9 minutes ago, farseer said:

I don't know. I was soooooo excited for Armada at its release. Then that excitement just again puttered completely when I realized its only being played min/maxed competitively.

Well, sure, if you ignore the Corellian Campaign and all.

Or anyone and everyone playing in a casual manner.

I mean, Competitive isn't everything - but its often talked about on the forums, because its the one set of rules framework that everyone plays with, effectively.

But hey, if you're not enthused, you're not enthused.

Internet ghost here who's favorite list to run, and has been for a while, is Triple VSD and around 10-12 ties. Another favorite of mine was trying my damdest to get Tagge and interdictor to work and here is what I found for what its worth.

I had absolutely no problem winning games. But I can't win big, but on the flip side I usaully never lose big either. Vast majority of games ended 6-5 with me falling on either side of the win/losing fence equally.

Doing a play by play I feel I have a pretty good chance at beating an ISD plus 4 gozanti list. My ties will smoke his bombers, I sacrifice a VSD to the front arc of the ISD to line up the other 2 to punish the ISD. But I'm NEVER coming close to touching the gozantis. End of the match, I win... 6-5 maybe 7-4. The highest I've ever won was 8-3 only a handful of times.

My point in sharing this is to address what I believe are peoples over simplification that the problem is low activations ships can't "win" in the binary sense of the word which is simply from my experience completely wrong. What a 3 activation fleet can't do is 10-1 a high activation fleet. Again from my experience if you want to win tournaments winning 6-5 isnt going to cut it.

I've seen this addressed in other forum topics, and I agree with it, that the advantage the high activation fleets offer is they give the best chance to win big, while on the flip side if you aren't going to win, transports are such a pain to chase down and kill that in 6 turns you will never lose that badly. Coming back from a 5-6 loss is always possible if you posses the capability to get the 10-1 victory. I've see a lot of suggestions on how to easily rectify that I wont go into other than saying it would go a long long way if there was additional risk when I fleet maxes out on transports.

@farseer, I think that is something of a false dichotomy; a well designed game will have most pieces viable and a variety of lists viable.

It is the nature of all games with a win/loss condition than people will compete (if you don't want that, you don't want points values), but I suggest a game with a broad and balanced competitive play is also better for narrative play as it forces player skill on the table and with decisions inside the game to matter more, and matchups / list optimization to matter less (other than internal synergy and what people prefer and have practiced with).

Expecting gamers not to compete will lead to disappointment. The issue with Armada's relative situation is there is one dominant choice for competition, but I also see hope that it does not have to be that way.

2 minutes ago, Reinholt said:

, but I also see hope that it does not have to be that way.

I wish I could specific-highlight and "Like" this some more than I already have

46 minutes ago, farseer said:

Ironically, I just pulled my Armada box off the shelf today and went through it, getting excited again for the game. Being a complete newb at Armada (but having played minis games since 1987) and having not played since the Gladiator was released due to life issues, this thread confirmed what I needed to know.

Sell what I have, the game evolved into everything I hate about minis games... it has been become driven by the meta and how the next set of new releases will min/max one's odds of winning. All in favor of actually playing a game that looks and feels like Star Wars. Same tested mathhammered army lists and upgrades playing identical lists, all decided by dice rolls in the end. At least until the next set of releases changes the meta again...then wash, rinse, repeat...

I understand this thread is all about the competitive play aspect of the game. But lets be honest, who else is really playing "just for fun" or "historical" battles. The community has all but died in my local shop. Speaking to who used to play at the shop, they either stuck with Xwing (due to them favoring that meta over the Armada meta; or the game play of Xwing over Armada) or dumped the game entirely because of the meta eventually taking over what remains of the player base. The campaign box was really only purchased for upgrades and such for competitive use.

See I'm a story guy. I want to play because of the story. I want this to feel like fleets of star destroyers are colliding with a ragtag fleet of hopeful rebels. I want swarms of fighters. As stated before, I want this to "feel" like Star Wars. Flotillas of rebel transports taking on capital ships is not Star Wars. Unless you are escaping from the frozen wonderland that is Hoth... And what Rebel transport is going to fly out ahead of the Frigates and larger ships? Also, no swarms of basic fighters is not Star Wars.

How about a force org chart for the game? Perhaps different for each side. 1-3 Capital Ships, 0-3 Light ships, 0-3 Flotillas, X-Y # of mandatory fighter bases (perhaps defined by the larger ships chosen. I mean, what Star Destroyer goes into a major engagement with no fighters? What Rebel fleet takes on an imperial fleet with no support fighters?)

Or what about some more story driven scenarios.

I don't know. I was soooooo excited for Armada at its release. Then that excitement just again puttered completely when I realized its only being played min/maxed competitively.

If you really like the story of it or building a campaign around it, Armada is for you. I think the Corellian Campaign was actually fantastic and can be improved upon. You just need to find 3-5 other people to go down the rabbit hole with you. If you do, you will not be disappointed. (I actually believe a lot of the issues we are feeling right now are CC letdown: being so happy playing the game in campaign mode with 500 points, and then having to deal with tourneys at 400 )

I can totally support a force restriction on flots but not sure if that is the solution. (just like we have a 134 force restriction on squads.)

Comments like the one from @farseer above are the reason why I absolutely detest people who get their underwear so tied in knot about the issues with the game that they blow up the entire front page of the forums with complaints, broken this, OP that, when in reality most of the time they don't even know what the hell they are talking about.

Is competitive fleet building at this moment in a bit of a love affair with flotillas right now? Absolutely. Does this mean list building can be a little boring when you start every tournament build with 2 flotillas and build from there? For some more than others (I personally don't mind it because it means I get to use ISD's in a tournament and not get smoked by Demolisher, but I perfectly understand those that do). Does this create one list which everyone runs a cookie cutter variant of because it is the min/max penultimate list not countered by anything else? NO! They might all have 1-3 flotillas, but even at high caliber competitions we still see almost every admiral and every ship in the game represented every single time. That is far from leading me to believe we are in some sort of "Mathmada" state where we can create some sort of moneyball-esque damage per round formula that means you never lose.

