3 hours ago, CaribbeanNinja said:

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.

You just lumped the median in with your number. Very interesting use of skew there. @CaribbeanNinja

Im not sure if the game was imbalanced in the first place. I put the game box on one side of some scales and placed two upgrade cards to represent the desired printed cards.

The results show the 2 cards couldn't balance the scales!

1 hour ago, Blail Blerg said:

You just lumped the median in with your number. Very interesting use of skew there. @CaribbeanNinja

Aren't most Rebel Super Friends only 6 squadrons, and still like 120 - 130 points?

or it could be a slew of people running 6 tie fighters at 48 points (Spoiler, it wasn't)

I think anything more than ~85 points (a vic-II or a Guppy. We could draw the line at 90ish points to bring in the interdictor) of squadrons is squadron heavy.

With the Quasar cruiser, we may come to see Imperial lists with less activations, as less people builds lists relying on flotillas.

On the other hand, as the Quasar is not particularly threatening to a flotilla nor very mobile (I assume), we may see more slicer tools which will hard counter the Quasar and potentially leave a Tie swarm dead in the water.

I don't think the answer to anything is ever to print more powerful cards to counter the ones that are currently powerful. That way leads to stupid deathball autowin situations and we are currently a LONG way from that state.

37 minutes ago, Divad said:

With the Quasar cruiser, we may come to see Imperial lists with less activations, as less people builds lists relying on flotillas.

On the other hand, as the Quasar is not particularly threatening to a flotilla nor very mobile (I assume), we may see more slicer tools which will hard counter the Quasar and potentially leave a Tie swarm dead in the water.

I think it matters if the Quasar is more than 56 points (4 squadron act worth of flotilla)...

5 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

You just lumped the median in with your number. Very interesting use of skew there. @CaribbeanNinja

If that is a stats faux pas, I'm sorry. I am no statistician. It is just the way I see it. here it is your way I guess:

Top 4

21 (5 or less squad count)

10 (6 squad count)

26 (7 or more squad count)

57 Total

So there were 5 more Top 4 players that went 7+ then went 5 or less. I do not see the "sky is falling, nerf squadrons" skew there. Not only that, I see the 9 Top 4 players that went 2 squads or less as an amazing endorsement that you CAN go squad light and win at this game.

i think 80% of people complaining about flotillas and squadrons are not against exactly that.

you could always be effective against bomber fleets like that by using a strong fighter screen, like several have proven.

and you could always find a way to fit a large ship with some other activations (in fact flotillas helped that).

i think 80% of these people are just "timmy players"- people that wanna see "teh big brawl"; they consider small base ships uncool even if it is a mighty admonition/demolisher, they consider a squadron minigame to just steal from "all the action" , and play the game with an expectation to see "just the biggest of battleships duking it out ships-of-the-line style".

there are lots of people like that in all games. they are the "nerf control decks plz!" people in magic the gathering, or the "please buff assassins and adcs, tanks are lame and boring!" people in league of legends.

FFG has created a great and diverse, tacticaly challenging wargame. large ships are viable, small and med ships have always been viable, flotillas are ofc viable, bomber fleets or just fighter screens are viable. please dont cry for it to change to a "dumb brawl" playstyle. in many other games, these cries have won and the result was bad.

12 hours ago, thorrk said:

-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.

So...... You take this upgrade. And I take this upgrade. You actiavte yours first, and I activate mine in response to force you to go. We end up where we started. You can put it on a large ship and make it an officer slot, but the MC80 doom pickle list will benefit from this. Drop Walex for yet another activation when they already have 5-6 to start? Sounds good to me.

Honestly people, the only way FFG can make people take less flotillas is if they give an incentive for us NOT to spend points on them. You can't add another gimmicky rule or upgrade to try and nerf flotillas. It has to be a natural evolution on the game. What happens if we get a pass rule now, and in 4 waves there is a way to exploit it? The game doesn't have a problem right now. I love it when my opponent has 2-3 flotillas because that's dice not being thrown my way, and upgrades not being bought.

