I shouldn't add a ship and then run the same build every time since it's significantly stronger than others.

8 hours ago, Hrathen said:

Ships can be better than other ships, upgrades can be better than upgrades, but I think we run into trouble with whole builds that dominate.

For example, every one knows that demolished with Ordenance Experts, Assault Proton Torpedoes and Engine techs is a really great ship. If you go to a tournament you are almost guaranteed to see at least one, maybe a few. But that is stlll a pretty small part of the list. What is the the rest of he list, it could be just about anything. So Demo isn't really a problem for the meta. DemSU on the other hand wasn't just a single good ship it was a whole build that just seemed to be better than everything else. Seeing that all day long at a tournament just isn't that much fun.

This is similar to what Baltanok said. Reiken, Yavaris, and Rebel Aces are not by themselves a problem for the meta. But when they come together into a single "best" build then there is no real room for much veriety within these lists.

This is why I don't see Flotillas to be a problem, sure everyone is taking flotillas, but what is the rest of there list. There is a ton of veriety. There isn't one flotilla build that is dominating the meta it is just a dominance of them in lots of different build.

The activation advantage arms race is a direct response to Demolisher build. You can not get last-first-ed by that ship. Demolisher upends a fundamental mechanic of the game by getting to move then shoot. Demolisher breaks the fundamental framework of the activation sequence by being allowed to shoot out of turn. Demolisher essentially steals an activation.

Trying to out activate your opponent has its roots in how broken Demolisher is. If I do some forum research will I find that the number of "nerf Demo" threads fell off a cliff shortly after the arrival of flotillas?

I've found in over 25 years of playing strategy games that choice is the key word in assessing game balance. When players feel that they are able to make a variety of choices and have the outcome reflect their skill rather than the choice being made, then you've got a healthy meta. Several of Reinholt's comments apply here as caveats. First, not every unit or upgrade card is going to make it. Some of them end up clearly obsoleted. Others are just a miss on the design from the start. And unlike computer games where there is more latitude for changing stats or costs to generate that balance quickly, change is much slower here and any changes have to take into account the long-term vision for the game. Second, I don't think that balance can be perfect. It really doesn't take it being that far off for it to start having noticeable effects. For example, if one archetype wins about 55% of the time, there's clearly some kind of imbalance there, but it might not require attention for a fix. Once you start getting to 60%, then people jump ship and go directly for that archetype. And a third caveat is to recognize that the choices we want to make might be structurally against the game, so not every cry of "I can't make choices" directly reflects game balance. I do think it is important to listen when we've got a chorus of voices in a lot of different areas of the game that are concerned.

Now, what that means for FFG making adjustments through future expansions or fixes is another question that I won't speculate on.

38 minutes ago, Frimmel said:

The activation advantage arms race is a direct response to Demolisher build. You can not get last-first-ed by that ship. Demolisher upends a fundamental mechanic of the game by getting to move then shoot. Demolisher breaks the fundamental framework of the activation sequence by being allowed to shoot out of turn. Demolisher essentially steals an activation.

Trying to out activate your opponent has its roots in how broken Demolisher is. If I do some forum research will I find that the number of "nerf Demo" threads fell off a cliff shortly after the arrival of flotillas?

nice in theory. in practice, a build with, say,(player A) 1 medium ship, 2 small ships and a large ship , vs (player B-first)large ship + 5 flotillas, has the same problem: again, he gets "first/lasted". player B will position one-large-ship to gunnery-team the small ships, then speed 3-away. all while flotillas keep running away too.

same with Demo. same with Admonition.

last/first hurts... because you dont get to try and dogde past its firing arc, and dodging out of firing arcs is SO EASY for speed 3+ ships.

the reason of "2+3 flotillas", is that past your first , MAYBE second activation, the rest of your ships will have nothing in range. so 1-2 quality activations is all you need, the rest is padding for activation game.

it doesnt help that most ships have PITIFUL red dice, so "red range often equals no range". if red dice were "primary armament" with other dice secondary, say if VSD had 5 red/1 black, it'd be different. but now, even an ISD doesnt really deal huge damage at red range. ackbar had such solid (though not huge) success with gunships despite negating a whole firing arc/turn is because he screams "red dice matter since we have bigger quantity now".

back on topic, people need to understand what activation advantage is and why it works before screaming "nerf flotillas". the problem is deeper, and while many people say "the core of the game is healthy", i am of the different opinion- the game has awesome ships, awesome theme, awesome models, awesome campaign, and its core (activation game) is so completely dissociative that it ruins its variety in competitive lists.

On 10/6/2017 at 9:59 AM, Blail Blerg said:

Game doesn't revolve around a wonky turn based system (cough, activations). Many ships are good for many ship reasons. Not for activation padding.

Large ships and medium ships have reasons to have guns. og mh yods, have you seen the posts insinuating that ISDs and Home One doesn't even have guns??? AUGH.

134 squadrons is viable. 0 squadrons is viable (and not due to cheese). Squadron and ship gunline damage are in line, and not crazily overly efficiently accurate with 2BCC and Toryn.

