13 minutes ago, Madaghmire said:

I'm in favor of a pass rule. Too often things just go down screwy. I recommend two puffs before a pass. Im so sick of people getting three, even four puffs before a pass. It really makes me feel like I have no agency in whats going on at the table. If you just make it puff-puff-pass you ensure that both sides get a better draw.

Looking for playtesters to help me look into this.

Sorry I don't do gate way drugs. Next you'll want me to inject a dab directly into my veins. McGruff the Crime Doge told me what's up.

The reality is the activation spam creates a negative play experience. I makes the games last far longer than they should. The first few rounds are a bore and the guy that didn't activate spam gets to go get coffee for 15 minutes while the other guy moves all his crap.

This needs a fix. A pass mechanic or making flotilla points count as squad points is needed. The former would take away the advantage of the activation spam while the later would simple limit how much spam can be done.

8 minutes ago, Mep said:

The reality is the activation spam creates a negative play experience. I makes the games last far longer than they should. The first few rounds are a bore and the guy that didn't activate spam gets to go get coffee for 15 minutes while the other guy moves all his crap.

This needs a fix. A pass mechanic or making flotilla points count as squad points is needed. The former would take away the advantage of the activation spam while the later would simple limit how much spam can be done.

This is why I developed a list that was specifically capable of doing damage to the enemy with the first activation of the game.

First turn a Nice warmup for you?

Not anymore.

Guys, here's a question I haven’t seen raised anywhere: has anyone tried playing the game with alternating initiative? What sort of impact does that have?

4 minutes ago, thecactusman17 said:

Guys, here's a question I haven’t seen raised anywhere: has anyone tried playing the game with alternating initiative? What sort of impact does that have?

2nd player wins.

4 minutes ago, thecactusman17 said:

Guys, here's a question I haven’t seen raised anywhere: has anyone tried playing the game with alternating initiative? What sort of impact does that have?

I havn't, mostly because FFG themselves have said that version of the game is for use when there are no objectives in play, because it removes the 1st player advantage skew that the 2nd Player mitigates through Objectives.

If you're playing with passing iniatiave and objectives, with the assumption that the player who Starts as Player 2 is always player 2...... Man, do they have a GOOD TIME.

35 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

But isn't that unfairly forcing activations onto someone who has never puffed before? requiring them to puff twice when they don't even know if this is the game for them?

This is a fair point. More playtesting required.

33 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

Sorry I don't do gate way drugs. Next you'll want me to inject a dab directly into my veins. McGruff the Crime Doge told me what's up.

McGruff had the most epic rage quit of all time. Made Admiral Nelson look like Ensign Crusher. If you wanna listen to him, thats on you. But I'd consider the source, as it were.

I am not opposed to the idea but I suspect all the balance and play testing has revolved around not passing. Obviously they did it in IA but lets be honest that game is no where near as deep as Armada. FFG would not make a change like this until they tested other options that dont cause them to update the Armada core rules. Be patient, I am sure we will see another FAQ that will hopefully address some of the current issues.

If you changed it to alternating initiatives, you'd have some interesting effects. Especially if first player - second player also switched. A few select objectives might need to be reworded.

First, we'd see an increase in objectives that create a deployment advantage or a first turn decision that impacts the remainder of the game. This is simply because those advantages could not then be explored by the opposing player.

Second, we'd see combat ships on both sides become more viable with the ability to get at least one first or even last-first attack off each game. A big ISD, VSD or Liberty that can't get a target is difficult to justify in competition but if you could maneuver it to guarantee a big turn you'd look at it harder.

Third, we'd see squadron screens as being more useful and capable of getting a last-first activation. This would make a broader selection of squads more useful.

Fourth, this would have a positive impact on slightly curtailing the need for high activation fleets by reducing the all-encompassing need for first player turn delays every round. A gap of 1-2 ships in a fleet would not present such a large activation advantage. Especially if those ships could then be destroyed as the first action of a subsequent turn.

1 hour ago, Ginkapo said:

All fine, but opportunity ISNT rare if you build differently.

Which leads to a narrow band of "competitive viable" lists, which brings us full circle to why we care about this topic

Camp 3 is no problem found, gitgud.