In regards to squad play, I've suggested before of a turbolaser upgrade that adds 1 blue anti-squad die when you attack. Or people could just take squads to counter the meta, so they force an evolution of the meta where they don't need to take squads instead of trying this "top-dwon" method of forcing the meta to change overnight with crazy rule changes.

9 hours ago, Ardaedhel said:

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?

Ordinance Experts is too good, can FFG make a card that neuters this? @Ardaedhel wins too many games with it.

....What do you mean Targeting scramblers exists? No one uses Interdictors because the top tables don't have them! So I clearly can't try them out and see if they work or not!

Flotillas are OK. Cuz there are so many counters to them.

Squads are OK. Cuz there are so many counters to them.

What arguably isn't OK is activation padding. There are some defenses here, but they are largely limited to taking activation padding yourself. Well, there are some other things you can do, but still very hard to combat effectively. Not saying it's the end all, but it's a thing. Flotillas, for good or bad, are part of that thing.

13 hours ago, thorrk said:

-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....

Re: upgrade card: FFG made this card when wave 3 came out. It's called the flotilla, it costs 18/23 points. Wave 1 and 2, people were running 3 ships, maybe 4 at most. Now, it's a matter of how many you wish to run. People can actually field a full Armada of ships now. We don't need an upgrade card to do what flotillas already do. If you want to delay the activation of Demolisher or whoever, you need to pay another flotillas worth of points. If you want to kill flotillas, h9s have been fine since wave 3 showed up. Try them out.

Squadrons: You don't need to play heavy squadrons, you just need to use your flak well and handle their squadrons in some fashion. You're not trying to keep them from doing anything (because wave 1 was bad in that regard, and Intel saved the squadron game) but you're trying to mitigate them from doing CRAZY amounts of damage to you.

And you may think that Raiders are bad at taking down squadrons: no. raiders EXCEL at taking down squadrons. Raider and OE puts 2 damage into them, and with flechettes you can turn them to activated. Raiders are good, I promise. Neb B's or assault mc80s have 2 blue flak dice, and toryn Farr exists. I'm not opposed to more AA options, but don't say Raiders are bad.

I stated it before and I state it again, I don't believe the game is unbalanced at all and the issue is not one of balance but one of preference. Some players lied to themselves when they bought the game thinking the game was an ISD battle game but it is not, it never was and it was never advertised that way. It is a Meta Fleet Game meaning that includes Squadrons (which you got all you'll ever need in the starter box) and smaller support ships along with the large ships. And the ISD is still the big daddy of the game and the only reason it isn't in every single list is because since it's so scary everyone has worked on their own counter to the ISD.

Every game element and model has a counter, no way to deny that. No element is an auto-win. But if you don't play a balanced list ready to deal with all the elements you are setting yourself up to be hard countered.

If you personally dont like Squadrons that is your choice. But you are hurting yourself doing it. And if you think Squadrons were not an important part of the game you didn't read the rule book or look in side the starter box because it is very obvious Squadrons are just as important as your VSD. This is not a Large Capital Ship game, it is a Fleet Combat Game and a fleet consists of more than the Large ships, ask any Navy Service Man and he will tell you.

Honestly when I dwell on it FFG did us all a favor when they released the game when it comes to Squadrons. The Tie fighter and X-Wings are still absolute staples in the game. The named pilots are still fantastic and the ships themselves are all you need to be competitive in the game.

Both are fantastic screening ships and the X-Wing is extremely versatile. You honestly do not need to buy any more Squadron packs for the game because nothing else is needed. Everything else just gives you different tactical choices but nothing that is honestly better than the OG's.

So fly those Tie Fighters and X-Wings with pride. They came with the box and they are still great Squadrons.

3 hours ago, CaribbeanNinja said:

If that is a stats faux pas, I'm sorry. I am no statistician. It is just the way I see it. here it is your way I guess:

Top 4

21 (5 or less squad count)

10 (6 squad count)

26 (7 or more squad count)

57 Total

So there were 5 more Top 4 players that went 7+ then went 5 or less. I do not see the "sky is falling, nerf squadrons" skew there. Not only that, I see the 9 Top 4 players that went 2 squads or less as an amazing endorsement that you CAN go squad light and win at this game.

