There is only one thing that needs a fix, my freaking blacksmith hands moving around all the stuff while playing

I hope we get a small FAQ update soon that can clear up the issues with Minefield Mapper/Extra Munitions, Jabba, etc, and then they let the upcoming wave have some time to breathe before they cave to the "Nerf everything!" crowd.

I felt so trolled today when I saw the new X-Wing article on FFG's site and it turned out to be another X-Wing 101. I do like those articles; I'm just too hyperfocused on finding out if they're gonna change anything big in the next FAQ or not.

....any day now. The playtesting is monsterous.

If they do a day 1 FAQ that substantially affects balance, they will be tacitly admitting that their playtesting missed obvious OP combos, and shatter the pretends that erratas are based on tournament results, fundamental negative metagame changes, or similar objective external criteria. In addition, it would enormously piss off people who pre ordered ships that, post some theoretical FAQ, they can't use the way they intended. For example, people who preorder three Scurrgs would be pissed if Deadeye was errated to be unique - even if that was a better solution for the game broadly, it's a bad position for FFG to be in by their customers.

Changes like that will hurt less if people have had at least a few months to play the ships the way they planned when they bough them. That, plus the fact that we have already had an FAQ fixing obvious wave 11 issues (Aggressor title) suggests to me that we'll be waiting awhile.

2 hours ago, MacchuWA said:

If they do a day 1 FAQ that substantially affects balance, they will be tacitly admitting that their playtesting missed obvious OP combos, and shatter the pretends that erratas are based on tournament results, fundamental negative metagame changes, or similar objective external criteria. In addition, it would enormously piss off people who pre ordered ships that, post some theoretical FAQ, they can't use the way they intended. For example, people who preorder three Scurrgs would be pissed if Deadeye was errated to be unique - even if that was a better solution for the game broadly, it's a bad position for FFG to be in by their customers.

Changes like that will hurt less if people have had at least a few months to play the ships the way they planned when they bough them. That, plus the fact that we have already had an FAQ fixing obvious wave 11 issues (Aggressor title) suggests to me that we'll be waiting awhile.

What is better?

Admitting that play testing has missed obvious OP combos and fixing the problem -

or

Letting blatantly obvious OP combos run rampant.

Also, with a day one FAQ, that's the best way to prove that their play testing actually works and isn't just a bunch of Spikes not actually balancing the game correctly and trying to get overpowered combos past FFG so they can win at big events.

It doesn't take tournament data to realize when things are negative play experiences or dominant. It just takes common sense. If FFG would have taken immediate and proactive steps to balance this game, we wouldn't have had 2 whole waves swallowed up by the TIE Phantom and Fat Han. Instead, we had to deal with a ruined meta game, a smarmy design team that refused to actually nerf anything for an entire year, and a large portion of the game's community being stubborn and not wanting to let go of their favorite crutch ship.

FFG and a substantial portion of this game's player base lack intellectual honesty. If I had a dollar for every time that I've heard, "The Phantom isn't broken/Range one only is too harsh for Manaroo/Turrets take skill/Attanni Mindlink isn't broken/Palpatine is just fine" and other similar statements from TIE Phantom, Manaroo, Fat Falcon, Old Fennaroo, and Palp Aces players respectively, I could probably buy a set of wave 11 ships.

I honestly doubt they'll do much to affect balance from this wave, except possibly TLT.

I'm expecting changes to Jumpmasters, Mindlink, and possibly Fangs.

And there are a number of other non-balance errata and clarifications that are needed right now, particularly Jabba and Minefield Mapper.

8 hours ago, thespaceinvader said:

I honestly doubt they'll do much to affect balance from this wave, except possibly TLT.

I'm expecting changes to Jumpmasters, Mindlink, and possibly Fangs.

And there are a number of other non-balance errata and clarifications that are needed right now, particularly Jabba and Minefield Mapper.

This pretty much.

The completion of the "Great Balance" will not entail Wave 11; that's why the (unneeded) Aggressor Title clarification was flipped out there for the pokers and syncs out there. FAQ 4.3.4 will deal with Biggs, Sabine (maybe not now), Jumps and Attani, nothing beyond that I've heard and speculate....this has been in the pipe for a while, it's just some sensitive parts (like Palp wasn't haha).

I wish there was more transparency on this. I stopped being a playtester in wave 6 so am out of the loop, but there is evidence scattered across reddit, Facebook, these forums etc that a new FAQ is being playtested. In the open source software world we have a formal Request For Comments ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Request_for_Comments ) process, where the community gets to be involved and weigh in on change management, where good ideas bubble to top, buoyed by crowdsourced collaboration. With its X-Wing it's a closed pool of leaky and (sorry friends) inadequately equipped people splashing around hoping they don't eff it up too badly.