Furthermore, if you don't like the "need to win big or lose big" style of fleet building then don't lose heart! Leave your flotillas at home because in the Campaign any margin of victory is a victory, MOV doesn't matter. It is perfectly feasibly to win with dual ISD's in the campaign over and over (in fact, it can be quite difficult to beat!) because they only have to win by 1 point, which they can do. Because losing an ISD swings the MOV toward neutral means it's not a great list for a tournament, but CC doesn't care about that MOV. It is the PERFECT format for someone interested in running more thematic balanced fleets because they WORK AWESOME in that format.

But the loud voices, as always, are those who are the most incensed. So that is the appearance of the game.

For what it is worth Farseer, and all the other people googling Armada to see if it is something you might want to get involved in, it is my opinion that your analysis of the game could not be farther from the truth, and the empirical evidence exists to prove it, you just need to look beyond the loud angry internet voices.

6 minutes ago, BrobaFett said:

Is competitive fleet building at this moment in a bit of a love affair with flotillas right now? Absolutely. Does this mean list building can be a little boring when you start every tournament build with 2 flotillas and build from there? For some more than others (I personally don't mind it because it means I get to use ISD's in a tournament and not get smoked by Demolisher, but I perfectly understand those that do).

To take it one step further:

I would prefer BOTH that you can take an ISD and not get smoked by first/last Demolisher AND that you don't have to take a bunch of flotillas to do it. Embrace the power of and. This is why we started playing with the passing rule locally to test (to be clear, our rule was that if you are the first player, you may pass only when the other player has MORE activations than you, but for the second player, you may pass when there are more or equal activations).

This means if you are the second player, you always have the last move, so your ISD can wait until after Demolisher has gone, then move.

My initial findings are that the game ends up much more balanced overall, and that Demolisher (and MC30 first/last with Admonition) is way, way less of a problem. On the other hand, I would argue large ships are better (how much would require more testing than what I can do locally, as the entire weight of the minds of the Armada community will find holes), but if something has to be good, I'd rather it be the iconic ships in Star Wars cinematic history rather than the flotilla. Even so, I think they are "less good" relative to points than the flotilla is in the current non-passing state. This is probably another discussion for another thread, but back to my key point above:

What is ideal is that you can play the large ships without having to take flotillas. If you take flotillas (and they should be viable), it's because you want them for their inherent properties as a ship: cheap squadron pushers and enhancement of other ships, not just to push them at speed one on the back board edge to force another guy's stuff forward until he is out of things to move. The latter thing is what typically causes the "this doesn't feel like Star Wars" reaction and, to bring it all the way home, is what leads to @Captain Weather's initial point about why activation advantage is so good. A four ship list fighting a seven ship list with 3xMC30 and 4xGR-75 can be forced to activate all four ships before a single combat ship in the latter fleet has moved, so they will have 3xMC30 worth of unimpeded shots before the other player can even respond.

17 minutes ago, Reinholt said:

What is ideal is that you can play the large ships without having to take flotillas. If you take flotillas (and they should be viable), it's because you want them for their inherent properties as a ship: cheap squadron pushers and enhancement of other ships, not just to push them at speed one on the back board edge to force another guy's stuff forward until he is out of things to move. The latter thing is what typically causes the "this doesn't feel like Star Wars" reaction and, to bring it all the way home, is what leads to @Captain Weather's initial point about why activation advantage is so good. A four ship list fighting a seven ship list with 3xMC30 and 4xGR-75 can be forced to activate all four ships before a single combat ship in the latter fleet has moved, so they will have 3xMC30 worth of unimpeded shots before the other player can even respond.

I agree with all of this but would add something to your last comment.

Those 4 flotillas become dead weight once you start shooting. Your opponent will likely get a free round of attacks, but after the activation advantage is mitigated. Maybe a flotilla will be useful to activate in the middle, but it is likely they will go at the end of the round. Same with the Relay Delay. Once those squads get engaged, activating 1 flotilla at a time is not an efficient way to push squads. And investing in 2 Relay for 30/35 points cuts into your squadron investment and they have Heavy. Those fleets are powerful, but I figured out how to deal with both of those specific archetypes by changing my activation order.

To tie this back into the OP, I think we will see people play with less flotillas with wave 6. Hammerheads will replace naked GR-75s and act as activation padding and DPS in that MC30 swarm. It's a much more efficient way to spend points and can harass your opponents back field. And the Quasar will replace the Imp Relay Delay with a powerful 6 squadron alpha strike for slightly more cost.

I think the way to beat the activation advantage game is by having quality activations over quantity. Some much needed nerfs would make this much easier too.

42 minutes ago, Reinholt said:

Embrace the power of and.

I totally agree this is the goal, but personally Demolisher was more of an issue in my area than squadrons, Rieekan, Flotillas, or anything else has been since. Flotillas have been a godsend for list diversity in my area, so while I would love "And" for the greater sake of the game, I would not be playing Armada (at least not competitively) if Flotillas hadn't come at the time they did. It is one those, "flip side to the coin" I guess.

1 minute ago, BrobaFett said:

I totally agree this is the goal, but personally Demolisher was more of an issue in my area than squadrons, Rieekan, Flotillas, or anything else has been since. Flotillas have been a godsend for list diversity in my area, so while I would love "And" for the greater sake of the game, I would not be playing Armada (at least not competitively) if Flotillas hadn't come at the time they did. It is one those, "flip side to the coin" I guess.

Amusingly, both problems stem from the core rules issue with activation advantage that @Captain Weather was highlighting. Back to the "if you really want to fix this, you probably need passing" or it's going to be one iteration of a dominant strategy after another.

@farseer I would reinforce those saying that Corellian Conflict is exactly the thing for you. It really shakes up the meta, encourages people to bring different fleets that DO feel very Star Wars-y. We had a blast in our campaign and the fleets were really all very different.

