Hey Everybody,

I played in a casual store tournament yesterday and there was a discussion, that I agree with, that upgrade cards with the assign a X whatever should be FAQ'd to say perform a free X action. I was playing Dengar and was forced to fly through an asteroid. Not a problem, but because I had Expertise and K4 on board, all I had to do is perform a green to get me through the rock and I still had fully modded attacks, which i think is crazy and bad for the game. I want FFG to reward good piloting/blocking, not reward herp derp imma Dengar. I understand that K4 is an earlyish upgrade card, but surely they can FAQ all assign cards to now read perform free X action.

I liked the changes to the recent FAQ, Defenders can now be out piloted and blocked for reward etc, but I think that this could be the next step in upping the piloting game.

I am sure people will just write nope and leave it at that, but I would love to hear what the more experienced players have to say.

15 minutes ago, Archangelspiv said:

I am sure people will just write nope and leave it at that, but I would love to hear what the more experienced players have to say.

Speaking as a more experienced player: Nope.

I can see the argument for K4, though I disagree and believe the Jumpmaster is the problem that should be focused on. It's not a problem on a YV-666, or a G1-A. Shadow Caster is arguable, but not being able to do it while going slow is a bit of a drawback.

Anyway, a blanket rule change is an absolutely awful idea; a lot of the effects are worded to assign tokens specifically because they need to work through stress. Soontir, for example, is a blank card with this change. Let's deal with the actual problems rather than mess up everything.

Just now, DR4CO said:

Speaking as a more experienced player: Nope.

I can see the argument for K4, though I disagree and believe the Jumpmaster is the problem that should be focused on. But a blanket rule change is an absolutely awful idea; a lot of the effects are worded to assign tokens specifically because they need to work through stress. Soontir, for example, is a blank card with this change.

That's an extremely valid point, I wasn't thinking about Pilot abilities, more upgrade cards, but I do see where it can come into conflict with a blanket statement.

Should upgrade cards be affected and leave Pilot abilities alone?

Maybe. If a particular ship/pilot combo is getting too OP. I think there's a need for a variety of game mechanics. The "one size fits all" can limit design and restrict development.

FFG is handling the nerf stick carefully and I think that's a good thing. We can only look backwards at the game. Our knowledge of what's upcoming is extremely limited and with this combination of 20/20 hindsight and zero foesight, coupled with the lack of patience, we have a tendency to ask or demand changes that 1) aren't really necessary or 2) will be made moot by future waves.

K4 and Expertise is a strong combo but not OP. Have some faith in FFG's ability to keep things fairly well balanced.

Here's to hoping Stoneface, I went 4-0 with my list, but I felt a little bad that opponents were flying extremely well, but with the combos I was pulling off it was nullifying their flying.

1 hour ago, Archangelspiv said:

Hey Everybody,

I played in a casual store tournament yesterday and there was a discussion, that I agree with, that upgrade cards with the assign a X whatever should be FAQ'd to say perform a free X action. I was playing Dengar and was forced to fly through an asteroid. Not a problem, but because I had Expertise and K4 on board, all I had to do is perform a green to get me through the rock and I still had fully modded attacks, which i think is crazy and bad for the game. I want FFG to reward good piloting/blocking, not reward herp derp imma Dengar. I understand that K4 is an earlyish upgrade card, but surely they can FAQ all assign cards to now read perform free X action.

I liked the changes to the recent FAQ, Defenders can now be out piloted and blocked for reward etc, but I think that this could be the next step in upping the piloting game.

I am sure people will just write nope and leave it at that, but I would love to hear what the more experienced players have to say.

Changing to performa free target lock action on k4 actually wouldn't stop you getting fully modified shots after flying through an asteroid. Or make them vulnerable to blocking. It would only make them vulnerable to stress.

They sort of did.

It is a different mechanic, but not necessarily "bad"

A big thing is what happens when something else "triggers" or not from an action... ie if K4 was perform a target lock action... Then Dengar could green, target lock, push the limit for "X", clear stress from Green, then do another action. Do you think that is "better" ???

But K4 as an action would make Dengar more vulnerable to stress (not rocks or bumping though, per above)

So different, but not necessarily bad or worse

19 minutes ago, Dave Grant said:

It is a different mechanic, but not necessarily "bad"

A big thing is what happens when something else "triggers" or not from an action... ie if K4 was perform a target lock action... Then Dengar could green, target lock, push the limit for "X", clear stress from Green, then do another action. Do you think that is "better" ???

