12 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

Dammit, I have to put Inq on the table for real now. In my headsim he's way better than the general assessment, and I have to figure out if I'm right.

I won't be surprised if he's at least OK, but I think it's the combination of his 56 points and the options the Imperials have. Duchess at 42 points can take a shield upgrade and talent and still have points left over. Maarek can get FCS and a shield upgrade for 56 points. Named phantoms have already been mentioned.

The comparison of him with Obi-wan is decent, especially if you give Obi-wan CLT (61 points), which is probably comparable to the ability of the Inquisitor. For those 5 extra points, there's still a much stronger force ability available, a better ship ability, and an extra force point. All that is easily better than what the Inquisitor offers and I don't see many people choosing CLT Obiwan.

4 minutes ago, AlexW said:

I won't be surprised if he's at least OK, but I think it's the combination of his 56 points and the options the Imperials have. Duchess at 42 points can take a shield upgrade and talent and still have points left over. Maarek can get FCS and a shield upgrade for 56 points. Named phantoms have already been mentioned.

The comparison of him with Obi-wan is decent, especially if you give Obi-wan CLT (61 points), which is probably comparable to the ability of the Inquisitor. For those 5 extra points, there's still a much stronger force ability available, a better ship ability, and an extra force point. All that is easily better than what the Inquisitor offers and I don't see many people choosing CLT Obiwan.

I won't argue that he's not a little overcosted, but there's people here that are saying Lulo is better without regard to points. I agree that Phantoms are likely better for the points, but v1s are coming to hyperspace.

Thought-experiment

Premise: it is undesirable for X-wing games to go to time. It would be better that they finish.

Assumption: You really can't lengthen the round time without making tournament days too long' if anything, it'd be preferable to shorten round times.

Proposal: increase the point cost of everything by 10%. Then, particularly tanks things, i5s, and i6s increase further.

Expected result: smaller squads, fewer games going to time.

Problems: points fortresses become more of an issue when the opposition has fewer attackers to run them down.

Possible solution: sihorter round times to give the hit and run (and run and run) ships time to get their hit in before they run.

Rip this thought-experiment apart, please. You can take a run at anything, from the premise on

5 minutes ago, Clutterbuck said:

Thought-experiment

Premise: it is undesirable for X-wing games to go to time. It would be better that they finish.

Assumption: You really can't lengthen the round time without making tournament days too long' if anything, it'd be preferable to shorten round times.

Proposal: increase the point cost of everything by 10%. Then, particularly tanks things, i5s, and i6s increase further.

Expected result: smaller squads, fewer games going to time.

Problems: points fortresses become more of an issue when the opposition has fewer attackers to run them down.

Possible solution: sihorter round times to give the hit and run (and run and run) ships time to get their hit in before they run.

Rip this thought-experiment apart, please. You can take a run at anything, from the premise on

Dropping defensive upgrades would shorten the game.

49 minutes ago, Micanthropyre said:

Not really, but leads into the next question which is do you think Soontir is undercosted?

Not exactly? But maybe?

I kinda think Init 6 (and maybe also Init 5) is perhaps fundamentally undercosted in general, but Soontir seems fine relative to the current pricing of the Init 6 community.

3 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

I won't argue that he's not a little overcosted, but there's people here that are saying Lulo is better without regard to points. I agree that Phantoms are likely better for the points, but v1s are coming to hyperspace.

Lulo is obviously not a great price baseline because he's almost universally agreed to be under-costed, but I still stand by preferring him in most cases. I believe Inquisitor pays more for his force over Lulo than any other pilot/upgrade in the game right now, and I think we can mostly all agree he's worse in all other comparable aspects, right (dial, actions, ability, arcs)? In almost all cases I'd take Lulo's way of getting 3 dice over Inquisitor's and while the defensive aspect of Inquisitor's ability is certainly nice, he's not the sort of ship you really want to be *trading* R1 shots with, and if that's the assumption it's pretty easy to avoid R1 with RZ-2's.

And honestly that rear arc is amazing... I think we all know it should cost more deep down. Most ships looks pretty bad compared to the RZ-2's of course, but quiz vs. Lulo is still a pretty fair comparison I think given they have the same statline (other than force).

