11 hours ago, Admiral Deathrain said:Wow this forum is so insufferable at the moment... "Good players are trying out new stuff, it has to be op!" "I lost to a new list once, it has to be nerfed!" Give me a break.
Also: "Empire never gets anything worth any attention"
4 minutes ago, Managarmr said:Also: "Empire never gets anything worth any attention"
If only it weren't a true statement.
1 minute ago, Johen Dood said:If only it weren't a true statement.
None of the many store championships imperials have been winning and placing highly in count, obviously.
4 minutes ago, Sekac said:None of the many store championships imperials have been winning and placing highly in count, obviously.
Nearly every SC held this last weekend was won by a Nym list of some variety. MJ doesn't have the Wave XI results up yet, but I'm willing to bet there isn't an Imperial ship anywhere in the Top 15. This wave is a nightmare of Scum favoritism.
1 minute ago, Johen Dood said:Nearly every SC held this last weekend was won by a Nym list of some variety. MJ doesn't have the Wave XI results up yet, but I'm willing to bet there isn't an Imperial ship anywhere in the Top 15. This wave is a nightmare of Scum favoritism.
Not nyc
We had five nyms, none made the cut 
Cut waa fennscouts, biggs wulf low jank, and two quickdraw omega L vesseries
Edited by ficklegreendiceJust now, ficklegreendice said:Not nyc
We had five nyms, none made the cut
It's why we need ListJuggler! God I really want to know what happened since XI release!
4 hours ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:I can literally, off-hand, think of three other players I've met in the (relatively) local scene that either have a PhD in Probability & Statistics or else are finishing up their doctorate at the moment. I myself have a doctorate in the bio-sciences, so I had to take three grad-level statistics courses. What MJ's done is established a modeling parameter for generating a single value within the context of several (big) assumptions. Those assumptions are what I disagree with, as I do not think a single simplified quantification is of much use in analyzing the value of a ship in real-table dynamics.
Heaver, for instance, runs simulations when contemplating his squad choices, such as "how much averaged TLT fire can this ship survive," which while also a simplification is far more valuable and useful in considering a squad than relying on brute abstract "jousting values" in a game where brute jousting hasn't really played much of a role since the TIE Phantom came out (but even Double Falcons were defying jousting values before then).
Right, there's lots of folks that have advanced degrees that play this game. My PhD is in Electrical Engineering, and my dissertation topic had more to do with control loop theory, underwater transducers, and switching power amplifiers than pure statistics. Obviously I have taken several statistics, probability, and high level math courses, but I'm fundamentally a problem-solving engineering type, not a pure science or pure statistics type.
Straight line jousting calculations are, as they would say in the engineering academic world, a "necessary but not sufficient" condition for determining a ship's overall viability. My contribution has been to start that discussion, although as of yet not formally in the academic literature. The real problem with the industry trying to balance these kinds of miniature wargames is that a blueprint "how-to" doesn't exist, partially because the game designers don't exactly go looking through the Naval Postgraduate School's literature on wargaming theory, and also because the literature doesn't really contain the adaptations they would need specifically for board games anyway.
The fundamental underlying approach is sound, although I have some more unpublished rigorous derivations that lend themselves nicely to closed-form solutions and can provide some very meaningful real-world insight. Lanchester's relevant work and my adaptations for armies with a discrete number of units can actually be summarized in a few pages. I would like to do a more complete literature survey to see if anyone else has derived the same closed form solutions as I have, before publishing anything.
What can certainly be improved are:
1) The "blender" style approach to creating aggregate average performance numbers vs other methods (traditionally a simple analysis is just "Team A" vs "Team B").
2) The specific implementation based on refining the input data vector, i.e. "the meta" that is being simulated.
I will be the first to list all the drawbacks and areas of improvement in my approach if you really get talking to me in person, I'm my own harshest critic in that regard. How to go from straight-line jousting efficiencies to determining real-world viability is based on relative firing duty cycles, and analysis of empirical playtesting data. I think it's a fascinating discussion. You may feel that the approach has little value in predicting a ship's real-world performance, but the FFG's fixes have consistently lagged my predictions by 1-3 years on average. Alex has recently stated that he doesn't have a mathematical formula for determining the value of a PS9 arc dodger. But through a combination of jousting values and empirical data, I do have a formula, and it is an extraordinarily powerful design tool to make sure that a newly designed pilot/upgrade is neither too strong nor to weak.
