Just now, SabineKey said:

Expensive, but oh man, does it hit like a truck. What cannon?

Tractor on him, Flechette on a partner (usually Ryad). It helps guarantee the Tractor will hit, giving the target -1 AGI, maybe even moving them into range 1 if small, and then the whole squad goes monkey-feces on the poor tractored individual. My 3rd ship is usually a Scimitar TIE bomber with Ion Missiles for blocking and hopefully a good ion on a large ship or high value target. You can see the list here- at a discussion of defenders:

I think they should tweak some rules to positive effect, but realistically they would be a few errata cycles away.

It's an accretive process, you flatten the top down, see what happens, flatten the new top down, see what happens... a few of those and you've really done a lot to compress the range in power level and increase diversity of options.

Without actually banning anything, I think there are lots of changes necessary to make X-Wing as good as I think it can be. It could be done in one FAQ update, but there would be a lot of red text.

Some things need nerfing. Some need buffing. Some just need a price change. I think they'll get around to most of it eventually, somehow.

Honestly yes, but this will *always* be the case. There's no such thing as perfect balance in a game with as varied a meta as this; if you nerf the top dogs and buff the useless crud, new stuff will become top dogs and useless crud purely by dint of you having done that. And then you'll be a round of errata from perfection again.

39 minutes ago, DagobahDave said:

Without actually banning anything, I think there are lots of changes necessary to make X-Wing as good as I think it can be. It could be done in one FAQ update, but there would be a lot of red text.

Some things need nerfing. Some need buffing. Some just need a price change. I think they'll get around to most of it eventually, somehow.

Well now that pen & ink errata has been made there are a whole lot of different corrections that have been done. Still it now requires all players to either have a copy of the latest FAQ or a printout that can be validated as up to date. Still with that there are still some things that well not exactly cannot be changed (clearly FFG could change everything and anything they wanted) but there is no precedent to changing them. So without said precedence it might as well be not an option.

• attribute values printed on card; there are many scenarios where such a change could have been made. The Falcon and title comes to mind, the HWK-290. Still there was a reason why most upgrade cards do not change more than one attribute and no more than 2. Sure a new version of the card could have been released such as the Hero Poe in HotR expansion which changed both pilot skill and point cost. Still that change was with a special release expansion. So there is still no president of such changes via a new FAQ.
• printed point cost; that would be one more thing to keep track off. Now of course there are more than one ways to adjust a point value without a pen & ink change. The most wanted list for Android Netrunner is a good example.
• Adding maneuvers that use a maneuver template other than the 11 maneuver template; Sure Star trek attack wing has taken the liberty for having ships with their own maneuver template and uses the exact same system. Still I see FFG trying to get the most out of their current set of templates with reversal maneuvers, S-loops, and T-rolls.
• changing upgrade card slot types; As much as I may like the B-wing to be switched from modification to title that is still not likely as it is more than a simple pen & ink change as the back side shows the upgrade type. However the back of the card doesn't really contribute to the gameplay other than indicating a discarded upgrade.
• Changing ship base size or firing arcs; You will literary have to change the model to do such a thing. Sure the model is not mechanically important as the base and tile is enough to play the game mechanically, but I am sure almost all players will agree that the aesthetics the model provides to the game is just as important.
• Changing ship type; Now sure there are pilot cross overs in other expansions, but again that is an expansion not a FAQ. So there won't be an errata to all of a sudden put Marek Steele in a TIE Interceptor or TIE Aggressor.
• Changing dials; now upgrade cards can be added to give the same effect as a maneuver on the dial that wasn't there. Still the dial is rather set in stone.

8 hours ago, Kdubb said:

I'm curious about this and would be interested if you could expound a little bit more.

So what was the issue that SC2 had that SC didn't? Did SC2 try to buff every thing that saw less than medium play, and nerf everything that saw more than medium play, while SC just let things be from start to finish?

SC and SC2 is a very different case to be honest, since map layout is very important to balance. Map layout on Xwing is not even remotely comparable to this. Not to speak that SC BW was only truly balanced (sort of) years after the dust from the expansion settled (people had figured out the game enough + map balance is found), that compared to SC2 where power creep has been more relevant.

In short, SCBW is balanced because the game was left to the community to balance through other means (map layout), while SC2 balance is still on blizzard's umbrella. There is also a component of power creep due to the 2 expansion cyle and game mechanics which actually do not fit into the game where i don't see the map layouts ever helping with.

Since Xwing won't ever be finished, i don't see how you can compare it to SC BW. Maybe that maneuvering should be top 1 priority, akin to how macro is the most important in that game is, since it weed outs most imbalances on the medium-low skill brackets which is where the majority of the population plays.