But K4 as an action would make Dengar more vulnerable to stress (not rocks or bumping though, per above)

So different, but not necessarily bad or worse

K4 happens after you execute the maneuver, so you've already cleared stress from the green when it triggers. So if you PTL off of it you stay stressed

29 minutes ago, Marinealver said:

They sort of did.

One upgrade hardly counts...

1 hour ago, Marinealver said:

They sort of did.

I wouldn't be surprised if they re-errata'd this back to it's old text in an upcoming FAQ.... for the time being. At least until they can fix the jumpmaster proper.

They are certainly not going to re-errata palp to make imperials competitive meta wise again.

7 minutes ago, FlyingAnchors said:

I wouldn't be surprised if they re-errata'd this back to it's old text in an upcoming FAQ.... for the time being. At least until they can fix the jumpmaster proper.

They are certainly not going to re-errata palp to make imperials competitive meta wise again.

They aren't going to undo a much-needed nerf just because something ELSE needs a nerf. They'll just nerf jumpmasters

So wait if we do that does that mean Soontir's pilot ability will be worthless?

As a Rebel player who struggles to shoot and kill him I have just one word to say...repeated many times.

Yes. Yes. Yes. YES. YES. YES!!!

...ahem, as you all were.

23 minutes ago, FlyingAnchors said:

I wouldn't be surprised if they re-errata'd this back to it's old text in an upcoming FAQ.... for the time being. At least until they can fix the jumpmaster proper.

They are certainly not going to re-errata palp to make imperials competitive meta wise again.

As someone who piloted Defenders to a Nats win and a decent showing at Worlds last year, that nerf needed to happen and needs to remain in place. The old x7 could barely be interacted with by the opponent and promoted lazy flying, two things which cards should not be doing. The only problem with the nerfs was that they left other cards untouched despite them being just as guilty of non-interaction and rewarding bad play.

6 minutes ago, KiraYamatoSF said:

So wait if we do that does that mean Soontir's pilot ability will be worthless?

As a Rebel player who struggles to shoot and kill him I have just one word to say...repeated many times.

Yes. Yes. Yes. YES. YES. YES!!!

...ahem, as you all were.

Begone, you Rebel scum! And take your filthy regen and bomb mechanics with you!

1 hour ago, Archangelspiv said:

Here's to hoping Stoneface, I went 4-0 with my list, but I felt a little bad that opponents were flying extremely well, but with the combos I was pulling off it was nullifying their flying.

The problem is you can't go by those four games. When TLTs first came out I ran them for about 8 games. Went undefeated in 7 of them. Could I pull that off now? Probably not. Why? It's an "old" build and people know how to beat it now.

Some builds are just weaker against some specific other builds. No amount of good flying will make up for that discrepancy. Fact of life. Just like paper always beats rock.

If it was just builds and flying abikity you might have a stronger argument but you have to factor in the dice. Randomness can be a real MFer. You roll great vs an opponent that rolls on the wrong side of the curve and suddenly you're golden. Everything you do shines while your opponent stinks. Last week I had a 5 dice attack and rolled a natural 4 crits and 1 hit. My opponent rolls 4 greens and comes up with 3 natural evades and a focus. With a focus and evade token my great throw achieved zip. The vagaries of the dice.

As Vander pointed out, your suggestion would affect more than just K4 and Expertise. We look at a very small slice of the game and don't like something about it and offer up a solution to a specific situation. It's difficult to anticipate how our solution will affect other cards/pilots that have yet to be released. I don't bother about that anymore, it was hurting my brain. I have enough faith in FFG that thet will fix something that's broken but will do it on their time schedule not ours.

1 hour ago, Archangelspiv said:

One upgrade hardly counts...

but they did for one upgrade. We have already seen the results.

2 minutes ago, Marinealver said:

but they did for one upgrade. We have already seen the results.

/X7's aren't worse, they just aren't as easy mode as they used to be. They require a higher skill to be used properly. So the data points to people turning to easy mode ships, like the JM5K's and Attanni.

20 minutes ago, FlyingAnchors said:

I wouldn't be surprised if they re-errata'd this back to it's old text in an upcoming FAQ.... for the time being. At least until they can fix the jumpmaster proper.

They are certainly not going to re-errata palp to make imperials competitive meta wise again.

The original x7 was worse than Dengar ever was or ever will be. Expertise Dengar is a glass cannon that takes over half of your list and can be halved in a second and shut down in another.

There is a serious problem with JM5K but it's not Dengar.

19 hours ago, Archangelspiv said:

/X7's aren't worse, they just aren't as easy mode as they used to be. They require a higher skill to be used properly. So the data points to people turning to easy mode ships, like the JM5K's and Attanni.

lol Easy mode.