So, on the bright side, my unpublished scripts take action economy fully into account, so parameterizing Soontir Fel, Fenn Rau, and most other "tier 1" pilots is now possible. It might surprise you to learn, that the ships that are the best performers in the meta are still usually the ones with the game's highest straight-line jousting efficiencies. Generic jousters have been terrible at jousting for a long time now. But Soontir Fel, The Inquisitor, and Fenn Rau all have one thing in common: they're far more cost efficient at straight line jousting than a Lambda Shuttle, let alone B-wings or TIE Fighters. Dengar and Quickdraw revenge shots ain't bad either!
Probably the biggest advantage to the fundamental approach is that because of the square root relationship of ship power to ship value, it's basically impossible to be dramatically wrong in your numerical estimates. This isn't a mathematical sleight of hand, it's just what best reflects reality. For example, if I know that a PS9 dual-action arc dodger should have a straight line jousting efficiency around 85%-90%*** to hit the "sweet spot" based on real world playtesting data, then I can very reliably come up with a target cost for any such pilot. I might be off by a point or so, but I won't dramatically undercost things like the example above, or horribly overcost things like stock Talonbane Cobra. It's also how I was able to declare the stock Defenders dead on arrival before even knowing their dial and with a highly simplified analysis method (by my standards today) because the efficiency numbers were no better than the common turrets at the time. Turret > dial.
Also, Paul's TLT calculations that you just described are actually a simplified form of calculating a portion of jousting efficiency. 
Paul's approaching the problem from a player's perspective, whereas I approach it from a designer and architect's perspective. In either case both should converge to reality, and we always seem to reach about the same conclusion, so that's a good sign.
5 hours ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:
How the hell does that math work out, because the Scurrg is the same price as a B-Wing, has the same actions, the same stats except for +2 Health, and has a better upgrade bar and a better dial. So you're telling me that +2 Health and better dials and upgrade slots don't increase it's mathwing value? This is exactly why Major Juggler's Mathwing has always been nonsense. And the "jousting value" of a ship is a pretty dumb thing to calculate when stat-line jousters and jousting haven't been a part of the meta since Wave 3.
A 3/1/5/5 statline does indeed have a higher straight line jousting value than a 3/1/3/5 statline -- by about two points as quoted upthread. Recall that a ship's value is roughly proportional to the square root of its expected damage output times its expected durability. So increasing a ship's durability by 25% is only going to increase it's value by about 12%. And the PS1 Scurgg costs 2 points more than the PS2 B-wing, so if your only metric is straight-line cost efficiency without any upgrades, the two ships are about on par.
*** it's not exactly 85% - 90%, but it's close. 90% is the high end and better describes Soontir Fel + PtL "back in the day", and he was still pretty good then.
Edited by MajorJuggler1 hour ago, Velvetelvis said:I can't remember the last time juggler had math on a podcast.
Actually....now that I think about it.its been over a year ...wait is it two years?
Hmmm. I must have missed something somewhere. I feel like any podcasts he's on where they ask for analasys has been answered with " it's not possible to get the numbers" or " I haven't done it yet."
Nothing against the guy, it's not his job to provide anyone with the results of his work.
But there hasn't been any work. In several waves of ships.
I think perhaps we as players ought to let the guy retire in piece. It doesn't seem like the math is important anymore. It can't model the dials and the card combos.
You're definitely right! Although, since I have recently started undertaking the rather gargantuan task of rebalancing the entire game, I'm taking a fine tooth comb at all the pilots again.
The new invincible Biggs squad is going to get the public treatment. It might be a month or two before it gets aired, based on my availability and S&V upcoming recording schedules. Spoiler alert, if you can force your opponent to completely defocus their fire, and you can completely focus fire on them, then all else being equal, if you have a 4-ship squad it's like you're playing with a 126 point squad and they only have 100 points. I had to go back to the fundamental drawing board to derive this one, because this is the first squad that really breaks the focus fire assumptions. For reference, Parattanni was somewhere around 115 points with its synergies, and that was probably the most jousting cost efficient list the game had ever seen up to that point, pre Manaroo nerf.
The Biggs squad isn't that bad (126 points), because the individual pieces don't add up to 100 points, and it can't actually get 100% focus fire vs 100% defocused fire, but it's still reasonably terrifying.
On a related note, I hear that Paul Heaver won a Store Championship with it, losing two ships the entire tournament. It also won a 22 player SC in Maine this weekend. 6-0 on the day, did not lose Biggs once. 600 MoV going into round 3, then lost Jess 3x and Rex once. Beat Dengaroo 3.0 at least twice, and triple PS10 cruise missiles twice as well.
Edited by MajorJugglerI saw one.of those games last night.
I knew all our fears were reality when the opponent threw 15 full mod dice at that list and did.....nothing.
And knowing how glacially slow this game is to release new content there won't be any relief from it for months or more like...near a year. And that's only a MAYBE counter to it.
