I am uncertain how to do the calculations for this, but I am happy to leave that to the statusticians. The devil will certainly be in the infinitely complex details.

What if a player's tourney ranking was modified by what they actually have in their list?

You want to play the meta hotness? Go ahead. But even though you pulled out more straight wins with your mindlink, the player 2 tables down scored higher tourney points with the hard fought yet more modest performance of his non-Biggs T-65 without a stressbot.

As interesting as this sounds, it seems almost impossible to implement because of 2 things.

The first is how do you weight things?

If you are doing it by the popular usage of the list then when it drops off due to the lack of usage it would suddenly become more powerful as it wouldn't have a score weighted against it as much.

the second is how do you determine what to have each ship or squad weighted at?

Similar to the first but if you give a better multiplier to the ships not seen often they will be seen more often thus requiring them to be re-weighted when the meta swings...... and what about brand new releases that haven't had a chance to find their place in the meta yet?

I see the intent of the suggestion, but I don't think it would actually accomplish it. Like CJKeys pointed out, the meta would flop all over the place, meaning the weights would need to be constantly reworked.

There would also be the problem of punishing people who came up with a "meta" list on their own rather than copied one. They used their ingenuity and knowledge to make a killer combo, but are then penalized because someone else came up with it first and made it popular.

there is also the question of how much change to a list is necessary before it is considered a different list, not just a mod of a meta list. This line needs to be set in stone, or huge arguments will break out over what is still too close to a meta list and what is not.

And finally, this feels like it takes emphasis away from actually rewarding skilled players, and places it on who has the weirdest list.

I don't especially think that this should become the new "normal," but it does have some value and there is precedent for it in other games. It's called "comp."

The best way I've seen Comp implemented is this: in addition to the squad points you have (100), you also have a budget of "comp points." The stronger a choice or combination is, the more comp points it will cost you.

For example, Stressbot might cost 1 comp. TLT might be 1 comp for the first, 2 for the second, and so on. The combination of Stressbot and TLT and BTL-A4 might be 3 comp (on top of the cost for TLT and Stressbot). And so on down the line.

In general, the best comp systems allow the strong combos to appear, but only if the rest of the list is weakened to compensate.

However, comp systems merely change the meta, rather than functioning as a true rebalancing. As such, they are a good way to "mix things up," but are just as subject to powergaming as any other static system, and so can get just as stale if not updated or changed. Plus, a good comp system can be quite challenging to implement. Overlook even one combo, and you can guarantee that that one thing will appear at your event and the unlucky opponents of it, who had been expecting a lower overall power level, will be a bit miffed.

Trying to implement this would certainly be problematic, but I think the math could be done. There are stats for frequency of ship, pilot, and upgrades used in tournaments out there so cards would have a value based on how frequently they're taken. Just average those "taken in x% of lists" numbers and you've got a 0-100% score (though of course neither of those are actually achievable unless the game gets reeeaaallly bad first).

The question is what to do with it? How do you weigh that against actual in-game performance? I think maybe you could use it for initial pairings so powerful lists don't get a freebie in the first round. Maybe a tie breaker?

A lot of leg work for very small influence ultimately.

Ah yes, comp. A new and novel idea that's never been tried in tournament play before. I bet this would end controversy and create harmony

though in X-Wing it'd be easy enough. The more popular the pilot in top table play, the bigger the penalty of using it... creates a fluid meta of change (or rotation)... just not sure if the potential impact is worth the headache.

3 minutes ago, Lobokai said:

Ah yes, comp. A new and novel idea that's never been tried in tournament play before. I bet this would end controversy and create harmony

I would never ever claim it isn't divisive. I'm not even confident that I could unreservedly call comp a "good idea." But it is an effective way to make extremely targeted alterations to the meta, which is the general thrust of the OP's intent.

14 minutes ago, fiesta0618 said:

I would never ever claim it isn't divisive. I'm not even confident that I could unreservedly call comp a "good idea." But it is an effective way to make extremely targeted alterations to the meta, which is the general thrust of the OP's intent.

The problem with every comp system is it's inherently subjective. No game is perfectly balanced and trying to add an extra layer to try to balance it is kind of a flawed premise. It's imbalanced due to human error, is there any reason to believe the comp layer will balance it? You're just as likely to create new balance issues as you are to correct them.

That's why I figure any venture down this rabbit hole should really be as number driven as possible, the panel of people approach just has too many biases loaded into it to function as it's supposed to.

I think Wave 11 will help out with the faction balance. Now the only question is will it include style balance. Wave 11 is strikingly similar to Wave 5 in that aspect. No doubt Imperials will come back up in ranks but the whole dodge arc and re-position style will be taking a back seat.

As for rankings, I'm not exactly sure how will that fix the meta. Is it going to give more MOV to a person that doesn't use a popular list in tournaments? Still even if that was the case a win is always a win. Rankings are really only for when worlds get so large that 8 rounds of swiss and a top cut of 32 is no longer enough. Even then I don't think basing it on list composition would be the best course of action.

Nah, I am at this point pretty sure we need Armada style objectives added to squadbuilding, because having a great number of ships viable and distinct in deathmatch alone is just not realistic.

Here is how you could do it: Have some pilot format cards spelling out the objectives. You can add one to your 100 point squadron and depending on wether it is easier or harder than straight up deathmatching, they either add points to your list or cost something. They would need to be relatively simple and well tested, though.

This expansion could be made through a new core-type of set. Cards and cardboard would obviously be better, but that is not going to happen.

Thank you all for the discussion. I'd not heard of comp before.

I do also like the idea of emphasizing scenario play.

Honestly, I think the best balance fix is for FFG to simply redo the pt cost of various pilots and upgrades, but they resist this for some reason.

The real trouble with this is who rates the lists, and when?

Regardless of whether it's a fair system or not, and regardless of whether you could get people to agree whether THEIR version of $top meta list was ACTUALLY strong enough to get adverse weighting or not, the administration of it would be near impossible in tournaments of hundreds of participants.

When it comes to comp there's often an argument that perfection is impossible so why bother? But you can achieve much better. People would find the cracks in any comp list but that's not to say it is not worthwhile. You can get surprisingly good comp from subjective scoring. Even a system where each opponent scores your list for cheese level actually works surprisingly well. But there are costs to any comp system, added complexity to list building or scoring. Complaints about objectivity, even if unfounded, get very wearying.

I am not sure that X-wing would benefit from comp. Now using scenarios in tournament play is something I'd love to see. 6 obstacles line up and fight is boring.

11 hours ago, Marinealver said:

I think Wave 11 will help out with the faction balance. Now the only question is will it include style balance. Wave 11 is strikingly similar to Wave 5 in that aspect. No doubt Imperials will come back up in ranks but the whole dodge arc and re-position style has be taking a back seat.

Although I agree with you completely, I HATE this.

What WAS great about the game was the factions all being unique, that's all but gone away; seems the designers are getting lazy. The Empire should have highly manuverable, hard to hit slippery ships that hit back hard. The Rebels should be tanky do it all ships with droids assisting them to outlast the onslaught so with hope they can take the day. The Scum should be tricky synergy, back-handed criminals using tactics to steal the victory rather than straight-up fight for it. But h***, they're all becoming the same faction; originality is dying on the vine. The Aggressor is the poster child for this lack of design integrity and creativity.