I recently started collecting data from players with the goal of visualizing the "power-curve" of X-wing. All this talk of balance, buffs, and nerfs kept bringing me back to the idea of a graphical representation of the relative power-level of all the ships in the game. Unfortunately, this data is almost impossible to get objectively.

With subjective data being the only realistic option, I asked players to simply rate each pilot on a scale of 1-10. The Academy Pilot Tie was assigned a value of 5. The worst pilot in the game is assigned a 1, the best is a 10 and everyone else fits somewhere in between.

There are 240 pilots in the game so I am breaking them up into four different groups. The mean and standard error for the first group (the alpha-wings) are summarized below.

• I know the data is subjective and incomplete. I get that. But it's still interesting and I think it can be useful.
• We are graphing the "perceived value" for each ship, not the absolute value in a vacuum. I think it is the best we can reasonably do right now.

So what can we learn?

1. The majority of the pilots are reasonably close to one another.
2. A handful of pilots are much higher. The E-wing generics are garbage... We already knew this.
3. Addressing ~15% of the pilots would bring almost everyone within spitting distance of one another.

10 minutes ago, gamblertuba said:

The E-wing generics are garbage... We already knew this.

Pah! You're just flying them wrong.

I think bringing the lower data lines upward would be better than nerfing everything that rises above a certain level. Anyway, as it's not ranked in a vacuum & is relative, any adjustment will still show the same disparity.

If you nerf miranda to a 5 currently, then everyone readjusts mentally and puts something new at the '10' leading that to be nerfed, going on etc etc.

I think what you need to do is look at the outliers and decide if a change is actually warranted. Knave and Blackmoon? Objectively bad and help is warranted. Jumpmasters? Too good for the price and change is warranted. Corran? He's good and maybe that's OK.

Would be interesting to cross check this with the pilots that get actually flown, and how well they place

The problem with games is almost never that there is a huge disparity between units in general; its that the competitive environment is composed solely of models above the 8.0 line. Anything less than that might still be good; its just not actually good enough. This is what creates the incredibly small pool of viability that is so frustration to work with and why, in most cases, you really need to nerf the top end pretty regularly to lower the line to include a larger number of options.

I want to see the other 3 diagrams

The Heavens will part and Thee Emperor of Mankind will anoint all of us, as Turrets have been banned, Arc Dodgers are now king, those who dare to mention the unmentionable ship that looks like a toilet seat shal be smited down to the depth of Star Wars Hell (also known as a Trek convention)