to me that old ships become obsolete because I think it enhances the "freshness" of the game to be able to abandon old printings. The style of gameplay changes from wave to wave. That means you have to buy new ships from wave to wave to keep up competitively with the current metagame. That leaves a greater differential between competitive and non-competitive ships but I ascribe to the idea of designed obsolescence because I think it makes the game more dynamic from wave to wave so it doesn't bother me when you point out that Soontir Fel sees significantly less play than he used to. I see that as evidence of a highly dynamic system.

6 hours ago, iamfanboy said:

That's why we have these little things called 'statistics' that tell us how much a ship wins and does not win to back up our arguments, versus someone whose evidence is "The game is fine! I don't know what you guys are complaining about!"

How do we know that Soontir Fel is weak? Because he isn't making the cut. Bad players steer away from Soontir because he's so skill intensive, and good players lose despite taking him. At one point, he was 20% of Imperial lists making the cut - now, he's at a bare 1%. Declining by a factor of twenty is NOT a good indication.

How do we know that the X-Wing is weak? Because despite being taken as 10% of all Rebel Ships (and only 5.8% of them Biggs), 7.3% of Rebel ships making the cut are Biggs - the other .4% include all other X-Wing pilots). And .3% of that is Garven. When a ship with 8 pilot cards to its name has only ONE that matters, that's another bad sign of imbalance and power creep.

Note that List Juggler has better than 20,000 points listed just in results that make the cut. When you look at those numbers and realize that there were a total of 91 points spent on Soontir Fel among top lists during the entire month of February which made it in... maybe things have gone a little far?

When a player can put a Countdown with Title and a Rookie X-Wing pilot with R2/IA next to each other and realize that the game considers these two ships to be worth the same amount, that's a terrible sign for game balance and a clear indication for power creep.

Making our own version of whatever isn't a very good option. As I said before, game companies are in a bad spot when it comes to fanmade stuff. If they release something of their own that's too close to the fanmade items, then they run the risk of toxic publicity, or being sued. If they outright buy it from the fan, they get a poisonous amount of fanmade stuff from people who don't know a **** thing - and the fans who DO know something are often drowned out by all the noise. If they just ignore the fanmade stuff, then they run the risk of losing their game out from underneath them.

None of those choices are good. I accidentally trashed several months of hard work by game devs I respected when I released my own points system for Battletech's Alpha Strike - the method I used was almost identical to theirs and they couldn't run the risk of doing either 1) or 2). They had to go to a weird fractional formula.

It'd be tragic if what killed the X-Wing Campaign Mode was HotAC. The writer is a professional, but avoiding even the appearance of buying fanmade stuff might well be what stopped it.

Why should X-wing be all that tethered to the extremely flawed point costings of most ships in Wave 1-3?

1 hour ago, Panzeh said:

Why should X-wing be all that tethered to the extremely flawed point costings of most ships in Wave 1-3?

The Game isn't tethered to Core and Early Wave ships, those ships are the very heart of the game....if it completely looses them, it dies.

13 minutes ago, clanofwolves said:

The Game isn't tethered to Core and Early Wave ships, those ships are the very heart of the game....if it completely looses them, it dies.

Why?

AceWing, I'm assuming your reply was a rhetorical one.

No, I honestly don't know why you think the game will die if the early wave and core ships aren't competitive anymore. Do you think that because 'X-Wing' is in the name of the game?

9 minutes ago, AceWing said:

Why?

Because it is a game about Star Wars.

The newer wave ships come from Star Wars, too. Do you play this gave for thematics or mechanics? There's lots of Star Wars games out there. I imagine you play for the mechanics instead of playing another Star Wars miniature game like Armada or one of the card or board games. The unique thing about this game is not its theme.

It's certainly not for the sh*tty mechanics!

7 minutes ago, BlodVargarna said:

Because it is a game about Star Wars.

Yeah, those ships should be good and competitive.

3 minutes ago, AceWing said:

The unique thing about this game is not its theme.

Again, I can only assume, or hope, that this statement is meant to be openly ironic.