And please don't take all the griping on this forum to actually translate into the state of the game everywhere. The Regionals data showed that there are plenty of fleet archetypes doing well, it's not all clones of one fleet. There is SO much variety in this game... even when playing competitively. Don't let the griping fool you into thinking that the results of two tournaments mean everyone's doing the same thing...

8 hours ago, Undeadguy said:

Idk. I tend to deal with flotilla pretty easily. Take H9 and you're good to go.

If killing flotillas is such an issue, change your fleet so you have an answer for them. That could be H9, Raiders, CR90B, or taking additional flotillas to counter activation advantage.

I was asleep while this blew up, so I've picked out comments that I want to respond to (this post will therefore have a very loosey goosey sort of feel to it).

So this isn't the first time I've seen this idea expressed, 'If flotillas are such a problem, take something to deal with them!'. The issue that most players have found is that it is very difficult to do this efficiently. You're not just taking H9s, you're taking H9s on a ship thats probably worth 60-100pts. Couple this with the fact that a good admiral will split and run their flotillas, and it becomes very hard for your 'flotilla-killer' to hit enough of its targets to make a significant return on investment.

It's also telling that 3 of your 4 proposed solutions were in many ways to just take more activations of your own to counter your opponents advantage. I agree that right now this is the best the solution, but its also why the fleets that we're seeing rise to the top are structurally very homogeneous at a broad level.

If countering flotillas and activations was as easy as I've seen claimed, then given their ubiquity we should see fleets that counter them rise to the top. We're not though, and we can surmise that this stems from one of two reasons (or a combination of both). Fleets countering flotillas are actually not that effective at countering them, or they are, they just are not well rounded enough to perform overall (though again given the omnipresence of flotillas I doubt this).

8 hours ago, JJs Juggernaut said:

Totally respect your opinion dude, and it's sad to see your community turning away from the game. My question for your community then becomes, if you aren't enjoying the current game state, then why are you all still playing those fleets? Is the winning and the competition that important to where you can't play these "meta" lists? I play non-meta lists all the time, because 1.) it lets me experiment and try new things and 2.) through that I become a better player, more able to respond to a variety of playstyles and fleets. All I'm trying to say is, regardless of the current meta, it's might not solely be the games fault that people don't want to play it, it's also those peoples' mindset about the game that has caused them to lose interest.

So I simultaneously agree and disagree with you JJ (curse you and your reasonable opinions!).

Right now the area I'm having the most fun playing Armada is for our Master of the Fleet battle reports, and the main reason is because I fly a lot more varied (and less competitive) fleets in that sphere. So flying non-meta fleets definitely helps improve the play experience.

This is also why I think the Corellian Conflict is such a great space to explore Armada if you're suffering from flotilla fatigue. You can set a lot of fleet rules heading into it that just make it a great experience.

On the flip side though, my problem with this is that you're asking your community to put into place a gentleman's agreement that we'll only fly 'fun', non-meta lists. There's a couple of points I want to note about this. I haven't played very many games as widely as Armada, but one I did for a while was Warhammer 40,000. That also had a kind of social contract in casual play to not take un-enjoyable, or 'broken' things. This is of course because the game was broken. If we're reaching a point where we need to do this for Armada so as not to turn people away, then maybe we need to recognise that there are some base level things about the game that need to be addressed.

As an addendum to the above, the other problem is that some people have a limited amount of time in which they can play Armada outside of tournaments. They want to practice and they want to be competitive, but in effect this means that all they can experience is meta fleets, and this in turn puts a real negative perspective on the game for them.

3 hours ago, farseer said:

Ironically, I just pulled my Armada box off the shelf today and went through it, getting excited again for the game. Being a complete newb at Armada (but having played minis games since 1987) and having not played since the Gladiator was released due to life issues, this thread confirmed what I needed to know.

Sell what I have, the game evolved into everything I hate about minis games... it has been become driven by the meta and how the next set of new releases will min/max one's odds of winning. All in favor of actually playing a game that looks and feels like Star Wars. Same tested mathhammered army lists and upgrades playing identical lists, all decided by dice rolls in the end. At least until the next set of releases changes the meta again...then wash, rinse, repeat...

I understand this thread is all about the competitive play aspect of the game. But lets be honest, who else is really playing "just for fun" or "historical" battles. The community has all but died in my local shop. Speaking to who used to play at the shop, they either stuck with Xwing (due to them favoring that meta over the Armada meta; or the game play of Xwing over Armada) or dumped the game entirely because of the meta eventually taking over what remains of the player base. The campaign box was really only purchased for upgrades and such for competitive use.

See I'm a story guy. I want to play because of the story. I want this to feel like fleets of star destroyers are colliding with a ragtag fleet of hopeful rebels. I want swarms of fighters. As stated before, I want this to "feel" like Star Wars. Flotillas of rebel transports taking on capital ships is not Star Wars. Unless you are escaping from the frozen wonderland that is Hoth... And what Rebel transport is going to fly out ahead of the Frigates and larger ships? Also, no swarms of basic fighters is not Star Wars.

How about a force org chart for the game? Perhaps different for each side. 1-3 Capital Ships, 0-3 Light ships, 0-3 Flotillas, X-Y # of mandatory fighter bases (perhaps defined by the larger ships chosen. I mean, what Star Destroyer goes into a major engagement with no fighters? What Rebel fleet takes on an imperial fleet with no support fighters?)

Or what about some more story driven scenarios.

I don't know. I was soooooo excited for Armada at its release. Then that excitement just again puttered completely when I realized its only being played min/maxed competitively.

So I would say that Armada is not mathhammered to anywhere near the same level as other games. There is a relative amount of diversity amongst successful fleets, they're just bound by the need to have high activations. Personally, this is a good thing, if a solution for activation advantage is implemented then the successful fleet options available in Armada would be insanely high.

To the rest of your points, to echo the advice of others. Give the Corellian Conflict a chance. You can pretty comfortably implement some fleet limitations, and from there you will have a whale of a time.