Do we know how many points were in those 6 squads?

6 tie fighters is squad light. 6 Aces isn't.

7 minutes ago, thecolourred said:

Do we know how many points were in those 6 squads?

6 tie fighters is squad light. 6 Aces isn't.

He already mentioned we need to look at the points spent first but Blail was getting on him about the number of Squadrons so that's the purpose of his last post.

So you and the Ninja are on the same page. It's just someone else is giving him a hard time, we don't need to give him more.

Let me instead start with observations:

My observation is that nearly 50% of ships, by count, are now flotillas, at the last few tourneys I was at.

High activation count lists are growing more powerful, and the 1-2 combat ship / 3 flotilla archetype as a starting point now accounts for many good lists.

Higher squadron points spent also relates to this, as the two most efficient uses for my 18 point activation buffer are pushing squadrons or using comms net. Or both.

My balance suggestion:

I do believe Armada needs the IA passing rule, otherwise our meta will devolve into activation spam lists and direct counter lists, crowding out everything else and creating a very static and locked meta where even if you have variety within those lists, you have much less macro-variety.

The fact that 3/4 of last year's worlds lists making the cut fit this mold and the one that didn't was a Cracken high activation list should be a red flag to us all. The game has a lot of micro diversity but very low macro diversity right now (and Shmitty's data is exceptional for proving out that point - great work, again).

To fix that, you need a way to break the MSU strategy (a problem hardly unique to Armada!), and IA-style passing is the correct way to do this. Putting specific upgrades in to do it will just make more must-play cards and reduce, not increase, options.

4 minutes ago, Reinholt said:

Let me instead start with observations:

My observation is that nearly 50% of ships, by count, are now flotillas, at the last few tourneys I was at.

High activation count lists are growing more powerful, and the 1-2 combat ship / 3 flotilla archetype as a starting point now accounts for many good lists.

Higher squadron points spent also relates to this, as the two most efficient uses for my 18 point activation buffer are pushing squadrons or using comms net. Or both.

My balance suggestion:

I do believe Armada needs the IA passing rule, otherwise our meta will devolve into activation spam lists and direct counter lists, crowding out everything else and creating a very static and locked meta where even if you have variety within those lists, you have much less macro-variety.

The fact that 3/4 of last year's worlds lists making the cut fit this mold and the one that didn't was a Cracken high activation list should be a red flag to us all. The game has a lot of micro diversity but very low macro diversity right now (and Shmitty's data is exceptional for proving out that point - great work, again).

To fix that, you need a way to break the MSU strategy (a problem hardly unique to Armada!), and IA-style passing is the correct way to do this. Putting specific upgrades in to do it will just make more must-play cards and reduce, not increase, options.

the thing is: It's possible that FFG's way to "pass your turn" in Armada is to actually activate a flotilla. It's very possible that what you call a MSU with 2-3 flotillas and 1 or 2 combat ships is actually FFG's definition of a "quality list".

It's just that, instead of passing your turn for free, you have to "pay" for it, by activating a flotilla instead.

6 minutes ago, Reinholt said:

Let me instead start with observations:

My observation is that nearly 50% of ships, by count, are now flotillas, at the last few tourneys I was at.

High activation count lists are growing more powerful, and the 1-2 combat ship / 3 flotilla archetype as a starting point now accounts for many good lists.

Higher squadron points spent also relates to this, as the two most efficient uses for my 18 point activation buffer are pushing squadrons or using comms net. Or both.

My balance suggestion:

I do believe Armada needs the IA passing rule, otherwise our meta will devolve into activation spam lists and direct counter lists, crowding out everything else and creating a very static and locked meta where even if you have variety within those lists, you have much less macro-variety.

The fact that 3/4 of last year's worlds lists making the cut fit this mold and the one that didn't was a Cracken high activation list should be a red flag to us all. The game has a lot of micro diversity but very low macro diversity right now (and Shmitty's data is exceptional for proving out that point - great work, again).

To fix that, you need a way to break the MSU strategy (a problem hardly unique to Armada!), and IA-style passing is the correct way to do this. Putting specific upgrades in to do it will just make more must-play cards and reduce, not increase, options.

