9 minutes ago, Darth Sanguis said:I don't know why this errata is all that surprising to anyone.... didn't X-wing get their 1st errata late into wave 5 too?
Once you expand as much as they have with Armada it makes sense they'd have to recalibrate parts of the game...
When we get unique title cards for 0 points that reduces the base cost of a ship Ill be leaving armada for good.
That would be a great day for some around here
20 minutes ago, draco193 said:I'm actually thinking this is a design they intended. It continues to help balance squadron vs ship play.
Thats imbalancing Rebels vs Imperials, not balancing ships vs squadrons.
1 minute ago, xerpo said:When we get unique title cards for 0 points that reduces the base cost of a ship Ill be leaving armada for good.
That would be a great day for some around here
Feh suit yourself mate, they day I can take my ISD for less is a day where I'm happy to be playing.
4 minutes ago, xerpo said:Thats imbalancing Rebels vs Imperials, not balancing ships vs squadrons.
He'll still work against opposing Imperial uniques as well. Possibly even more so since so many of the scatter aces are 3 health.
Yknow geek I prefer it when people actually try and look at booths and don't force me to have tobrebaknce the equation. As I stated over and over what the qualifications to my opinion were and even my warning to not nerf rieekan squadrons too much. But I really didn't get any help.
19 minutes ago, draco193 said:He'll still work against opposing Imperial uniques as well. Possibly even more so since so many of the scatter aces are 3 health.
That does not fix the imbalance is going to create between factions.
Sweet more commanders with skin in the game versus hiding in the corner.
Yet the whole "I have five activations, they are cheaper, I outbid you, your ships are screwed" is still gonna be a thing. Whilst I like the idea of commander's closer to the front, the core issue was activations and I can bet money it's gonna get changed when they realize they didn't go far enough.
Flotilla's are still cheapo carriers that push from the rear and out activate larger capital ships.
I think the new FAQ fixed most of what seemed problematic in the game, even the light nerf to Flotillas will probably have a bigger impact than most realize. Anything that most people feel is a must have should be reevaluated and fixed, it will increase overall diversity. There are no perfect balance, can't ever be achieved.
As for squadron dominance I think squadron have a relatively thematic impact on the game, no Star Wars fleet should deploy without at least some squadron defence and Rebels should rely on squadron more than the Empire in general.
If you deploy an ISD you should have at least six squadrons and a Lamda. Say two bombers, three fighters and one interceptor. Anything less is not really being Star Wars. Sure it is a game and anything goes but is that the only reason you invest time in this?
1 hour ago, jorgen_cab said:I think the new FAQ fixed most of what seemed problematic in the game, even the light nerf to Flotillas will probably have a bigger impact than most realize. Anything that most people feel is a must have should be reevaluated and fixed, it will increase overall diversity. There are no perfect balance, can't ever be achieved.
As for squadron dominance I think squadron have a relatively thematic impact on the game, no Star Wars fleet should deploy without at least some squadron defence and Rebels should rely on squadron more than the Empire in general.
If you deploy an ISD you should have at least six squadrons and a Lamda. Say two bombers, three fighters and one interceptor. Anything less is not really being Star Wars. Sure it is a game and anything goes but is that the only reason you invest time in this?
"Anything that is a must is bad.
But if you run an ISD I decree you must run 6 fighters with them. And specifically 2 bombers 3 fighters and an interceptor. "
Becayse we all LOVE your interpretation of fun and Star Wars. Yum.
Edited by Blail Blerg13 hours ago, Hrathen said:It's not activation bloat it is letting larger ships play the game that is all about activations. It is a basic mechanic of the game. If you don't like the way activations work I think you are going to be sad for a long time waiting for a "fix".
Now that Flotillas can't carry your commander safely away from combat if you take flotillas strictly for activations and keep them away from combat you have spent points that give you nothing but activations. I don't see what the problem with this is. One might complain that the rebels can do it for way cheaper than the Empire, but then the Rebels didn't need the extra activations so much.
Sure most fleets will have flotillas, but I would argue that the rest of the the fleets are more diverse with flotillas than without.
Players didn't have to lifeboat that much before flotillas came to the scene. We'll be back to that. You can still lifeboat with a CR-90B with Engine techs for example.
10 hours ago, GammonLord said:Soooo, away from the whole back biting side of this thread....