3 hours ago, PartyPotato said:

My point in sharing this is to address what I believe are peoples over simplification that the problem is low activations ships can't "win" in the binary sense of the word which is simply from my experience completely wrong. What a 3 activation fleet can't do is 10-1 a high activation fleet. Again from my experience if you want to win tournaments winning 6-5 isnt going to cut it.

I've seen this addressed in other forum topics, and I agree with it, that the advantage the high activation fleets offer is they give the best chance to win big, while on the flip side if you aren't going to win, transports are such a pain to chase down and kill that in 6 turns you will never lose that badly. Coming back from a 5-6 loss is always possible if you posses the capability to get the 10-1 victory. I've see a lot of suggestions on how to easily rectify that I wont go into other than saying it would go a long long way if there was additional risk when I fleet maxes out on transports.

So you're right, I should clarify that my point is not that three ship fleets can't win games against high activation fleets, it is just that overall they are unlikely to win tournaments or place as highly on average.

Your point also hints at the success of high activation fleets for two reasons, they not only allow you to win big, but invariably they mean you lose small. This is very important in a long tournament, as it means that one defeat won't prevent you from making the Top 8 or the cut, and is a large part of why we see them performing so well overall.

1 hour ago, BrobaFett said:

Comments like the one from @farseer above are the reason why I absolutely detest people who get their underwear so tied in knot about the issues with the game that they blow up the entire front page of the forums with complaints, broken this, OP that, when in reality most of the time they don't even know what the hell they are talking about.

Is competitive fleet building at this moment in a bit of a love affair with flotillas right now? Absolutely. Does this mean list building can be a little boring when you start every tournament build with 2 flotillas and build from there? For some more than others (I personally don't mind it because it means I get to use ISD's in a tournament and not get smoked by Demolisher, but I perfectly understand those that do). Does this create one list which everyone runs a cookie cutter variant of because it is the min/max penultimate list not countered by anything else? NO! They might all have 1-3 flotillas, but even at high caliber competitions we still see almost every admiral and every ship in the game represented every single time. That is far from leading me to believe we are in some sort of "Mathmada" state where we can create some sort of moneyball-esque damage per round formula that means you never lose.

Furthermore, if you don't like the "need to win big or lose big" style of fleet building then don't lose heart! Leave your flotillas at home because in the Campaign any margin of victory is a victory, MOV doesn't matter. It is perfectly feasibly to win with dual ISD's in the campaign over and over (in fact, it can be quite difficult to beat!) because they only have to win by 1 point, which they can do. Because losing an ISD swings the MOV toward neutral means it's not a great list for a tournament, but CC doesn't care about that MOV. It is the PERFECT format for someone interested in running more thematic balanced fleets because they WORK AWESOME in that format.

But the loud voices, as always, are those who are the most incensed. So that is the appearance of the game.

For what it is worth Farseer, and all the other people googling Armada to see if it is something you might want to get involved in, it is my opinion that your analysis of the game could not be farther from the truth, and the empirical evidence exists to prove it, you just need to look beyond the loud angry internet voices.

So I would presume you're referring to other threads, but it is incredibly interesting and telling that this is not the first time that I have seen the argument that there are flaws with Armada painted as 'loud angry internet voices' or, similarly, that they 'don't know what the hell they're even talking about'. In many ways this seems to me like a form of 'cheer pressure', if you're not positive about the game then you are wrong, and not only are you wrong but you are angry and you are probably bad at the game.

It is an incredibly dismissive response to what are often well reasoned and valid points, and it is these sorts of responses that are turning away lots of existing players as much as the vocal discussion of Armada's problems are turning away potential players.

I definitely agree with you that we're nowhere near the state that Farseer described, of a moneyball-esque mathed out environment, and further that at the top there is a reasonable diversity between the exact composition of fleets. However it seems more and more that the one constant that doesn't vary across these top performing fleets is high activation count. This is what's causing the ubiquitous nature of flotillas, and like it or not, what is turning away a lot of players.

1 hour ago, Undeadguy said:

I agree with all of this but would add something to your last comment.

Those 4 flotillas become dead weight once you start shooting. Your opponent will likely get a free round of attacks, but after the activation advantage is mitigated. Maybe a flotilla will be useful to activate in the middle, but it is likely they will go at the end of the round. Same with the Relay Delay. Once those squads get engaged, activating 1 flotilla at a time is not an efficient way to push squads. And investing in 2 Relay for 30/35 points cuts into your squadron investment and they have Heavy. Those fleets are powerful, but I figured out how to deal with both of those specific archetypes by changing my activation order.

To tie this back into the OP, I think we will see people play with less flotillas with wave 6. Hammerheads will replace naked GR-75s and act as activation padding and DPS in that MC30 swarm. It's a much more efficient way to spend points and can harass your opponents back field. And the Quasar will replace the Imp Relay Delay with a powerful 6 squadron alpha strike for slightly more cost.

I think the way to beat the activation advantage game is by having quality activations over quantity. Some much needed nerfs would make this much easier too.

Your first point here is very true, activation advantage is generally (not always mind you, but enough to be a good maxim) at its most useful before the initial engagement. After that ships are activated in the order of what is most beneficial / most in danger, and activation advantage becomes far less important.

It's interesting that you say you've figured out how to deal with those archetypes. If that's the case, then there's a strong likelihood you could win a major tournament, and I'm sure a lot of people would like to know what your secret is.

Your next point is, again, something that made me chuckle slightly. Flotillas as activation padding will be replaced by Hammerheads as activation padding. I don't think you're necessarily wrong, a great aspect of the Hammerheads is that they offer decent anti-ship damage. It's just funny because I do not really see that as a solution to the underlying cause. Ultimately, flotillas / small ships / whatever, its less about how you get the activations, and more that you have them.

Again, if having quality activations reliably trumped quality, we would be seeing that in the results. We're not.

@Captain Weather I am sorry if that is how the comment came off. The intent was niether dismissal of well reasoned discussion for what changes would benefit Armada nor a generic white-knighting of the game for fanboys only sake.