I think I miss the days when Frank was careful about doing things that helped Biggs. And I loathe the new team that didn't heed that advice and decided to double Biggs power.
I could just be jaded for different reasons...but this wave really feels like the sky has indeed fallen.
It's one of those " I really really hope I'm wrong" moments. But watching that list ....happen...broke my x wing heart.
Yall gonna love the SCURRG when you need to bomb through low Biggs
1 hour ago, MajorJuggler said:On a related note, I hear that Paul Heaver won a Store Championship with it, losing two ships the entire tournament. It also won a 22 player SC in Maine this weekend. 6-0 on the day, did not lose Biggs once. 600 MoV going into round 3, then lost Jess 3x and Rex once. Beat Dengaroo 3.0 at least twice, and triple PS10 cruise missiles twice as well.
I was at the Maine SC. My only loss was to the aforementioned Cruise Missile list, which just barely edged me out of the top 4. It was my first tournament and I did not time my approach correctly. It is hard to survive 15 modified red dice. The Championship list was very interesting, and very strong defensively.
3 hours ago, Johen Dood said:Nearly every SC held this last weekend was won by a Nym list of some variety. MJ doesn't have the Wave XI results up yet, but I'm willing to bet there isn't an Imperial ship anywhere in the Top 15. This wave is a nightmare of Scum favoritism.
OMG are you serious, are the good x-wing players excited to play a new ship so are bringing it out to tournaments? Is the Tie aggressor boering as hell so no one wants to fly it?
There is huge bias in any results simply based on people want to play the new hotness, you cannot state something is favored or overpowered until the meta has some time to shake out. When I play this weekend am I going to be playing a list I know will obliterate nym? no I won't because I want to try my new ships... (5x mangler m3a's will make short work of any nym list... i have no doubt about that, its my favorite list to play but right now I want to try some new ****)
This whole forum is X-wing cancer... you people need to calm down and look at things from a logical rational perspective. New **** is new and exciting, new **** is going to be played by x-wing enthusiasts who generally are good to begin with, they are going to win with the new ****... calm down.
Well nearly all winning with Nym is clearly inaccurate, no offense. Of the ones that actually posted on list juggler, it looked like maybe 1 Nym list won, with a couple in the top 4. I count more in this thread, but clearly the people who win with those lists want to be the first to share their success and gain the credit. And I only say this so people think to look at the facts before making blanket statements that might inaccurately sway the opinions of others.
Not saying he isn't the best pilot plus platform of wave 11, but there are already a good number of Pilots and ships of equal strength and annoyance. This is just power in a new way.
Edited by phild03 hours ago, MajorJuggler said:On a related note, I hear that Paul Heaver won a Store Championship with it, losing two ships the entire tournament. It also won a 22 player SC in Maine this weekend. 6-0 on the day, did not lose Biggs once. 600 MoV going into round 3, then lost Jess 3x and Rex once. Beat Dengaroo 3.0 at least twice, and triple PS10 cruise missiles twice as well.
The Rebel Jankyard also won a Michigan Store Champs this weekend with a 7-0 record; four 100-0 wins and six ships total lost in the tourney as well. Perhaps a slightly different set of upgrades, but Lowhrick/Biggs/Jess/Rex.
19 hours ago, markcsoul said:Won't work if you spam 3 of them, but for 1 or 2 could take outlaw tech to keep using deadeye for a second missile shot after the turnaround. I'm guessing like most ghosts auto blaster will be auto include if you can afford it.
He had 2 with Outlaw Tech (nice idea). But of course when you see that it is equipped, gotta think before boosting into what looks like a good flanking position, haha.
Wtf is up with all the cancer analogies?! Plastic spaceships kids...
10 hours ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:
How the hell does that math work out, because the Scurrg is the same price as a B-Wing, has the same actions, the same stats except for +2 Health, and has a better upgrade bar and a better dial. So you're telling me that +2 Health and better dials and upgrade slots don't increase it's mathwing value? This is exactly why Major Juggler's Mathwing has always been nonsense. And the "jousting value" of a ship is a pretty dumb thing to calculate when stat-line jousters and jousting haven't been a part of the meta since Wave 3.
I admittedly biased, but I reject Mathwing and do not agree that Juggler has the "credentials" or expertise to declare what is or is not appropriately costed.
Needs a dislike button.
2 hours ago, Icelom said:OMG are you serious, are the good x-wing players excited to play a new ship so are bringing it out to tournaments? Is the Tie aggressor boering as hell so no one wants to fly it?