See http://www.unterstein.net/su/docs/CathBaz.pdf for the seminal essay on this topic from the 90s during the fertile early days of Linux kernel dev.

53 minutes ago, sozin said:

I wish there was more transparency on this. I stopped being a playtester in wave 6 so am out of the loop, but there is evidence scattered across reddit, Facebook, these forums etc that a new FAQ is being playtested. In the open source software world we have a formal Request For Comments ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Request_for_Comments ) process, where the community gets to be involved and weigh in on change management, where good ideas bubble to top, buoyed by crowdsourced collaboration. With its X-Wing it's a closed pool of leaky and (sorry friends) inadequately equipped people splashing around hoping they don't eff it up too badly.

See http://www.unterstein.net/su/docs/CathBaz.pdf for the seminal essay on this topic from the 90s during the fertile early days of Linux kernel dev.

Hope you forgive me for not reading all of that (the bottom link).

But sozin hits it on the head, as usual.

Makes me wonder if FFG would ever consider making the FAQ playtesting more open and balancing FAQs a more frequent thing. Pretty sure that would be good for the game.

Winter is coming. The Day of single player X-Wing comes tomorrow. FAQ you're our only hope.

44 minutes ago, Tbetts94 said:

The Day of single player X-Wing comes tomorrow.

That day has been around for some of us a good while already. HOTAC and variants have shown AI competent enough to be fun. I still hold out hope, albeit slim, that ffg will do an AI driven campaign but 100/6 is all they want to do so I will continue to play the game the way I want to not theirs. They make some **** fine game pieces though.

2 minutes ago, LordFajubi said:

That day has been around for some of us a good while already. HOTAC and variants have shown AI competent enough to be fun. I still hold out hope, albeit slim, that ffg will do an AI driven campaign but 100/6 is all they want to do so I will continue to play the game the way I want to not theirs. They make some **** fine game pieces though.

Very true

9 hours ago, sozin said:

I wish there was more transparency on this. I stopped being a playtester in wave 6 so am out of the loop, but there is evidence scattered across reddit, Facebook, these forums etc that a new FAQ is being playtested. In the open source software world we have a formal Request For Comments ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Request_for_Comments ) process, where the community gets to be involved and weigh in on change management, where good ideas bubble to top, buoyed by crowdsourced collaboration. With its X-Wing it's a closed pool of leaky and (sorry friends) inadequately equipped people splashing around hoping they don't eff it up too badly.

See http://www.unterstein.net/su/docs/CathBaz.pdf for the seminal essay on this topic from the 90s during the fertile early days of Linux kernel dev.

This is a good point. There's a reason games like Overwatch and WoW have Public Test Realms where anyone who feels like it can go be a playtester and provide feedback. Transparency of communication is a huge factor in maintaining a competitive community.

Along those lines, I'd also LOVE to hear from them more hints at what's coming in future waves. For example, if they said something now like, "Don't worry guys, we're working on an anti-bomb upgrade for Wave 12", you'd cut down massively on the number of complaints about bombs.

@sozin is correct. Play-testing for "to be manufactured" ships is understandably tough as you can't have transparency if you want the wow and fun of new exciting unknown material. However, play-testing to understand what the issue is for OP stuff should be very, very, very, very easy as you have all of the tournament results to go over and the World's top 16 to watch. Now I do understand from friends that the fixes seem to be difficult as whet to do to correct and not destroy the OP component (as in the Palp nerf testing). However, I also have it from seemingly (haha) reliable sources that some good, obvious and balanced fixes have been basically ignored for unknown reasons, while the days drag on and the ultimate power in the galaxy continues to plow a wake of unbridled wreckage without much of a real 'other meta' viable counter, as it awaits another FFG designed weapon to add to its practically unlimited and under-costed toolbox. This is the frustrating part. It makes one think that a real FFG strategy is to just wait and hope everything balances itself out as more components are sold to the masses and as if the game is made up of some kind of other-worldly organic playing pieces capable of morphing their details or something. Who knows; maybe as long as we keep buying up this OP stuff to remain competitive, they just laugh all the way to the bank. I don't know.....I really don't know.

56 minutes ago, clanofwolves said:

It makes one think that a real FFG strategy is to just wait and hope everything balances itself out

Yep! Fingers crossed!

6 minutes ago, SOTL said:

Yep! Fingers crossed!