11 hours ago, Razgriz25thinf said:

Ok so you nerf Rebel Regen, TLT, and Sabine. Possibly Biggs as well.

What do rebels use, then? All of the bad options we don't use because they're very obviously inferior to everything else both other factions regularly use? You do realize that encompasses everything that makes the Rebel faction viable in tournament, right?

Yeah, lets just say you don't work for the X-Wing team for a very good reason.

The only way those nerfs work, is with a simultaneous buff to... well, basically everything that relies on those things to be good. ARC-170s, T-70s, Y-Wings, K-Wings, X-Wings, etc etc would have to be buffed to be competitive without them.

Right? I mean Sabine is the only reason we see bombs in this game now. I don't understand we go years without anybody using bombs and now we finally get to use them, and all of a sudden people losing their s***. It's not like bombs with sabine are even broken... just strong... and only on a niche ship or two.

It's not like you actually need to fly well or time your approach or sacrifice a crew slot or think 2-3 turns ahead to get your bomb off. Oh wait, you do.

"The next big thing" is going to be large base boosting ship.

They are still strong, if you are going to level down the field, EU, predator han/chireneu are back in action and double lancers might be there with them

Might as well add:

R3-A2
Kylo
PtL
Crack Shot
Veteran Instincts
Guidance Chips
Biggs
Fenn Rau
Inquisitor
Jumpmaster
Corran Horn


You know, just to be safe...

Short answer?

No.

Slightly longer answer?

No. New things will always be added to the game that will have some sort of knock on effect to stuff that is already in the game.

I now return you to your weekly "I know better than the game designers thread".

Cheers
Baaa

Just now, Baaa said:

I now return you to your weekly "I know better than the game designers thread".

To be fair, some subset of players probably do know better than the game designers. While I'm sure the designers try their very best and want a well-balanced game, they may play far fewer games at the highest competitive levels than some of the top-level players. FFG employees typically don't play in large competitive events, so unless they sit on Vassal some nights and get games in against some of the best, who knows what their on-table experience is limited to (perhaps just playing a handful of other FFG employees). Whereas players like Paul H, Nathan E, Jeff B, Phil H, Duncan H, and other consistent top-level performers have in most cases been playing at the highest level of competitive play for years, practicing for events as metas morph and theory-crafting and following event results. When a new designer moves to X-Wing, who knows how focused or familiar they were with X-Wing prior to being moved to the project.

Given this, it's not unreasonable to think that some small subset of the top X-Wing players may, in fact, have better intuitions about what's balanced or unbalanced or what will work or won't work than the designers. Does that mean most of the casual players who are most vocal on these boards know better than the designers? Certainly not.

That moment you realize that all the people on the forum calling for nerfs... are Ewoks

Ewoks are so OP. The really want us to play X-wing with logs, rocks and bow and arrows and nothing else.

My list would be:

TLT (your attack dice cannot be modified)

Extra Munitions (put a Munitions counter on EM to discard when you use a Torp/Missile/Bomb upgrade, not a counter on each Torp/Missile/Bomb)

Attani Mindlink (only unstressed ships share tokens)

and maybe R3-A2 (triggers after an attack hits).

There's really two things there - firstly trying to keep TLT and Ordnance in use but discouraging people from building lists that ONLY use TLT/Ordnance to hopefully have more balanced squad building and more use of in-arc primary attacks. Secondly continue to the trend of errata that makes stress matter more (Zuckuss, /x7) but also nerfing the current easiest/surest way of applying stress as it's very limiting on who can use it.

5 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

To be fair, some subset of players probably do know better than the game designers. While I'm sure the designers try their very best and want a well-balanced game, they may play far fewer games at the highest competitive levels than some of the top-level players. FFG employees typically don't play in large competitive events, so unless they sit on Vassal some nights and get games in against some of the best, who knows what their on-table experience is limited to (perhaps just playing a handful of other FFG employees). Whereas players like Paul H, Nathan E, Jeff B, Phil H, Duncan H, and other consistent top-level performers have in most cases been playing at the highest level of competitive play for years, practicing for events as metas morph and theory-crafting and following event results. When a new designer moves to X-Wing, who knows how focused or familiar they were with X-Wing prior to being moved to the project.

Given this, it's not unreasonable to think that some small subset of the top X-Wing players may, in fact, have better intuitions about what's balanced or unbalanced or what will work or won't work than the designers. Does that mean most of the casual players who are most vocal on these boards know better than the designers? Certainly not.

Having dealt with FFG designers in the past it's not actually that hard to know the game better than them. They were terrifying.