Do flotillas still need nerfing ref. activation advantage? The two most egregious uses for them (multiple bomber commands and life boating) have been nerfed. Given, Relay is a bit of an issue, but padding out fleets with activations isn't the sure fire win strategy people take it for, and generally if a flot has a role (slicing, being a carrier, even comms netting) it'll end up in someones arc in at least red range.
Im all on board with the recent nerfs but i reckon we need to be a little circumspect with beating the drum for yet more. Before we know it we'll have nerfed ourselves back to wave 2...
It's not just the activation advantage, there's deployment advantage as well. Say I got three bare flotillas with my Yavaris battle ball. Deployments one, two, and three will be on either end of the deployment zone and dead center with those flotillas. Then I start plopping down my fighters by the center-most GR, starting with my fastest ships. Then once the opponent's heavy Demolisher/Devestator/Liberty/whatever is on the table, the rest of my force goes down in the best spot. For instance, I can deploy far away and force that ship to come to me so his line is out of position when I attack. All my opponent can kill is my nearly immobile GR-75 that I know I'm sacrificing... in exchange for getting tasty shots on his flanks.
No life boating means the commander card is at least not in the middle of nowhere, but it could be just going back on the most resilient ship in the list (an ISD or MC80 of some type). But nothing is done for buying flotillas for all the cheap advantages you need a ship for, like deployment and activation.
I guess it wouldn't be a thing if whatever ship you have can survive an alpha strike from the most dangerous ship you can think of to face, but what if they go first to double-tap you? Do you like the prospect of surviving a last-and-first attack from I dunno, Devestator? A Liberty armed with QLTs and H9s? Admonition? Demolisher when it's close and the speed 3 attack doesn't matter?
The whole reason this matters is because you as a player are looking to get the largest, biggest attack on a target first to get a lead on destroying it, or you are in the most advantageous position possible to avoid that ship, or have an advantage in destroying it.
Since Rebels have the cheaper ships over all, it's easier for them to buy activations, buy yavaris, buy a cloud of fighters for cheap... then get deployment, activation, and attack bonuses. Even their heavies are cheaper, and with the discount you can buy a flotilla to drop that down first to better position your Liberty/MC80 to respond to the opponent's deployment.
In the Empire your flotillas are more expensive, half of the ships are medium-large craft, and your fighters are mostly geared to killing enemy fighters and can't take many hits from casual AA shots.
Around the SF Bay area, the only Imperial players seem to be stubborn holdouts like myself or those trying something crazy. Everyone's flipped to Rebels because of more things you can do with the faction in terms of list construction and power. Even I'm forced to play by Rebel rules, fielding all light ships and fighters (ARQs with slaved turrets, flotillas, Jendon fighters).
So, I dunno. TL:DR; the flotilla fix did not address the inherent activation advantages flotillas offer and this will remain a game issue for the foreseeable future, unless big ships get stronger to survive an omega-alpha strike or the activation game is modified in some way.
Just wanna say, i played a game with errata rules yesterday with broba. It felt fun to have commanders on the biggest ships
and yes, i had a demolisher with ET. nerf didnt stop it. With flagships in danger it felt like decision making was that much more important.
7 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:"Anything that is a must is bad.
But if you run an ISD I decree you must run 6 fighters with them. And specifically 2 bombers 3 fighters and an interceptor. "
Becayse we all LOVE your interpretation of fun and Star Wars. Yum.
I only mean that it is "thematic" to run a bunch of squadrons with your ISD. Star Wars is not just about capital ships... If you want to play the game in some other way that is fine but then it is just that, a game not Star Wars.
I know of no reason an ISD would ever be deployed without any of its squadrons present anywere from cannon.
Perhaps you could enlighten me...
11 hours ago, Darth Sanguis said:It took me a while to wrap my head around this. I was looking for some bathroom reading one morning (I had left my phone in the kitchen) and ended up reading the back slip to the Arquitten expansion I found lying by the trash bin...
There was a HUGE list of people involved in play testing.... It got me to realize when they release stuff.... they've tested and played it to death. They know what they're doing.
Amusingly. No
Something is playtested heavily. Something is released. These arent necessarily even closely related items.
1 hour ago, Norsehound said:Players didn't have to lifeboat that much before flotillas came to the scene. We'll be back to that. You can still lifeboat with a CR-90B with Engine techs for example.