You can put me in there.

7 hours ago, Caldias said:

I agree that quality of activations matter, but completely disagree that MSUs would be dead. You still have activations, you still get to use them. If your opponent is passing and taking hits from it, how does that somehow neuter MSU? I can see your point to some degee Re: squadrons,

I actually think an upgrade card that acts as a pass would only exacerbate the current problem, depending on slot and cost. Now someone can spam flotillas and some upgrade card that lets you pass.

Pass upgrade can only be used on Medium and Large Ships.

There problem solved

1 minute ago, Kiwi Rat said:

Pass upgrade can only be used on Medium and Large Ships.

There problem solved

I think that this sort of issue really has a negative impact on many players. First, you must have available upgrade slots on ships. Second, by making this only effect medium and large ships you still have isues of 2+3 fleets with 1-2 big ships and then several smaller ships to fill out activations.

Also, you make triple ISDs or triple AF2s six activation fleets.

1 minute ago, thecactusman17 said:

I think that this sort of issue really has a negative impact on many players. First, you must have available upgrade slots on ships. Second, by making this only effect medium and large ships you still have isues of 2+3 fleets with 1-2 big ships and then several smaller ships to fill out activations.

Also, you make triple ISDs or triple AF2s six activation fleets.

Put a black dot on the upgrade card, making it unique.

There another problem solved

1 minute ago, Kiwi Rat said:

Put a black dot on the upgrade card, making it unique.

There another problem solved

then the update becomes so good, it's mandatory, like Demo.

Problem solved by creating another one.

Annnnd that's what I call power creep.

5 hours ago, BrobaFett said:

How does making it an upgrade card not just make it an auto include?

Does it really improve list variety when both players can include it and now we are right back where we started only with 10 or so less points to build variety into our fleets?

I just don't see a way that fixes this issue without a core rules change.

What if you introduced a set of objectives that low-activation lists could take, that would blunt the problem?

You'd need all three, but something like this as an assault objective...

" Setup: After deploying fleets, the second player chooses 2 of the first player's ships to be objective ships.

Special Rule: During the turn, any time the second player would be required to activate a ship, he may choose to 'pass' if both of the first player's objective ships have not activated, and the first player has an equal-or-less number of activations remaining"

...not sure what you'd do for blue and yellow, but something along those lines. As objectives, they are not obvious auto-includes (I mean, what ISD list wouldn't *rather* have Advanced Gunnery if they knew they weren't fighting an MSU list?), and they also require a strong bid for second player to be meaningful (which can be quite a painful choice, at times).

7 minutes ago, Kiwi Rat said:

Put a black dot on the upgrade card, making it unique.

There another problem solved

A single activation pass for a single faction. That's totally going to fix high-activation issues.

2 minutes ago, Sybreed said:

then the update becomes so good, it's mandatory, like Demo.

Problem solved by creating another one.

Annnnd that's what I call power creep.

Well various upgrades that FFG has introduced, has over time created a power creep, as people had found new deadly combos, with new and old upgrade cards, so it shouldn't have come as a surprise for you

Just now, Kiwi Rat said:

Well various upgrades that FFG has introduced, has over time created a power creep, as people had found new deadly combos, with new and old upgrade cards, so it shouldn't have come as a surprise for you

Power creep is a negative aspect. It may be hard for some people to understand this, but Demolisher and Major Rhymer have had significant impacts on introducing new ships and abilities for Imperials. No doubt Rieekan/Yavaris will do the same for Rebels.

2 minutes ago, thecactusman17 said:

Power creep is a negative aspect. It may be hard for some people to understand this, but Demolisher and Major Rhymer have had significant impacts on introducing new ships and abilities for Imperials. No doubt Rieekan/Yavaris will do the same for Rebels.

yup, anything that's considered power creep is bad IMO. Hence why I wish for a change in the rules although it isn't very elegant as well.

Something along the lines of "if you have less than 5 ships activations, you may pass your turn once per round"

1 hour ago, User1138 said:

Would that mean anyone can pass at any time? I don't that that would really help. You should only be allowed to pass if you have fewer activations left than the opponent otherwise it comes down to activation advantage again.