I wish I can go back and pull up 2007 internet over what mess we have now (thanks social media). I remember Planetside (Classic) and the whole which faction was cheaper argument. There was a signature meme (before the word meme was around) that said Chose Your Difficulty: NC (Easy) TR (Normal) VS (Hard) . (although the VS were the ones sanctuary locking both empires most of the time). I remember seeing some one make a paradoy of that meme Choose Your Difficulty: NC (It) TR (Doesn't) VS ( Matter) .

Okay so here we go

Chose Your Difficulty:

Scum (____) Rebel (______) Imperial (____) .

So what are you going to put in the blanks?

Oh look, here comes all the little arcdoger TIE Interceptor players filling in ENH as predicted because their playstyle is the only one that requires skill.

Changing all free tokens to free actions would badly hurt all of the assign token cards that are intended to work through stress, stack tokens, or refresh tokens. Making those cards ineffective if not entirely useless because of the "each action once" rule in addition to "no action while stressed". A short list of those cards includes Jyn Erso , Outlaw Tech , Recon Specialist , OverClock R4 , Fire Control System ... you get the idea.

It might be worthwhile to review the list of free token cards, but as others already mentioned above just switching to free action has no affect on asteroid hits unless you also adde the full x7 nerf clause to the offending cards.

4 minutes ago, nitrobenz said:

Changing all free tokens to free actions would badly hurt all of the assign token cards that are intended to work through stress, stack tokens, or refresh tokens. Making those cards ineffective if not entirely useless because of the "each action once" rule in addition to "no action while stressed". A short list of those cards includes Jyn Erso , Outlaw Tech , Recon Specialist , OverClock R4 , Fire Control System ... you get the idea.

It might be worthwhile to review the list of free token cards, but as others already mentioned above just switching to free action has no affect on asteroid hits unless you also adde the full x7 nerf clause to the offending cards.

I don't like the idea of actually doing it, but you'd have to make some changes. Recon specialist can still assign a token because you have to perform the action to get the effect, so it's already limited by bumping/rocks/stress. Same with Jyn, you have to perform her action to get the tokens, so it's already limited. Some like outlaw tech would have to be changed to trigger before getting the stress (or be left as-is, since they're explicitely designed to work with stress). Overclocked could probably also be left as-is, it's another one that requires you to have gotten the token somehow in the first place to work. FCS could go either way.

Your example, K4 Security Droid, is literally the only card where it is an issue.

I still think it should be assigned, but given the x7 treatment (i.e. doesn't work it you bump or land on a rock).

@Archangelspiv I want to know what astromech you used on Dengar. If it was Unhinged Astro, then you overlooked a major contribution to Dengar's easy mode. I'm a little surprised no one else mentioned it yet in this thread. Unhinged Astro brings a Jumpmaster's green move count from 6 to 9 for just 1 point. One of those moves is to the right, shaving off another layer of already thin difficulty for the Jumpmaster. Added to K4 and Expertise, that's 8 points for a very powerful combo on a ship that is simply designed wrong and under costed. I'm firmly in the camp of people wanting FFG to stop treating Jumpmaster symptoms and start curing the Jumpmaster disease. I won't hijack your thread with my ideas for how they should do it.

2 minutes ago, jmswood said:

@Archangelspiv I want to know what astromech you used on Dengar. If it was Unhinged Astro, then you overlooked a major contribution to Dengar's easy mode. I'm a little surprised no one else mentioned it yet in this thread. Unhinged Astro brings a Jumpmaster's green move count from 6 to 9 for just 1 point. One of those moves is to the right, shaving off another layer of already thin difficulty for the Jumpmaster. Added to K4 and Expertise, that's 8 points for a very powerful combo on a ship that is simply designed wrong and under costed. I'm firmly in the camp of people wanting FFG to stop treating Jumpmaster symptoms and start curing the Jumpmaster disease. I won't hijack your thread with my ideas for how they should do it.

You are right that I used Unhinged, and for 8 points it's incredibly cheap for its effectiveness. I guess I was looking at with the increase of ship effectiveness, having cards that assign tokens adds an extra layer of effectiveness that make ships like the JM5K's just that little bit extra good.

6 hours ago, Arthur_McGuire said:

The original x7 was worse than Dengar ever was or ever will be. Expertise Dengar is a glass cannon that takes over half of your list and can be halved in a second and shut down in another.

There is a serious problem with JM5K but it's not Dengar.

Care to share how to do this? Dengar is water to all of my lists' fire...