There's no irony. There are lots of Star Wars games. This is not uniquely the only Star Wars game. Why do you play this over the several other options you have? It must be the mechanics. Without early wave ships in competitive play, the mechanics are still there. It's still Star Wars themed. Why does this game die if early wave ships are not competitive? I know I wouldn't quit.

The suggestion here is that later ships are further removed from the Star Wars films. This is not true, and it is easy to see why: there are still Star Wars films being made, with new ships, so there is no reason to think there is a practical reason to resort to obscure and bad designs like the Jumpmaster. However, the T-70, U-Wing, new TIEs, ARC and probably the Upsilon have yet to make an impact like the Jumpmaster. Maybe that is a Good Thing. Even if we accept some power creep, I suspect that it doesn't have to be in these steps.

To be honest, I think most ships are doing fine, it's just that the Punishing One expansion appears to contain error upon error upon bad decision upon bad design with a ****** like Dengar to top it off. We can argue all night and day about what ships really communicate Star Wars - a fruitless debate especially considering that we get new films & cartoons with new ships every year - but that changes nothing about this particular expansion's lack of quality in...well, almost every department. Dengar's ability gave an interesting spin on firing arcs of a PWT but that's about it.

24 minutes ago, Verlaine said:

However, the T-70, U-Wing, new TIEs, ARC and probably the Upsilon have yet to make an impact like the Jumpmaster.

Uh wat?

The T-70 won worlds.
the new Ties I'm assuming you mean the f/o and s/f... in which case, Omega leader may be the most consistantly played ship in the imperials. and the s/fs are making cuts, they are being played.
The Upsilon and Uwing are still too new to have a decision made on them but DOA is probably not realistic.
I'll admit that the arc has yet to find a place.

Either way, you are talking complete spin right there.


To your larger point, FFG is doing a great job putting ships that you see on TV (rebels), and the new movies as playable into the game. Just because you are all #notmystarwars, is a poor arguement for saying that it isn't star wars at all. The only ships that we haven't seen in the past year or two of star wars is the Jumpmaster, which has many threads about its issues.

1 minute ago, Luke C said:

Uh wat?

The T-70 won worlds.
the new Ties I'm assuming you mean the f/o and s/f... in which case, Omega leader may be the most consistantly played ship in the imperials. and the s/fs are making cuts, they are being played.
The Upsilon and Uwing are still too new to have a decision made on them but DOA is probably not realistic.
I'll admit that the arc has yet to find a place.

Either way, you are talking complete spin right there.


To your larger point, FFG is doing a great job putting ships that you see on TV (rebels), and the new movies as playable into the game. Just because you are all #notmystarwars, is a poor arguement for saying that it isn't star wars at all. The only ships that we haven't seen in the past year or two of star wars is the Jumpmaster, which has many threads about its issues.

You are absolutely right, I completely forgot that the T-70, both the new TIEs, the Upsilon and U-Wing each necessitated two errata that made them less powerful. Yes, they all had the same impact as the Jumpaster.

6 minutes ago, Verlaine said:

You are absolutely right, I completely forgot that the T-70, both the new TIEs, the Upsilon and U-Wing each necessitated two errata that made them less powerful. Yes, they all had the same impact as the Jumpaster.

two erratta? I am only aware of the deadeye change.

Just now, Luke C said:

two erratta? [sic] I am only aware of the deadeye change.

I figured as much.

4 hours ago, AceWing said:

It doesn't matter to me that old ships become obsolete because I think it enhances the "freshness" of the game to be able to abandon old printings. The style of gameplay changes from wave to wave. That means you have to buy new ships from wave to wave to keep up competitively with the current metagame. That leaves a greater differential between competitive and non-competitive ships but I ascribe to the idea of designed obsolescence because I think it makes the game more dynamic from wave to wave so it doesn't bother me................

I'm glad you s*** gold. Us working fools can not keep shelling out money to "keep up with the joneses". I also don't like the idea that I now have some ships that are little more than paper weights. Sh*tty paperweights too because they weigh next to nothing.