That is a consideration, certainly. I think, however, that handing your opponent the ability to end the round would counteract it, somewhat.

To pass or not to pass that is the question

On one side a two ship list (even a one ship list, yes Im looking at you SSD) should be viable against other lists with 4 or more activations.

On the other side, one of the main motivations for playing a MSU lists, is to get an activation advantage.

So we have this Asymetrical gaming style in Armada, that we all wish to be balanced, without power creeps, where player skill and roll of the dice, will be the main deciding factor. Rather that some obscure upgrade combo, turns into a OP monster everybody plays at tourny's, killing of the diversity of the game.

I assume that FFG staff does their best to offer us players with a well balanced game as possible, but as more upgrades is introduced into the game, more varibles of combos is created that FFG could not have forseen, and some unfortunately askew the game to such an degree, that they are classifed as OP.

But as long as we give FFG a well balanced feedback, when we discover a to OP combo, then they will hopefully attempt to correct it, without creating another OP combo or over nerfing a combo that makes it UP and no longer a viable option to play with.

Lets talk about activation's. As having high activation's, or more activation's than you're opponent seems to play such a big part in the game these days. What would you say to the concept of "passing"?

The concept of "passing" is when a player has more activation's than their opponent. "passing" a turn doesn't use up any ship "turn", you just opt to pass a go. You can only "pass" if you have less activation's than you're opponent.
If its you're go, you can opt to "pass" so it goes back to my go until we both have the same amount of activation's left until the end of the round. If the game has an even amount of activation's on each side, its much more down to the individual player decision which will affect the game, making it more of a game of skill/tactical choices. Which is what the game should be about.

Having more (or purposely designing a fleet) where you will have more activation's than the other player seems like a really "beardy" way of playing the game because its not tactical. It takes away the tactical skill of the game from the player if you have more activation's. If I have two or more activation's than you, I will always move my big ships last (or most important ship) and make sure you're ships will move into range first, thus giving me prime shots/maneuverability.

It seems to me that one of the "Core" elements of the game is either "bent" or broken when used with high activation fleets. Why should a player get an additional advantage just because they have more ships than you? Why should a player get penalized when designing a fleet which only has three or less ships? Wouldn't it be cool to have the fleet which is two ISD and loads of squadrons? Don't bother, because you're ships will always be out maneuvered because the other player will have 2-4 more activation's than you.

If both players have equal amount of activation's, then the game is actually impacted on player choice, usually resulting in who is the better player (a game of tactical skill). A better player weighs up the pros and cons of which ship to move first in any round but this choice is arbitrary when you can just have 2-3 18pts flotillas (or 23 for imperials)which means you will always force the opponents hand by out activating them.

The best games is when you (as the player) had to make actual hard decisions and come out the victor. Rewarding the player for actual tactical skill on the board, or when you lose because you made a bad call and the opponent capitalizes on it. Those the games that people talk about.

I think introducing a rule like this would go a long way to allowing lower activation fleets back into the game - which in turn would help disincentivise flotillas and make a wider variety of fleet compositions more viable.
You want players to come up with new ship compositions and see how they work on the table. Its (or used to be) one of the things which was a fun element of the game, designing a fleet and seeing what works well, what doesn't, or just making a fleet which sounds fun. But when you have super cheap ships which gives you activation's, the advantage they give is far to impactful on the game. You could always up the price of them, but I don't think they were intentionally designed so you get more activation's. Which is reflected in their actual combat effectiveness and support on the table.

If you had a "passing" rule flotillas would still have their place in a fleet, as a light support ship which helps with squadrons and can give the edge in combat (with slicer tools or bomber command). It just means people would probably only bring two maximum. With the "passing" rule people would hopefully think outside the box and come up with new fleet idea's (you know, what happened in Wave I-II).Hell the Interdictor might actually see some use xD

4 hours ago, Undeadguy said:

That's not what the upgrades do that I was referring to. If you can't tell, I'm against upgrade based passing. Rule based passing works much better.

I gotcha I quoted you by accident and couldn't get it to go away