Thats said, I stand by the sentiment of my post, which is that since Worlds there has been a violent tone on the main page of the forum that in my opinion has gone beyond a reasonable discussion of what things are imbalanced, and as the community is split down the middle on both the severity and even the existance of a problem the discourse has gotten less and less civil.

I am simply weary of people proposing todays essential list of fixes to make Armada not broken, which are essentially yesterday's, but more forcefully argued.

Obviously this sentiment was not lost on Farseer, who this particular post was addressed to. And, ironically, the things I said to him are actually the exact same things you did.

Hope you can forgive any misunderstanding, big fan of Master of the Fleet, by the way.

33 minutes ago, Captain Weather said:

So this isn't the first time I've seen this idea expressed, 'If flotillas are such a problem, take something to deal with them!'. The issue that most players have found is that it is very difficult to do this efficiently. You're not just taking H9s, you're taking H9s on a ship thats probably worth 60-100pts. Couple this with the fact that a good admiral will split and run their flotillas, and it becomes very hard for your 'flotilla-killer' to hit enough of its targets to make a significant return on investment.

It's also telling that 3 of your 4 proposed solutions were in many ways to just take more activations of your own to counter your opponents advantage. I agree that right now this is the best the solution, but its also why the fleets that we're seeing rise to the top are structurally very homogeneous at a broad level.

If countering flotillas and activations was as easy as I've seen claimed, then given their ubiquity we should see fleets that counter them rise to the top. We're not though, and we can surmise that this stems from one of two reasons (or a combination of both). Fleets countering flotillas are actually not that effective at countering them, or they are, they just are not well rounded enough to perform overall (though again given the omnipresence of flotillas I doubt this).

It was a broad statement to someone who is tired of seeing flotillas. Simple answer is take something to deal with them. Otherwise we have to wait until FFG fixes it. Not sure what answer you expect from a practical stand point. If you say flotillas are a problem, do you expect me to change the rules for you? No, you figure out a way to deal with them.

37 minutes ago, Captain Weather said:

Your first point here is very true, activation advantage is generally (not always mind you, but enough to be a good maxim) at its most useful before the initial engagement. After that ships are activated in the order of what is most beneficial / most in danger, and activation advantage becomes far less important.

It's interesting that you say you've figured out how to deal with those archetypes. If that's the case, then there's a strong likelihood you could win a major tournament, and I'm sure a lot of people would like to know what your secret is.

Your next point is, again, something that made me chuckle slightly. Flotillas as activation padding will be replaced by Hammerheads as activation padding. I don't think you're necessarily wrong, a great aspect of the Hammerheads is that they offer decent anti-ship damage. It's just funny because I do not really see that as a solution to the underlying cause. Ultimately, flotillas / small ships / whatever, its less about how you get the activations, and more that you have them.

Again, if having quality activations reliably trumped quality, we would be seeing that in the results. We're not.

I don't have the perfect solution, but at least I'm trying to come up with ideas. As I've stated before, maybe not in this thread, I need to get my hands on Wave 6 before I can test my ideas. It's a whole lot more fun to think of new fleets instead of sulking about how awful the state of Armada is.

I do think the quality of activations will be enough to beat quantity of activations. The problem is right now, I don't have a cost efficient, quality activation to push squads which I need. The Quasar will fix that IMO. And you're right about the Hammerhead in regards to activation advantage, but I already called that several months ago during the great flotilla debates. Currently, the activation game is ******. Rebels will always be able to get the advantage more easily than Imps. But Imps have a better Relay which means they can take their flotillas and run away to push squads. FFG has to address these issues in some way.

I don't claim to have the ultimate fleet that will beat every archetype. But I do understand how to "lose-less" against Relay Delay Imps and MC30 swarm fleets when I bring a serious list to play. I'm fortunate enough to not play against Rieekan Aces so I have 0 practice against it. I have a fleet built that I think can deal with all 3 of them, but again, I need Wave 6 to confirm its effectiveness.

36 minutes ago, BrobaFett said:

@Captain Weather I am sorry if that is how the comment came off. The intent was niether dismissal of well reasoned discussion for what changes would benefit Armada nor a generic white-knighting of the game for fanboys only sake.

Thats said, I stand by the sentiment of my post, which is that since Worlds there has been a violent tone on the main page of the forum that in my opinion has gone beyond a reasonable discussion of what things are imbalanced, and as the community is split down the middle on both the severity and even the existance of a problem the discourse has gotten less and less civil.

I am simply weary of people proposing todays essential list of fixes to make Armada not broken, which are essentially yesterday's, but more forcefully argued.

Obviously this sentiment was not lost on Farseer, who this particular post was addressed to. And, ironically, the things I said to him are actually the exact same things you did.

Hope you can forgive any misunderstanding, big fan of Master of the Fleet, by the way.

Definitely all good my man, upon reflection I don't think I read it as charitably as I should have.

I can definitely relate to the frustration and (for lack of a better word) sadness about the aggressive tone that the forums have had of late.

I think this thread has actually been really good in staying on the civil end of things.

32 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

It was a broad statement to someone who is tired of seeing flotillas. Simple answer is take something to deal with them. Otherwise we have to wait until FFG fixes it. Not sure what answer you expect from a practical stand point. If you say flotillas are a problem, do you expect me to change the rules for you? No, you figure out a way to deal with them.

Sorry, I should clarify my position.

My basic point there was that a common response to people raising issues about flotillas is to say 'Take H9s' 'take this, take that'. Now the first problem with this sort of response is there is an inherent subtext of 'git gud' to them. You're making the assumption that they haven't tried dealing with flotillas. At the upper levels of play this is almost certainly not the case.

Really people aren't asking you for a practical solution to the problem, invariably they've explored them, that is why they are voicing their concerns about it. Most good players have figured out a way to deal with them, and that is to join them and take lots of flotillas.