It's not just the activation advantage, there's deployment advantage as well. Say I got three bare flotillas with my Yavaris battle ball. Deployments one, two, and three will be on either end of the deployment zone and dead center with those flotillas. Then I start plopping down my fighters by the center-most GR, starting with my fastest ships. Then once the opponent's heavy Demolisher/Devestator/Liberty/whatever is on the table, the rest of my force goes down in the best spot. For instance, I can deploy far away and force that ship to come to me so his line is out of position when I attack. All my opponent can kill is my nearly immobile GR-75 that I know I'm sacrificing... in exchange for getting tasty shots on his flanks.
No life boating means the commander card is at least not in the middle of nowhere, but it could be just going back on the most resilient ship in the list (an ISD or MC80 of some type). But nothing is done for buying flotillas for all the cheap advantages you need a ship for, like deployment and activation.
I guess it wouldn't be a thing if whatever ship you have can survive an alpha strike from the most dangerous ship you can think of to face, but what if they go first to double-tap you? Do you like the prospect of surviving a last-and-first attack from I dunno, Devestator? A Liberty armed with QLTs and H9s? Admonition? Demolisher when it's close and the speed 3 attack doesn't matter?
The whole reason this matters is because you as a player are looking to get the largest, biggest attack on a target first to get a lead on destroying it, or you are in the most advantageous position possible to avoid that ship, or have an advantage in destroying it.
Since Rebels have the cheaper ships over all, it's easier for them to buy activations, buy yavaris, buy a cloud of fighters for cheap... then get deployment, activation, and attack bonuses. Even their heavies are cheaper, and with the discount you can buy a flotilla to drop that down first to better position your Liberty/MC80 to respond to the opponent's deployment.
In the Empire your flotillas are more expensive, half of the ships are medium-large craft, and your fighters are mostly geared to killing enemy fighters and can't take many hits from casual AA shots.
Around the SF Bay area, the only Imperial players seem to be stubborn holdouts like myself or those trying something crazy. Everyone's flipped to Rebels because of more things you can do with the faction in terms of list construction and power. Even I'm forced to play by Rebel rules, fielding all light ships and fighters (ARQs with slaved turrets, flotillas, Jendon fighters).
So, I dunno. TL:DR; the flotilla fix did not address the inherent activation advantages flotillas offer and this will remain a game issue for the foreseeable future, unless big ships get stronger to survive an omega-alpha strike or the activation game is modified in some way.
Activasion advantge is not that big of a deal. I gladly have more powerful ships and go second. Choose objective cards that give little advantge to deployment and never engage unless you must... use objective points to win.
Force the opponent to react to your movement... not the other way around.
2 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:Amusingly. No
Something is playtested heavily. Something is released. These arent necessarily even closely related items.
Meet Devastator. Something that was clearly playtested and nobody could figure out how to use it until they gave the same ability to everyone else in wave 6.
20 minutes ago, jorgen_cab said:Activasion advantge is not that big of a deal. I gladly have more powerful ships and go second. Choose objective cards that give little advantge to deployment and never engage unless you must... use objective points to win.
Force the opponent to react to your movement... not the other way around.
I feel like you're talking about initiative. Are you talking about initiative?
Because if you're talking about activation advantage, I feel like maybe you're missing the point of activation advantage, which is that the opponent with activation advantage is better able to both respond to your actions and to prevent you from effectively responding to his. Yes, the pinnacle of this is the last/first glass cannon, but that's a special case, the confluence of activation advantage and initiative , not to be confused with activation advantage as such.
http://xwingtactics.blogspot.com/2016/02/activation-advantage.html
http://xwingtactics.blogspot.com/2016/01/advantage.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OyNQEd33gc&feature=youtu.be
http://xwingtactics.blogspot.com/2017/04/flotillas-activations-and-other.html
http://lkhero.blogspot.com/2015/12/armada-activation-advantage.html
http://concentratefire.blogspot.com/2016/03/5-ships-is-new-black.html
I was talking about both and no I have no direct problem with activation advantage. If you are able to think two or three turns ahead and capitalize on objective points it is no problem to deal with it.
Wasting points on just activation advantage is not well spent points in my opinion.
I have played games with just a few activation and the opponent had double that with no problems what so ever. I just don't let my opponent dictate movement, I can with more powerful ships.