I disagree. If everyone was running naked flotillas, you would have more validity to your point. But as it is, the 3 flotilla style lists tend to have upgrades and actually serve a purpose in the fleet instead of acting as activation padding. They are support ships and thus, supporting the fleet via Comms Net, carrying officers or using BCC. Naked flotillas pushing squads is kind of a murky area.

I don't play IA, so I don't know what passing activations would do to the game. I don't have a strong opinion on it, but I' also not convinced activation advantage is a problem. It's a part of the game, and has been since the beginning. My biggest concern would be the impact if would have on second player. You get the objective bonus AND can match your opponents activation count -1.

I think further discussion is needed to hammer out all the possible issues and current issues the game has in regards to activation.

The pass rule idea is dead on arrival. If you want a house rule go for it, but the game is designed with the game balance of turn order. A two ship build is supposed to be a huge activation risk. That's how the game was designed . The Flotillas are currently being abused by a small portion of the community from what I've read, but haven't seen, but there are tools out there to deal with them.

The pass rule may seem cool for those that want to fly two ships but then it throws the balance issue way off and in the direction of the two ship build and then we would need another new rule to fix that balance issue. Just look at all the alternating turn games and tell me how many of them have Pass Rules? Almost none of them because that turn order and number of activations is extremely important for balance. And Flotillas are still points not used on attack because Flotillas bring nothing to the damage game outside of BCC.

Seriously the activation order was designed to punish players that put all their points into one or two ships. It wasn't an unintentional mistake, it was a purposefully designed game mechanic that works most of the time.

12 minutes ago, Sybreed said:

the thing is: It's possible that FFG's way to "pass your turn" in Armada is to actually activate a flotilla. It's very possible that what you call a MSU with 2-3 flotillas and 1 or 2 combat ships is actually FFG's definition of a "quality list".

It's just that, instead of passing your turn for free, you have to "pay" for it, by activating a flotilla instead.

I agree. I think that the flotilla is the intended solution. You get what is effectively a pass, but 1) you have to pay for it, 2) it presents a vulnerability that can be exploited by destroying the very fragile ship, 3) it looks thematic on the table, and 4) it brings a whole other unrelated dimension of fleet support along with it.

Now it may be that they need to introduce more stuff to make taking several flotillas more of a liability to keep the numbers down or something. I actually am starting to think that Sloane might do this. But I don't think a pass system is what we need in Armada.

Did Liberty MC80s stop being a thing? They wreck flotillas (and a lot of other small ships for that matter) so long as you're willing to use them. Did they get less good at some point?

9 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

I agree. I think that the flotilla is the intended solution. You get what is effectively a pass, but 1) you have to pay for it, 2) it presents a vulnerability that can be exploited by destroying the very fragile ship, 3) it looks thematic on the table, and 4) it brings a whole other unrelated dimension of fleet support along with it.

Now it may be that they need to introduce more stuff to make taking several flotillas more of a liability to keep the numbers down or something. I actually am starting to think that Sloane might do this. But I don't think a pass system is what we need in Armada.

the only downside is that it works until you start losing ships. Then, it's a downward spiral where staying relevant in the fight becomes more and more difficult...

Is a list with one pimped Dodonna BC with 5 flotillas and squadrons what we really want to play?

I don't. But it's quite effective.

These are all arguments against fleet diversity! This is not to say it's wrong, but if flotillas are the "intended" solution (which I have doubts about), then we are saying the desired endgame is that all fleets should be 50% plus flotillas.

I agree that is internally balanced, but that goes to my point about low macro-variety. From a sales standpoint, it also harms FFG in the long-term, because if that many points are essentially eaten by default at the start of list construction, there is less room for future ships and less argument to take many kinds of ships.

I will again repeat my point and suggest the arguments raised against it are, in fact, confirmation I am right! If the flotilla is the "intended" solution, we are permanently locked in a flotilla-spam, squadron or comms-net spam meta, and a huge variety of potential fleet builds do not exist in practice. Yes, this is balanced, but it will severely limit macro-variety and, as a prediction, both reduce future sales and the popularity of armada to the point that the game will decline dramatically.