33 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

I don't have the perfect solution, but at least I'm trying to come up with ideas. As I've stated before, maybe not in this thread, I need to get my hands on Wave 6 before I can test my ideas. It's a whole lot more fun to think of new fleets instead of sulking about how awful the state of Armada is.

So again, there is just something about this response that rubs me the wrong way.

The characterisation of people who have an issue with the current state of Armada as being sulky, whiners, rather than people with valid concerns is really detrimental to the game.

Like power to you my man for sitting there and trying to hash out a fleet that counters these problems, there isn't anything wrong in the world with that. Equally though, people identifying what they see as a problem and saying 'Hey I think we need to do something about this' shouldn't be seen as a bad thing as long as the discourse stays civil.

32 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

It was a broad statement to someone who is tired of seeing flotillas. Simple answer is take something to deal with them. Otherwise we have to wait until FFG fixes it. Not sure what answer you expect from a practical stand point. If you say flotillas are a problem, do you expect me to change the rules for you? No, you figure out a way to deal with them.

Sorry, I should clarify my position.

My basic point there was that a common response to people raising issues about flotillas is to say 'Take H9s' 'take this, take that'. Now the first problem with this sort of response is there is an inherent subtext of 'git gud' to them. You're making the assumption that they haven't tried dealing with flotillas. At the upper levels of play this is almost certainly not the case.

Really people aren't asking you for a practical solution to the problem, invariably they've explored them, that is why they are voicing their concerns about it. Most good players have figured out a way to deal with them, and that is to join them and take lots of flotillas.

33 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

I don't have the perfect solution, but at least I'm trying to come up with ideas. As I've stated before, maybe not in this thread, I need to get my hands on Wave 6 before I can test my ideas. It's a whole lot more fun to think of new fleets instead of sulking about how awful the state of Armada is.

So again, there is just something about this response that rubs me the wrong way.

The characterisation of people who have an issue with the current state of Armada as being sulky, whiners, rather than people with valid concerns is really detrimental to the game.

Like power to you my man for sitting there and trying to hash out a fleet that counters these problems, there isn't anything wrong in the world with that. Equally though, people identifying what they see as a problem and saying 'Hey I think we need to do something about this' shouldn't be seen as a bad thing as long as the discourse stays civil.

5 hours ago, Drasnighta said:

Well, sure, if you ignore the Corellian Campaign and all.

Or anyone and everyone playing in a casual manner.

I mean, Competitive isn't everything - but its often talked about on the forums, because its the one set of rules framework that everyone plays with, effectively.

But hey, if you're not enthused, you're not enthused.

5 hours ago, CaribbeanNinja said:

If you really like the story of it or building a campaign around it, Armada is for you. I think the Corellian Campaign was actually fantastic and can be improved upon. You just need to find 3-5 other people to go down the rabbit hole with you. If you do, you will not be disappointed. (I actually believe a lot of the issues we are feeling right now are CC letdown: being so happy playing the game in campaign mode with 500 points, and then having to deal with tourneys at 400 )

I can totally support a force restriction on flots but not sure if that is the solution. (just like we have a 134 force restriction on squads.)

Corellian Campaign is pretty much the one thing that is keeping my last bastion of eagerness for the game. If FFG keeps coming out with campaigns every two years I'll probably collect forever. Spreading uniques across 3 fleets is so awesome.

The main thing with flotillas is even if you are able to kill them, by the time you get in range to, they have already done their job in delaying/squadroning. I also don't think it's fair to blame player creativity when the player is trying to find a good fleet to run. It should be up to the game's rules to promote list diversity, not player self-censorship. I've heard some talk about how they crush flotilla lists, but I don't see any "flotilla slayers" high in tournaments that don't have flotillas themselves.

1 minute ago, Captain Weather said:

Sorry, I should clarify my position.

My basic point there was that a common response to people raising issues about flotillas is to say 'Take H9s' 'take this, take that'. Now the first problem with this sort of response is there is an inherent subtext of 'git gud' to them. You're making the assumption that they haven't tried dealing with flotillas. At the upper levels of play this is almost certainly not the case.

Really people aren't asking you for a practical solution to the problem, invariably they've explored them, that is why they are voicing their concerns about it. Most good players have figured out a way to deal with them, and that is to join them and take lots of flotillas.

So again, there is just something about this response that rubs me the wrong way.

The characterisation of people who have an issue with the current state of Armada as being sulky, whiners, rather than people with valid concerns is really detrimental to the game.

Like power to you my man for sitting there and trying to hash out a fleet that counters these problems, there isn't anything wrong in the world with that. Equally though, people identifying what they see as a problem and saying 'Hey I think we need to do something about this' shouldn't be seen as a bad thing as long as the discourse stays civil.

Fair enough. I'm super stoked about Wave 6 and I'm just tired of people still shitting all over Armada saying the game is dead, and actively dissuading new players from joining because they feel the need to tell them how to min/max as if that's the only way to play. I'm with BrobaFett. Forums aren't fun when the same topic gets brought up again and again and the same argument gets rehashed over and over. As it stands, what is the point of discussing flotillas anymore? It's quite clear they help players win. We have 3 major tournaments to prove it. The counters are quite clear, despite being difficult to implement in some games. I don't think you will find someone that doesn't have an opinion on flotillas because that's how often the topic has been beaten to depth.

So what do we do? Start another thread about flotillas? I'll admit your data was interesting. But it doesn't do anything for the current state of Armada. It doesn't reveal a new way to play. It just proves spamming flotillas is the best option we have right now. I want to prove it wrong.

So yea, while people are going to sulk and whine about how much they hate to play Armada, I'm going to keep on playing, not carrying what my opponent brings whether it be 1 flotilla or 10, and figure out how to win games with lower activations. It's more productive and enjoyable than discussing flotillas IMO.

But you do you. I love reading data and seeing what other people think about the game. I think it would be interesting if you would compare flotillas with squadron points since I think they go hand in hand and it's why mass flotillas is winning.