-The game will never be perfect. Perfection is unattainable.

-It could be a lot better, however, most people have very different ideas of what exactly is better. Better for me might be garbage to the next guy. Then of course, the next guy after that likes the former's garbage. One man's trash......

-More play testing. Will it ever happen? I keep hearing that FFG has limited time and resources for such. I find that laughable when you are a game design company trying to make games that appeal to the masses.

-Do away with the Rube Goldberg design crap. Watching someone go through many different actions and triggers on their turn bogs the game down, and it's **** depressing to see that when they are done, their ships have multiple focus/evade tokens on them. I'd personally love to see them change the rule on that. No ship may have 2 of the same token on it ever. I don't care how it gets there, it's wrong. It's crazy to see a ship sitting on 4 focus tokens and an evade too. One and one, fine. Not several.

I'm not seeing the issue with regen as things stand. With attacks being generally stronger than they were when regen was at its height, and strong alpha strikes still being very much part of the game, you've got to put some work in to get value from any regen upgrades. TLT Miranda might be the one exception to this, but if you're looking at slightly toning down TLTs then that might quickly stop being an issue as well.

Hmmm....Allow me to be among the few that actually responds to the OP.

Nerf Regen: In my opinion, the only ship for which Regen is a recurring problem is Miranda, and only because TLT. The ships that can and do take Regen Astromechs (T-65, T-70, ARC) have low enough toughness and little enough repositioning capability that the current baseline strength of dials and red dice makes them vulnerable to having that 1-shield-per-turn quickly overwhelmed. So, with weaker Regen, we'd see notably fewer instances of the T-70 and Norra. The ARC would still frequently see play with Braylen, but the T-70 would become a rare beast indeed.

Nerf Sabine: I think not much would change. When used for Damage in K-wings, she is merely icing on an already-pretty-good cake.

Nerf TLT: Low-agi PWTs would scream back with a VENGEANCE. TLT and big alphas are their two biggest bugears, and TLT is generally the easier one to fit in a list.

Nerf Mindlink: You'd see more Push the Limit. Both of them are pure action economy; Mindlink simply costs less and doesn't necessarily glue the ship to greens, at the cost of depending on wingmen for the extra action. If you then ALSO nerfed Push the Limit, some small arc dodgers would completely disappear. Interceptors and Protectorate Starfighters, for example, live and die by their actions.

Nerf Biggs: I think tactics would change, but the balance of ships you see would not. In my experience, Biggs is not generally used to make non-viable ships viable; instead, he is used to make viable ships even better by giving them +6 HP and possibly higher agility. All that would change is that the sole T-65 pilot to see regular play would appear less.

Taken together: If all of the above are implemented, I'd foresee Rebels starting to lean more and more on their strong large-based ships, in much the way that the Scum currently do. Rebels don't have much Agility anyway, so without Regen and with weaker TLTs they'd lean on heaps of Hull/Shields. Falcons, Dash, and Ghost beckon invitingly, and clamor for Engine Upgrade. Imperials would change least--RAC would gain a bit, Defenders would gain a bit; with weaker PTL you'll rarely Soontir or Inquisitor again. Scum, too, would change little; you'd see fewer Protectorates, but otherwise they'd continue to use the staples of Jumpmaster, YV-666, and Lancer, none of which really need the action economy of Mindlink and/or PTL to do good work.

Quick question for all those screaming "No More Nerfs!": is the game better now after the big four nerfs?

Is there a Mindlink list without a Jumpmaster that is a problem? Serious question. The JM5K and its insane dial and EPT at bargain-basement prices seems to be the actual culprit here.

If you errata these four cards, then you will have the community clamoring about the next four cards. for on and on and on. Just because a card sees high level play often, doesnt meen it should be removed from the pool. I'd much rather see all the unused cards at the other end of the spectrum get some love. Your saboteurs, etc

3 minutes ago, gamblertuba said:

Quick question for all those screaming "No More Nerfs!": is the game better now after the big four nerfs?

Is there a Mindlink list without a Jumpmaster that is a problem? Serious question. The JM5K and its insane dial and EPT at bargain-basement prices seems to be the actual culprit here.

It is. MIndlink itself is not the problem, and I'll be really ticked if MIndlink gets hit by the Jumpmaster, especially just as the new Scyks come out.

9 hours ago, LordBlades said:

IMO it's only a matter of time until the next meta-defining card pops out because FFG, with the current approach and resources (manpower and time) makes these mistakes from time to time.

Of course. In a game that currently has hundreds of "moving parts" it is inevitable that something will break again. It will either be the actual release, or more than likely un unforeseen confluence of abilities (hence the butterfly quote).

