Hi everyone,

Wave 6 is on the way and I would like this wave to restore the balance in the force. Lately the meta of flotilla + squadron has been pretty consistent in the tournament scene, don't get me wrong I LOVE squadrons and flotillas, I am just a bit sad it's kind of the only way to be competitive right now. Also shaking up the meta a bit is always nice. I think this problem can be solved by printing 2 upgrade cards:

-The reason why flotilla are played in every competitive list is simply because they give you such a strong activation advantage that other ship can't give you. My suggestion is to create an upgrade card that allow you to skip your turn by either discarding it or exhaust it (combo with interdictor title ). This upgrade would be an alternative to the flotilla and would be obviously cheaper so you can fit bigger ship without bothering too much about the activation disadvantage.

-In wave 1 the squadron balance was respected because you could easily hook a group of bomber with a few fighters , the balance was bomber list > Full Ship list> squadron list>bomber list , the intel key word and then the flotilla with BBC kinda broke that balance because now you can simply ignore enemy squadrons. You really have to bring very strong anti squadron force to be able to shut them down , or bring a bomber force on your own to race. Either way the only competitive option is to play a lot of squadrons. I think the big problem comes from the fact that Ship don't deal nearly enough damage against squadrons, I find this unrealistic and imbalance. This problem can be solved by printing more powerful anti squadrons upgrade, the ones we currently have are laughable IMO, even the raider is not great at taking down squadrons. Those upgrades could for example allow you to fire with your AA battery independently from your anti-ship weapon or deal double damage against squadrons....

I wish there is something in the new wave that does something along those lines even if I know it's unlikely to be the case.

What do you guys think?

Join me and together we shall rule the galaxy!

6 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

Join me and together we shall rule the galaxy!

I'm in! Can we have a triumvirate? Is that allowed?

I disagree.

3 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

I disagree.

Can I be your padawan?

14 minutes ago, NobodyInParticular said:

I'm in! Can we have a triumvirate? Is that allowed?

You can be General Grievous.

Also a note: I'm personally just looking for even more elegant, if more intricate solutions to activation advantage hard countering. This means, like a crew upgrade for large base ships only that let you exhaust to skip an activation. Otherwise, I'm pretty fine with flotillas being dominant, they were expected to be that way in 90% of fleets, but also because 2 flotillas only runs you between 36-46 points.

But we really need better AA for ships, from ships, to counter squadrons. (The right) Squadrons are good against literally everything.

4 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

You can be General Grievous.

Awwwww. . . can't I at least be force-sensitive?

2 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

Also a note: I'm personally just looking for even more elegant, if more intricate solutions to activation advantage hard countering. This means, like a crew upgrade for large base ships only that let you exhaust to skip an activation. Otherwise, I'm pretty fine with flotillas being dominant, they were expected to be that way in 90% of fleets, but also because 2 flotillas only runs you between 36-46 points.

But we really need better AA for ships, from ships, to counter squadrons. (The right) Squadrons are good against literally everything.

Yeah, I care little about puny flotillas (hey, I think I have Grievous down pat), it's the squads I want eliminated. . . or at least, scared to edge up close to the bases of my ships.

Lol. Pick your role RPG

( @NobodyInParticular )

I get to be Vader. Who only cares about ships. =)

I guess I'll be an Inquisitor then, in order to get some of that force-use. . . but this Inquisitor is a horrid pilot and so in order to maintain his public image, he has vowed to wipe squadrons from the battlefields of the galaxy. . .

35 minutes ago, thorrk said:

Lately the meta of flotilla + squadron has been pretty consistent in the tournament scene, don't get me wrong I LOVE squadrons and flotillas, I am just a bit sad it's kind of the only way to be competitive right now.

While you are right that flotillas are a part of the vast majority of tourney lists, the squadron numbers are quite fairly distributed. Max squadrons are not used across the board. (Thanks so much to @shmitty for compiling this data.)

I guess I am the emperor then

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While you are right that flotillas are a part of the vast majority of tourney lists, the squadron numbers are quite fairly distributed. Max squadrons are not used across the board. (Thanks so much to @shmitty for compiling this data.)

I was wondering if you had the same data taking in account only the top4 of each tourney ?

People hate the Flotillas because of the cheap Scatter activation. One Boarding Party later and say goodbye to that Scatter and Flotilla. (Either it's spent and discarded or the ship is gone on the next attack.) And Sloan helps the Imperials deal with both the Squadrons and Flotillas.