8 minutes ago, Clutterbuck said:

Proposal: increase the point cost of everything by 10%. Then, particularly tanks things, i5s, and i6s increase further.

I've been thinking about this a bit too but there's a simpler mechanism with equivalent results that doesn't require any points changes: lower the list size by 10% Indeed if games are going to time too much (which anecdotally they seem to be) that's one obvious thing to try.

20 minutes ago, punkUser said:

You'd pay 54 points for naked inquisitor? Wow, I wouldn't touch him anywhere in the 50s and I'd probably think really hard about other options in the high 40s too I think there's good reasons why you literally never see him played competitively and it can't be that he's just 2 points too expensive...

Like it or not, cross-faction comparisons are totally fair in my opinion, especially when comparing *chassis*. Sure, some upgrade cards will have specific faction-specific combos that don't exist in another one, but chassis should be roughly appropriately costed across the factions or else you get into the murky waters of the designers pricing *lists*, not ships. Purely reactive price changes also run that risk which is why they still need to be considered in the context of a range of reasonable prices for a given chassis (unless of course the goal is to completely nuke a specific combo or ship for the purposes of rotating it out of play, which is obviously "fine" as well).

Pricing stuff primary based on the presence or absence of other upgrade cards in the faction is ultimately a strategy that is going to end in a spider-web of inconsistent valuations. In the long run that's effectively just giving up at coming up with appropriate relative prices for stuff, which I don't think is necessary or useful.

If "the stuff he needs to shine" makes other chassis shine even more, isn't that a pretty clear indicator that he costs too much relative to those other chassis?

I think he's actually pretty close right now, but that 54 also implies that Soontir goes up because I think that they operate in roughly the same position in a list.

I don't think I've ever seen a competitive game where designers didn't have to swim in those murky waters in order for the game to be successful. I'm of the very solid opinion that we do not want a "count to 200 and it will be competitive" game where what you brought to the table didn't matter as long as it counted to 200, even if I thought it were possible.

Right, but the window for him is really narrow with the existing upgrades, and there can always be upgrades released in the future that suddenly make him amazing. I think FFG missed the boat a little by not giving them a chassis ability though, which could have made that window wider by baking in an additional tool for the chassis to leverage.

4 minutes ago, Micanthropyre said:

Right, but the window for him is really narrow with the existing upgrades, and there can always be upgrades released in the future that suddenly make him amazing. I think FFG missed the boat a little by not giving them a chassis ability though, which could have made that window wider by baking in an additional tool for the chassis to leverage.

We actually already have that upgrade - it's called supernatural I'm 90% sure the reason v1's are so expensive is because of that interaction and they just haven't gotten around to revisiting it after the supernatural cost change.

In general though I'm not a fan of upgrade cards that massively amplify the power level of a chassis. I'd rather they price the base chassis well and in general err on upgrade cards being less points efficient as its a natural hedge against unforeseen combos or 1.0 style fat ships.

20 minutes ago, Clutterbuck said:

Thought-experiment

Premise: it is undesirable for X-wing games to go to time. It would be better that they finish.

Assumption: You really can't lengthen the round time without making tournament days too long' if anything, it'd be preferable to shorten round times.

Proposal: increase the point cost of everything by 10%. Then, particularly tanks things, i5s, and i6s increase further.

Expected result: smaller squads, fewer games going to time.

Problems: points fortresses become more of an issue when the opposition has fewer attackers to run them down.

Possible solution: sihorter round times to give the hit and run (and run and run) ships time to get their hit in before they run.

Rip this thought-experiment apart, please. You can take a run at anything, from the premise on

So... here we go. Instinctive answers, but a response for conversation sake.

• Your premise is... not entirely correct but close enough to be not worth arguing. There are some games that are totally fine ending at time, as it's already a run away in the points by that point.
• Assumption is correct. Also some X-wing players apparently just don't like long games - see rants about 1.0 Epic games taking too long as evidence.
• Proposal... ok?
• Expected results: smaller number of ships does not necessarily equal faster game. It means more turns are played, but many players get cagey and protect what they have longer resulting in longer times before initial combat begins.
• Problems: YES - Also you run into potential less variation of lists still because there is less value still in taking 3 generics than four (list/ship dependent)
• Solution: No, because now you've scaled the list size and the time requirement both... so you are likely in the same scenario as originally begun

1 minute ago, punkUser said:

We actually already have that upgrade - it's called supernatural I'm 90% sure the reason v1's are so expensive is because of that interaction and they just haven't gotten around to revisiting it after the supernatural cost change.