My point was to shut down the asinine assertion that FFG does not playtest and does not care.

11 hours ago, Kdubb said:

Let me bold some key sentences in the comment you quoted since you seem to seriously be failing to understand what I am seeking to discuss here.

So every single one of your points about ships no longer being usable due to the changes are void, since I never even state how big the changes would be. I simply state any change would keep the cards strong but fair, which means whatever the reader believes that sort of change would be, it would be. For some, it may mean something so minor it would basically be pointless to make. That's for you to decide. I will go ahead and edit the original post to make sure this is clear since apparently I have to make that clear.

Also, wanted to point out a few things concerning a couple of your argumentative points, even though your argument is misaligned.

- The attack shuttle is a key component to one of the strongest lists in the game right now, Kanan + Biggs, so it's fair to say it is seen plenty.

- Last time I saw a B-wing would be on vassal a couple days ago where Blair Bunke's 2Bs, 2 Zs, stresshog list is picking up steam.

- Cassian was in a top cut for a recent regional. But, I did say this was a stretch already, so... thanks for the "Lmao ok" anyways?

- Z-95s are always going to have a place as cheap filler/blockers. You scoff, but Airen Cracken was a key component in a regional winning list even before the FAQ change.

You say "strong but fair" implying that TLT, Sabine, Regen are unfair. I'm not sure why you zero'd in on these in particular as being the "unfair" things breaking the game that would be autoinclude on FFG's next imaginary FAQ to "make the game just right." Rebels aren't exactly dominating, and their only strong lists in any tournament setting rely on these things. You nerf this stuff without buffs elsewhere and rebels are gone. GONE. Fair now?

1. The attack shuttle is only a "key component" because it has to be with there with the phantom title to get your turret shot. If people could run kanan biggs normally without the attack shuttle/title restriction they probably would.

2. B-wings on vassal doesn't mean they'd suddenly still be viable after you kill biggs, tlt, regen, sabine.

3. But what was the other component of the Cassian list??? (Seriously I don't know.) Which regional was it?

4. I like Z's. They fill holes around lists. You think that Airen Cracken list woulda won without the Miranda you want to destroy? You think they would have even made the cut with a TLT-less, sabine less, regen-less Miranda? Seriously?

33 minutes ago, fiesta0618 said:

Nerf Sabine: I think not much would change. When used for Damage in K-wings, she is merely icing on an already-pretty-good cake.

Nobody played bombing K-wings to any good effect before Sabine. She makes them consistent and useable. I very much disagree that not much would change.

4 minutes ago, Gibbilo said:

Nobody played bombing K-wings to any good effect before Sabine. She makes them consistent and useable. I very much disagree that not much would change.

The assumption of the OP isn't that Sabine would disappear, merely change somehow. I assume that means she still adds a Bomb slot, and still adds damage. Whether it be range-limited, limited to bombs from her ship, or become based on a die roll is unknown; but in any of those cases, I'd stand by my guess. She'd still add something important, and still add much the same capability she does now...just a bit less so. Just as the /x7 nerf didn't kill Defenders, or make them disappear. The title just adds a little less than it used to.

9 hours ago, Kdubb said:

In other words, I'm trying to identify if we can see what would be the next round of cards players would complain about even before it gets to the point they are the newest boogie man, and if the trend would ever see an end, or if there is literally always going to be the next card down we will see as "OP". I have seen some solid arguments that yes, no matter the changes, there WILL always be a card that is perceived as an issue, but can we pinpoint what it would be if certain changes were to take place?

Well, to tackle your question head on, the answer is there is no answer.

I dare say that TLT is the current bugaboo. Personally I don't find the card all that offensive (and I mean that in an opinionated, not tactical, way), and I think that it is the "fix" that makes the Y-Wing useful again (or maybe for the first time?).

There will ALWAYS be the next card. There will always be a card that shines in terms of utility, effectiveness, and cost. It's like pouring out a wheelbarrow and trying to make sure none of the rocks end up on the top of the pile. The whole assumption and effort is asinine from the beginning.

As for pinpointing the card; well, it's a moving target. It will depend on what is currently in play, and as some have pointed out, what is currently in development that we have no idea about. TLT may be getting a gameplay based nerf that we have no idea about yet.

What matter most is that the game continues to evolve. Things will come and go, factions and ships will rise and fall, and ships will be left in the dust.

I think the biggest folly in this game is NOT design mistakes, but rather the notion that (and the ongoing effort to create a game where), post wheelbarrow dump, there should be no rocks on the bottom of the pile.