I think your wish was granted just not the way you were expecting. Flotillas and Squadrons are still going to be viable but now you have more tools to deal with them quick.

What? Within 24 hours of getting scatter stripping tie fighters, you ask for flotillas to be nerfed?

They have been. Biggest losers.

6 minutes ago, thorrk said:

I was wondering if you had the same data taking in account only the top4 of each tourney ?

Here are the Top 4 squad counts.

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Within 24 hours of getting scatter stripping tie fighters, you ask for flotillas to be nerfed?

I never said that I just want alternatives.

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I think your wish was granted just not the way you were expecting. Flotillas and Squadrons are still going to be viable but now you have more tools to deal with them quick.

I hope you're right :).

4 minutes ago, thorrk said:

I never said that I just want alternatives.

I heard a rumor about that thing called Hammerhead corvette....

1 hour ago, CaribbeanNinja said:

Here are the Top 4 squad counts.

I believe this is correct, however I would double check it: some of the tables and graphs are off currently in the data due to incomplete sets. Ex. the % graphs are totally off. Can you check this @CaribbeanNinja

Also, this graph is showing a skew in direction from al fleet to top4 going towards 7+ squadrons. Just look at the lines for each graph and add them up.

If we consider 6 squadrons to be a median and not count towards either high count or low count, the number of high count fleets outnumbers the low count fleets. With an appreciable balance of 6 squadrons as a norm. (That is usually a minimum of 70 points if not 100 points in aces).

Yeah, also if I recall, it was correctly pointed out that we should look at points spent and not just squadron count.

My original point of the whole thing still stands though. Overall, players are bringing a huge range of squadron counts. And the winners are not necessarily those that have maximum squadrons. (6 is the average with a good chunk of Top 4 players using less).

(Don't bring 3, 11, or 12 squadrons though...no top 4 for you.)

5 minutes ago, CaribbeanNinja said:

(Don't bring 3, 11, or 12 squadrons though...no top 4 for you.)

Dammit.. is 3 squadrons a new hotness now? Lets say Cienna/Valen/Morna Kee?

23 minutes ago, CaribbeanNinja said:

Yeah, also if I recall, it was correctly pointed out that we should look at points spent and not just squadron count.

My original point of the whole thing still stands though. Overall, players are bringing a huge range of squadron counts. And the winners are not necessarily those that have maximum squadrons. (6 is the average with a good chunk of Top 4 players using less).

(Don't bring 3, 11, or 12 squadrons though...no top 4 for you.)

But skewed towards 6+ and also some of those are high points spent nearing 100 points. I mentioned the high dispersion. But you haven't mentioned the graph direction. Why

20 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

But skewed towards 6+ and also some of those are high points spent nearing 100 points.

And some are 6 TIE Fighters, at 48 points.

In a range from 0-12 squadrons possible (for practical purposes), a mean, median, and mode of +/-6 is... pretty exactly on point. What do you want, man--you want a whole component of the game to be useless or unnecessary? Because advocating for zero-squadron fleets to be prevalent is... kind of that.

What if I had a beef with upgrade cards, and started complaining that upgrade cards overcomplicate the game and slow it down, and I should be able to run a standard-issue Imperial fleet without all these frou-frou upgrades because this is the military goddammit, and making a stink when most fleets took upgrades and all the winning fleets are taking upgrades?

Wouldn't that be ridiculous? Wouldn't you kind of stop taking my opinions seriously?

28 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

But skewed towards 6+ and also some of those are high points spent nearing 100 points. I mentioned the high dispersion. But you haven't mentioned the graph direction. Why

We just have different points of view @Blail Blerg.

I see it as about 31 of the Top 4 Regional fleets brought 6 or less squads (about 26 brought 7 or more.)

I personally do not see 6 squads as being squad heavy. I also have never seen squads as a hindrance to the game. I see them as part of the game. FFG has continued to show that they are going to make their 134 possible points be very strong.

5 hours ago, thorrk said:

I guess I am the emperor then

I was wondering if you had the same data taking in account only the top4 of each tourney ?

I AM the dark side itself.

Which means one of you is the light side.

Whichever of you it is, I just want you to know, I ate all but the last Oreo in the pack and drank the entire carton of milk. The last one is yours.

...

...

And I left the empty carton on the counter.