There is huge bias in any results simply based on people want to play the new hotness, you cannot state something is favored or overpowered until the meta has some time to shake out. When I play this weekend am I going to be playing a list I know will obliterate nym? no I won't because I want to try my new ships... (5x mangler m3a's will make short work of any nym list... i have no doubt about that, its my favorite list to play but right now I want to try some new ****)
This whole forum is X-wing cancer... you people need to calm down and look at things from a logical rational perspective. New **** is new and exciting, new **** is going to be played by x-wing enthusiasts who generally are good to begin with, they are going to win with the new ****... calm down.
Also needs a dislike button.
33 minutes ago, Vargas79 said:Wtf is up with all the cancer analogies?! Plastic spaceships kids...
You know what you are right, and I used the analogy.
It's plastic toys, I need to step back and calm down. Sometimes I go overboard, and that's on me. Comparing things in a game to a serious illness is making a huge disservice to that illness as a person living with a chronic illness I should know better.
At the end of the day, i love x-wing, should probably just back off from these forums again as they seem to distract from what I love about this game.
Thank you Vargas79, I definitely needed some perspective slapped across my face.
1 hour ago, Vargas79 said:Wtf is up with all the cancer analogies?! Plastic spaceships kids...
cancer analogies tend to get everywhere
just like cancer 
The cancer analogies exist because it's a good analogy. Something starts ruining the game and spreading across the meta, just like a cancer. It may be offense, but it's apt.
I propose that we call the 4 ship invincible Biggs list Stage Four.
8 hours ago, HungryFFG said:I was at the Maine SC. My only loss was to the aforementioned Cruise Missile list, which just barely edged me out of the top 4. It was my first tournament and I did not time my approach correctly. It is hard to survive 15 modified red dice. The Championship list was very interesting, and very strong defensively.
So do you think the meta has moved fro ma kill heavy cycle to a tank heavy cycle where defense and rounds going to time is back? Are we back to MoV and point fortressing?
11 hours ago, Johen Dood said:Nearly every SC held this last weekend was won by a Nym list of some variety. MJ doesn't have the Wave XI results up yet, but I'm willing to bet there isn't an Imperial ship anywhere in the Top 15. This wave is a nightmare of Scum favoritism.
There were 3 triple Imp Aces and 1 Leebo Miranda in the top 4 of our tournament on Sunday (not an SC, but...) out of 16 players. All of those lists beat Scurrgs to make top 4. So...
9 hours ago, Velvetelvis said:I saw one.of those games last night.
I knew all our fears were reality when the opponent threw 15 full mod dice at that list and did.....nothing.
And knowing how glacially slow this game is to release new content there won't be any relief from it for months or more like...near a year. And that's only a MAYBE counter to it.
I think I miss the days when Frank was careful about doing things that helped Biggs. And I loathe the new team that didn't heed that advice and decided to double Biggs power.
I could just be jaded for different reasons...but this wave really feels like the sky has indeed fallen.
It's one of those " I really really hope I'm wrong" moments. But watching that list ....happen...broke my x wing heart.
Wave XI has been out for a day - they aren't stupid, wait until we get a FAQ. If Biggs hasn't been changed by then, it'll be more apt for this sort of complaining. Until then, wait and see.
10 hours ago, Velvetelvis said:I knew all our fears were reality when the opponent threw 15 full mod dice at that list and did.....nothing.
Is it wrong that my brain said "so, pretty much my normal shooting over a couple of turns, then?"
Is suspect that was more meant to be referring to the green dice, though. 
The Jankyard list is nasty. I'm not sure how to deal with it - if there was a glaringly obvious weakness it wouldn't be a thing - but my suspicions are if it has a weak spot it's either:
Abusing the close formation....not sure. Assault Missiles could, but the whole point is that the list is really good at avoiding taking damage. If it becomes a thing worth tailoring against, though, assault missiles might be worth a thought.
Thinking about the whole blocking issue, though, I wonder if Deadman's switch might be worth a thought? A Binyare Pirate with Deadman's switch hardly breaks the bank, but it's a really annoying thing to find the formation blocked by.
In terms of the "OMG every winning list last weekend had a new ship in it" reflex - as pointed out; most people have just got their new shiny toys. I'm not saying they aren't good ships, but there will be at least some bias to the results because the players who always do well want to use their new wave XI stuff in the first weekend because it's new, as well as any bias of players using wave XI stuff doing well because their squad choice lifts them from their normal ranking.
Edited by Magnus Grendel
5 hours ago, SaltMaster 5000 said:The cancer analogies exist because it's a good analogy. Something starts ruining the game and spreading across the meta, just like a cancer. It may be offense, but it's apt.
Except that cancer kills while this is about plastic toy spaceships. It may be apt, but it's also very, very stupid.