3 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

Fair enough. I'm super stoked about Wave 6 and I'm just tired of people still shitting all over Armada saying the game is dead, and actively dissuading new players from joining because they feel the need to tell them how to min/max as if that's the only way to play. I'm with BrobaFett. Forums aren't fun when the same topic gets brought up again and again and the same argument gets rehashed over and over. As it stands, what is the point of discussing flotillas anymore? It's quite clear they help players win. We have 3 major tournaments to prove it. The counters are quite clear, despite being difficult to implement in some games. I don't think you will find someone that doesn't have an opinion on flotillas because that's how often the topic has been beaten to depth.

So what do we do? Start another thread about flotillas? I'll admit your data was interesting. But it doesn't do anything for the current state of Armada. It doesn't reveal a new way to play. It just proves spamming flotillas is the best option we have right now. I want to prove it wrong.

So yea, while people are going to sulk and whine about how much they hate to play Armada, I'm going to keep on playing, not carrying what my opponent brings whether it be 1 flotilla or 10, and figure out how to win games with lower activations. It's more productive and enjoyable than discussing flotillas IMO.

But you do you. I love reading data and seeing what other people think about the game. I think it would be interesting if you would compare flotillas with squadron points since I think they go hand in hand and it's why mass flotillas is winning.

Agree with the points you bring up. My thoughts through all of this has always been "WTF FFG?" Do they not read the forums? See the tournament data? Financially I get it, flotillas are a home run. People buying 4+ of the same pack has got to be quite nice on the bottom line, but I refuse to believe that they are completely ignorant to the dangers this posses to the long term playability. So they have to have counters planned in future releases but a year is a long time to wait for things to change.

3 hours ago, PartyPotato said:

Agree with the points you bring up. My thoughts through all of this has always been "WTF FFG?" Do they not read the forums? See the tournament data? Financially I get it, flotillas are a home run. People buying 4+ of the same pack has got to be quite nice on the bottom line, but I refuse to believe that they are completely ignorant to the dangers this posses to the long term playability. So they have to have counters planned in future releases but a year is a long time to wait for things to change.

This. That's why I brought up my question on the timing of any major changes. If they wait to make a rule change (passing, flotillas, whatever) until their bi-annual FAQ update in November, the entire Store champ season will have passed, North American Championships and US Nationals will already have happened, and we'll likely be well in to Regionals.

Or the alternative is that they try to balance it with future waves, which would likely be around the New Year at the earliest.

That's kind of why I was trying to figure out if and when they would make any changes, cause that would have a drastic impact on the landscape.

Also, my latest Corellian Campaign fleet comprised of two Interdictors messing with EVERYTHING.

12 hours ago, PartyPotato said:

Internet ghost here who's favorite list to run, and has been for a while, is Triple VSD and around 10-12 ties. Another favorite of mine was trying my damdest to get Tagge and interdictor to work and here is what I found for what its worth.

I had absolutely no problem winning games. But I can't win big, but on the flip side I usaully never lose big either. Vast majority of games ended 6-5 with me falling on either side of the win/losing fence equally.

Doing a play by play I feel I have a pretty good chance at beating an ISD plus 4 gozanti list. My ties will smoke his bombers, I sacrifice a VSD to the front arc of the ISD to line up the other 2 to punish the ISD. But I'm NEVER coming close to touching the gozantis. End of the match, I win... 6-5 maybe 7-4. The highest I've ever won was 8-3 only a handful of times.

My point in sharing this is to address what I believe are peoples over simplification that the problem is low activations ships can't "win" in the binary sense of the word which is simply from my experience completely wrong. What a 3 activation fleet can't do is 10-1 a high activation fleet. Again from my experience if you want to win tournaments winning 6-5 isnt going to cut it.

I've seen this addressed in other forum topics, and I agree with it, that the advantage the high activation fleets offer is they give the best chance to win big, while on the flip side if you aren't going to win, transports are such a pain to chase down and kill that in 6 turns you will never lose that badly. Coming back from a 5-6 loss is always possible if you posses the capability to get the 10-1 victory. I've see a lot of suggestions on how to easily rectify that I wont go into other than saying it would go a long long way if there was additional risk when I fleet maxes out on transports.

I think it is somewhat sad that tournament play should be so prevalent in deciding game balance that it might destroy campaign or just pure scenario play. At least this part of the game need to be as important in game balance considerations.

In my experience low activation fleets win as often if not more than high activation fleets, just not by a landslide, it also depends on your definition of "winning". Sure... it does not work in a tournament but it certainly do in a campaign where resources are your best friend and survivable ships can retain Veteran status and so forth. A Gozanti will never become a veteran (more or less) and if it does can't really capitalize on it either. Any big ship you bring will most likely die every time and become scared while your flotillas survive. It will become a downward spiral from there. Also, as you increase the points in games flotillas become more and more vulnerable to opposing corvettes and/or rouge bombers.

Figure that you may choose to stay with your task-force in the area after the battle and risk another confrontation next turn. Will you do that if you only have flotillas left and the opponent have two badly beaten but alive medium ships?

In games where you have 430 and the opponent 460 those few extra bombers and corvettes can quickly dispatch flotillas that run around unprotected in an ever shrinking play area etc...

In a campaign you can't afford to lose ships, especially your large capital ships while you allow the opponents capital ships to become veterans. You also can't always choose the mission type or even if you will be first or second player. I have found that in none equal point game too many small and weak ships will often see the big ships you do bring destroyed before you have time to jump to hyperspace while if you have a few survivable ships... say two ISD or three VSD you are likely to run away wounded but alive.

I understand that tournaments are important to some but I think for the vast majority of "normal" players that actually play the game it is not and just winning a game or simply not loosing is all that matters. I have yet to actually "loose" a game among my peers. There has been a couple of draws and I have had to bail to hyperspace a few times but I have never really lost more ships and resources than my opponent. That is what wins you a campaign by holding on to territory and know when it is time to retreat as it saves you important assets.

In my opinion the problem are mostly related to tournament play-styles. I'm also not saying there are some problems and that a change that is better for tournament play can't also be better for campaign play. I just wish both means of play are considered in any changes made.