... There are reasons to take VSDs and Interdictors. There aren't right now.

Welcome to Armada, 6 activations, 1 demo, 1 Quasar with 134 Defenders or bombers plus 4 gozantis.
7 activations Ram or MSU.
5 activations, Yavaris, Gallant Haven, Rieekan 3 floittlas with 2 BCC and Toryn. Cool. Im out. That's no fun.

Savage...

When I first got into this game, I liked the idea of the fleet building and the ship vs ship battles with squadrons zooming around fighting either other or performing bombing runs on the large ships. This is still very possible in my local meta, which is nice, but looking around at high competitive event results and vassal lists, I just see Flotillas floating around the outskirts of the map while one, MAYBE two other ships go into to fight your whole fleet with a mass of squads. It just doesn't feel like Armada should to me as a newer player.

On 6/10/2017 at 3:59 AM, Blail Blerg said:

Game doesn't revolve around a wonky turn based system (cough, activations). Many ships are good for many ship reasons. Not for activation padding.

Large ships and medium ships have reasons to have guns. og mh yods, have you seen the posts insinuating that ISDs and Home One doesn't even have guns??? AUGH.

134 squadrons is viable. 0 squadrons is viable (and not due to cheese). Squadron and ship gunline damage are in line, and not crazily overly efficiently accurate with 2BCC and Toryn.

... There are reasons to take VSDs and Interdictors. There aren't right now.

Welcome to Armada, 6 activations, 1 demo, 1 Quasar with 134 Defenders or bombers plus 4 gozantis.
7 activations Ram or MSU.
5 activations, Yavaris, Gallant Haven, Rieekan 3 floittlas with 2 BCC and Toryn. Cool. Im out. That's no fun.

Okay, so to address some of this

1- Every game is going to have a turn based system and I find alternating activations are more interactive than most. All the game really needs in this regards is the option to pass and not activate a ship if the other player has more unactivated ships than you and activation padding becomes a distant memory.

2- Many ships are good for many reasons. Not all of them are winners or have well defined roles, but that will, realistically, never happen. The only issue I currently have is that game doesn't differentiate base sizes with any inherent benefit outside of a few extra hull and a single amazing firing arc and I would definitely like to see it incentivize big and kick *** ships being on the table.

3- Large ships do have a reason to have guns and they hurt, but small ships can seperate damage points and defense tokens better (see point 2 about me wanting to see some base size related effects).

4- 0 squadrons should not be viable. This is Star Wars. Squadrons are a thing. Heroes flying squadrons are a thing. Half the named characters are fighter pilots and the other half just happen to also be able to pilot because why not. The game and general Star Wars combat are also somewhat based on WW2 naval engagements where 0 squadrons were also not terrifically viable outside of scenarios where neither side had them.

5- A baseline squadron should have better damage than a ship because coordinating squadrons requires additional points and considerations. If the baseline damage was equivocal, there be no need for squadrons as, at that point, they are simply clumsier and more easily tied up ships. In my opinion, BCCs were developed in the window where it was generally thought offensive squadrons were garbage even though there really wasn't enough data points to firmly arrive at that conclusion, so in that era, the blanket upgrade seemed appropriate. At this point, I would be fine with an errata for BCCs that said "If a a friendly squadron with BOMBER is within range 1-5 of one or more friendly ships with this upgrade..." to prevent stacking re-rolls. I've also been of the mind for a while that the game will not survive with Rhymer. Either he will break the game or get errated, but Squadrons firing at medium range is going to impossible to keep in check long term especially with Sloane about to drop.

6- There are reasons to take VSD and Interdictors, they just aren't as compelling as the reasons to take other things. See any other game where there are unused elements for reference. This does limit fleet building, but FFG have at least made attempts to make them viable (JJ and Capacitors), so this at least shows an awareness that there is an issue with these ships being below curve and an a desire to remedy that.

If I had a way to show vehement irritation at thatvresponse I would.

13 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

If I had a way to show vehement irritation at thatvresponse I would.

Glass houses

8 minutes ago, MasterShake2 said:

Glass houses

"Those who fly glass squadrons should not throw Sloanes."

I'll show myself out.

Just now, Reinholt said:

"Those who fly glass squadrons should not throw Sloanes."

I'll show myself out.

I chuckled, though

I'll chime in. I think a sign of a healthy meta is one where medium ships are actually valid ship choices. Right now, they aren't, so you have the extremes of large ship sledgehammers with deep hull (ISD-II), or ships that give you activation advantages with attack powers hitting above the points invested (APTs on Raiders, TRCs on CR-90s). Mediums don't have the defensive abilities of large ships and are out-activated by smalls. It's a lopsided meta.

8 hours ago, MasterShake2 said:

3- Large ships do have a reason to have guns and they hurt, but small ships can seperate damage points and defense tokens better (see point 2 about me wanting to see some base size related effects).

Which is better, spending your upgrade points on buying upgrade cards to up-gun your ship, or buying fighters? For the purposes of this example, those are your only two options.