Just saying it can be overcome, perhaps not in a tournament setting where you need to table an opponent, but if just not loosing is the key it works just fine.
Aiming not to sound like the "git good" crowd here (if anything, I am in dire need of "gitting good"), however deployment and activation advantage, whilst great bonuses, aren't the be all and end all.
A fleet heavy in flotillas, naked ones or with a purpose, has sacrificed serious killing power across their fleet and potentially put all their eggs in one basket (Euro finals fleets for example). That is a huge trade off to gain deployment and activation advantage. That's how 2 ISD fleets with supporting elements continue to do well. They may lose out on activations/ deployment, but make up for it with sheer killing power and resilience. 3 - 5 flotillas in a fleet dont really have either.
Summary: lots of flotillas gives you a particular advantage, but not necessarily THE advantage. Pop that fleet's main ship and they're floundering.
4 minutes ago, GammonLord said:Aiming not to sound like the "git good" crowd here (if anything, I am in dire need of "gitting good"), however deployment and activation advantage, whilst great bonuses, aren't the be all and end all.
A fleet heavy in flotillas, naked ones or with a purpose, has sacrificed serious killing power across their fleet and potentially put all their eggs in one basket (Euro finals fleets for example). That is a huge trade off to gain deployment and activation advantage. That's how 2 ISD fleets with supporting elements continue to do well. They may lose out on activations/ deployment, but make up for it with sheer killing power and resilience. 3 - 5 flotillas in a fleet dont really have either.
Summary: lots of flotillas gives you a particular advantage, but not necessarily THE advantage. Pop that fleet's main ship and they're floundering.
Euros 2017 beg to differ I'm afraid
Not so - once the Demolisher of one fleet was gone it was pretty much all over - going head to head with an ISD and tie bombers using Gozantis isn't ending well.
Im not saying it isn't an advantage, I'm saying its an advantage with trade-offs.
Edited by GammonLord20 minutes ago, Green Knight said:Euros 2017 beg to differ I'm afraid
You are also conflating winning by points over several games or just win (or not loosing)... very different type of settings to play in. Not everything are about tournament balance and playstyles...
5 hours ago, Kikaze said:Just wanna say, i played a game with errata rules yesterday with broba. It felt fun to have commanders on the biggest ships
I think this was kind odf lost in translation on the nerf. Demo is still really good but your window on the attack run just got way smaller. They turned Demo into a skill piece rather than a blunt instrument. Covered with nails. And named Lucille.
Edited by ImpStarDeuces21 hours ago, Green Knight said:Summoning @Aresius
Your fleet isn't affected at all, is it?
@Green Knight Yes, if i loose the Liberty i always loose the game, so 20 point more is not a problem.
5 hours ago, thecactusman17 said:Meet Devastator. Something that was clearly playtested and nobody could figure out how to use it until they gave the same ability to everyone else in wave 6.
I know thats your baby cactus but I feel like you know that the disp caps are an imperfect comparison at best. For one thing, they dont require you to take fire to make them work, and they are way cheaper, and can be used multiple times in a round.
8 hours ago, Norsehound said:Since Rebels have the cheaper ships over all, it's easier for them to buy activations, buy yavaris, buy a cloud of fighters for cheap... then get deployment, activation, and attack bonuses. Even their heavies are cheaper, and with the discount you can buy a flotilla to drop that down first to better position your Liberty/MC80 to respond to the opponent's deployment.
In the Empire your flotillas are more expensive, half of the ships are medium-large craft, and your fighters are mostly geared to killing enemy fighters and can't take many hits from casual AA shots.
...
So, I dunno. TL:DR; the flotilla fix did not address the inherent activation advantages flotillas offer and this will remain a game issue for the foreseeable future, unless big ships get stronger to survive an omega-alpha strike or the activation game is modified in some way.
Imp ship costs: 23/28/44/48/54/54/56/59/61/62/72/85/90/93/110/120. Average of 66-ish
Rebels average out to 63-ish.
Rebels have the cheapest ships, yes. They also have similar expensive options to Imperials and Imps have similar cheaper options to Rebels. Overall, it's pretty close between factions. Im nitpicking on wording.
I dont disagree on activation saturation being a concern. I just don't think Imps have it that bad like you say. They pay 5 more per flotilla but have better combat ships to run upgrade-lean. Especially with cheaper offensive oriented commanders.