40 minutes ago, jorgen_cab said:

I think it is somewhat sad that tournament play should be so prevalent in deciding game balance that it might destroy campaign or just pure scenario play. At least this part of the game need to be as important in game balance considerations.

In my experience low activation fleets win as often if not more than high activation fleets, just not by a landslide, it also depends on your definition of "winning". Sure... it does not work in a tournament but it certainly do in a campaign where resources are your best friend and survivable ships can retain Veteran status and so forth. A Gozanti will never become a veteran (more or less) and if it does can't really capitalize on it either. Any big ship you bring will most likely die every time and become scared while your flotillas survive. It will become a downward spiral from there. Also, as you increase the points in games flotillas become more and more vulnerable to opposing corvettes and/or rouge bombers.

Figure that you may choose to stay with your task-force in the area after the battle and risk another confrontation next turn. Will you do that if you only have flotillas left and the opponent have two badly beaten but alive medium ships?

In games where you have 430 and the opponent 460 those few extra bombers and corvettes can quickly dispatch flotillas that run around unprotected in an ever shrinking play area etc...

In a campaign you can't afford to lose ships, especially your large capital ships while you allow the opponents capital ships to become veterans. You also can't always choose the mission type or even if you will be first or second player. I have found that in none equal point game too many small and weak ships will often see the big ships you do bring destroyed before you have time to jump to hyperspace while if you have a few survivable ships... say two ISD or three VSD you are likely to run away wounded but alive.

I understand that tournaments are important to some but I think for the vast majority of "normal" players that actually play the game it is not and just winning a game or simply not loosing is all that matters. I have yet to actually "loose" a game among my peers. There has been a couple of draws and I have had to bail to hyperspace a few times but I have never really lost more ships and resources than my opponent. That is what wins you a campaign by holding on to territory and know when it is time to retreat as it saves you important assets.

In my opinion the problem are mostly related to tournament play-styles. I'm also not saying there are some problems and that a change that is better for tournament play can't also be better for campaign play. I just wish both means of play are considered in any changes made.

So before I dive into this, I just want to say that I think that you are spot on and that the vast majority of players probably aren't tournament players.

There's a couple of really key reasons though why balancing with the tournament scene in mind tends to makes the most sense.

The first is that tournaments are really good exposure for your game. If you have a thriving tournament scene then people will come into stores and see these events, if your scene is big enough then you'll start to draw in players from the exposure and perceived popularity. Put simply, even if the majority of players are quote un-quote 'home gamers' the ones that people are going to see (if they see any at all) are tournament players.

This ties into the second consideration, invariably your biggest community advocates are also some of your best players. You look at the IFF boys during their heyday, they were the biggest advocates for the game, and also top calibre at a competitive level. Because your biggest community drivers are tournament players, that's the angle you want to help the most, to keep those people around, and to keep them pumping the game. As callous as it sounds, if a home gamer stops playing Armada at home does the community hear it? Do they notice it? Probably not as much.

The third reason is perception. Again, because tournament play and meta are the most publicised and talked about aspect of the game, you want this facet to be good. If someone new is approaching the game, even if they never plan on taking part in a tournament, if they see that at a tournament level the game has problems, they will assume the same thing (rightly or wrongly) will occur at a home game level. Basically, you don't want the tournament sphere to appear broken, otherwise people will assume the game itself is broken.

-

Now with regards to your anecdotal experience as true as it maybe to you, it bears keeping in mind that they are only our experiences, especially if they're only at a local level. A comment made in another thread ('Euros and the lack of that undead general') indirectly touched upon this:

'I think another big thing there is exposure to different lists outside the local (sorry for using this word) meta. I showed up with something which locally was very unique and no one had an answer to. I wouldn't say I'm leaps and bounds ahead of the guys we've got here in terms of skill, just that my list was giving me a strong advantage.

Showed up to Euros and at least 2 people had come up with very similar lists completely independently and a lot of what I was seeing set up opposite me recognised what I was doing and had an idea of what to do about it. Put me on the back foot as I was used to a fair degree of freedom to play the game my way, and suddenly I'm finding that outside the local scene people were ahead of that curve.

Need to break out the local bubble and get myself active on Vassal!'

What I'm driving at is that just because you're winning with 3 ship lists in your local bubble, doesn't mean that the experiences you've found are universal. Conversely, for example, when I played a CC campaign, I had a 5 ship list with an ISD. That ISD didn't die in a single game, despite being my only real ship (a direct, but very anecdotal counter to your point).

For me this is why it is incredibly helpful to look at major tournaments that draw crowds from varied local bubbles. Worlds, Euros, US Nationals, North American Championships, and yes, the Vassal tournaments. That's where you see multiple bubbles mix, and usually with the best players from an array of smaller bubbles, coming together to duke it out for top spot.

As a rule the lists that do well at these tournaments, from my experience, are the ones to consider.

We could all just agree to take 1 flotilla per fleet... solves a lot of problems, and solves them right now. I personally do this and just won a 24 player store championship. It can be done. For the good of the game and the fun of your opponent, play with actual ships not filler activations... We the players do have say in how our meta turns out.

To counter the inevitable "your living in fairy land and not everyone will go for that, people want to win to bad to limit themselves," come back I say that it the way in which you win is more important than if you win. So what if you win by abusing a game mechanic, does that really indicate a great depth of skill or a great depth of win at all cost, no matter how un-fun or tactically stale the experience for the other player?

Fair fights are the only ones worth being proud of winning.

2 minutes ago, Space_Cowboy17 said:

So what if you win by abusing a game mechanic, does that really indicate a great depth of skill or a great depth of win at all cost, no matter how un-fun or tactically stale the experience for the other player?

All of this. When I see people saying the game is boring because they found out how to abuse X, I always wonder why they don't change fleets. Likely because they only want to win.

I've always enjoyed trying new things on a casual level, and then trying to fit them into the competitive level. That way I get both sides when I play. Some crazy, dumb, fun games and very serious, win at all cost games.