8 hours ago, MasterShake2 said:

4- 0 squadrons should not be viable. This is Star Wars. Squadrons are a thing. Heroes flying squadrons are a thing. Half the named characters are fighter pilots and the other half just happen to also be able to pilot because why not. The game and general Star Wars combat are also somewhat based on WW2 naval engagements where 0 squadrons were also not terrifically viable outside of scenarios where neither side had them.

So can I infer you believe that capital ships should only be immobile targets for fighters to destroy? That's how they were in the movies. Why bother giving Star Destroyers dice to actually shoot things when the only capital ship that ever destroyed another with turbolasers in the movies is when Devastator showed up at the climax of Rogue One?

Point being fighters are not the selling point of Armada. This is supposed to be a capital warship space game, it should be possible to take a list of starships and win with it. Squadrons can be a side show. If you want to push a lot of fighters around to make a difference, go to X-Wing. Really, this should be Star Destroyer the game.

8 hours ago, MasterShake2 said:

6- There are reasons to take VSD and Interdictors, they just aren't as compelling as the reasons to take other things. See any other game where there are unused elements for reference. This does limit fleet building, but FFG have at least made attempts to make them viable (JJ and Capacitors), so this at least shows an awareness that there is an issue with these ships being below curve and an a desire to remedy that.

What miffs me is how softball these fixes have been. JJ does nothing for VSDs that need to rush to get their second line of dice committed. To use JJ, the enemy needs to be racing towards you to catch, but what about some ARQs hanging out at long range? Or evasive CR-90s with TRCs firing from long range to peck your shields to death?

DCaps is at least something, so you can committ those second dice as soon as you're able to shoot, but where was this card three waves ago? And there's still nothing for the VSD-I, which will never get to fire it's black dice except trying to shoot down Demo or Admo.

I've seen what feels like thirty different answers. Everyone wants something different. I think we should all accept the game for what it is. Nothing is perfect.

2 hours ago, ninclouse2000 said:

I've seen what feels like thirty different answers. Everyone wants something different. I think we should all accept the game for what it is. Nothing is perfect.

Maybe this one is different (though I didn't read everyone else's all that thoroughly to be sure of it):

For me the meta is balanced when different locales have different metas; that 'the meta' depends on local interpretations and choices (call it culture), rather than the inherent (im)balances of the game pieces provided to us.

I think there's some of that in effect. This last weekend I attended a Regional in which there were (to my knowledge) no Rieekan aces lists, and there was a clear Imperial majority. Now, maybe that was because the location where this was held is super casual (unlikely, since most of the attendees were from out of town), or perhaps because people were reacting to the meta, trying to do something other than the meta. Whatever it was, it was not reflective of the Worlds meta.

5 hours ago, Mikael Hasselstein said:

Maybe this one is different (though I didn't read everyone else's all that thoroughly to be sure of it):

For me the meta is balanced when different locales have different metas; that 'the meta' depends on local interpretations and choices (call it culture), rather than the inherent (im)balances of the game pieces provided to us.

I think there's some of that in effect. This last weekend I attended a Regional in which there were (to my knowledge) no Rieekan aces lists, and there was a clear Imperial majority. Now, maybe that was because the location where this was held is super casual (unlikely, since most of the attendees were from out of town), or perhaps because people were reacting to the meta, trying to do something other than the meta. Whatever it was, it was not reflective of the Worlds meta.

This is nice to hear. I'm glad there's a group out there playing for enjoyment. I feel that each wave as added to the game and changed the game. Not just the new ships but the upgrades often enhance older ships as well. It feels to me all the threads lately are complaints.

4 hours ago, ninclouse2000 said:

This is nice to hear. I'm glad there's a group out there playing for enjoyment. I feel that each wave as added to the game and changed the game. Not just the new ships but the upgrades often enhance older ships as well. It feels to me all the threads lately are complaints.

Yeah, I've been less enthused about coming out to the forum as a result. But, that tends to be the nature of such forums at times. Frequently it devolves into factions of complainers and fanboys.

I accept that the game cannot be perfectly balanced, and therefore a structural meta will emerge - ie. a meta based on the game pieces; not just on the intersubjective choices of the players. I also accept that FFG is not going to listen to the myriad rules suggestions that people come up with on the forums, and so I really don't bother reading them. That said, I do think they read enough to learn where there are problems, and then come to solutions. Generally, it seems that solutions are fairly soft so as not to overcorrect.

The thing is, frequently the complaints are based on the intersubjective meta. Remember when there were all these complaints about the uselessness of the Raider; just before someone (Clon) unlocked how to use them (Clonisher). That's the way I think it usually works - and how it really should work.

This thread makes me appreciate my local meta. In the last three games I played, I either used or faced 12 of the 15 ships in this game (No GSD, Neb, or AFmk2). Maybe 30-50% of the unique squads in the game also saw the table.

We run run a huge variety and Im glad for it.

EDIT: Also, 5 different commanders across those 6 fleets. The repeat was Vader.

4 hours ago, Church14 said:

...The repeat was Vader.