In general though I'm not a fan of upgrade cards that massively amplify the power level of a chassis. I'd rather we price the base chassis well and in general err on upgrade cards being less points efficient as its a natural hedge against unforeseen combos or 1.0 style fat ships.

Well, Supernatural took a price cut for generic Inquisitors by 4 points, and they went down by 2 as well in the points change so netting 6 points wasn't even enough apparently.

I agree that pricing the chassis well and hedging on upgrades a little is a good plan.

21 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

Not exactly? But maybe?

I kinda think Init 6 (and maybe also Init 5) is perhaps fundamentally undercosted in general, but Soontir seems fine relative to the current pricing of the Init 6 community.

Fenn is costed properly. My friend calls him PPE - Positive Play Experience: every time you see him on the board, you're terrified about his powers, and then you are almost always super happy when he dies after some stupid r2 shot/unlucky crit

2 minutes ago, Oldpara said:

Fenn is costed properly. My friend calls him PPE - Positive Play Experience: every time you see him on the board, you're terrified about his powers, and then you are almost always super happy when he dies after some stupid r2 shot/unlucky crit

Fenn and Soontir seem good for the game in that, while they can punch way above their value if they fly well and green dice well, they can also crash and burn so easily.

3 hours ago, Micanthropyre said:

Are people not using his ability to get a third attack die? Since when are 3 die attacks not doing damage? You even have a second force to use to mod it sometimes.

I feel like Mugatu on here.

What is this? A forcepool for ants?!

My main knock in GI is i basically don't know what to do with him. I can ususally sort of picture the narratives where im winning because of a ship and with gi, compared to his points contemporaries i just don't see it.

2 hours ago, Biophysical said:

Dropping defensive upgrades would shorten the game.

It would, for sure, but it would also take a machete to playstyle-variety.

33 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

It would, for sure, but it would also take a machete to playstyle-variety.

Yup, say goodbye to pretty much any fragile mid I or lower ship more than 40 points. Strikers, Interceptors, Fangs, TIE/ln (let’s face it, Iden is a defensive upgrade for /ln aces), Starvipers, Scyks and more would go away under the paradigm of axing defensive upgrades.

Hard pass.

I don’t consider going to time a bad thing really. Now getting up in points then running until time for 40+ minutes? Yeah that would be a problem.

1 hour ago, millertime059 said:

I don’t consider going to time a bad thing really. Now getting up in points then running until time for 40+ minutes? Yeah that would be a problem.

I’m in this camp. Lots of my games run to time, but points-wise often have 130-160 points off the board for at least one player.

Things were faster before Beef.

I like the idea of shorter games on average. The few 1.0 games I've had go to time were not as fun because of it. Shorter tournaments would also be a boon.

3 minutes ago, drjkel said:

I like the idea of shorter games on average. The few 1.0 games I've had go to time were not as fun because of it. Shorter tournaments would also be a boon.

Objectives 2E!

3 hours ago, catachanninja said:

What is this? A forcepool for ants?!

it needs to be at least 3/2 times this big!

It's telling that other v1s see some play and GI just doesn't.

I've seen lists with multiple Inquisitors place Ok in several larger tourneys. They do good work for their cost. 7th Sis is clearly very decent.

Barons.... Yeah well, who cares....

The chassis is good. Not brilliant, not terrible, but definitely usable. I generally feel that if you can do something with a ship completely naked, it's well priced. Consider almost every small base fighter you actually use and I'm sure you'd feel it will still do work with nothing added.

If GI was 50-52, I'd probably consider using him with no upgrades, like I do 7th Sis. Decent ship, decent ability, decent Init. A nice alternative to the punchier but more variance prone, or less manoeuverable, alternatives.

I'd probably still not run SNR GI at 74/75pt. But that's a whole other thing.

SNR at 18 on I5... GI at 51.... you might have me. It's a difficult combo to use well, but it's definitely really good fun.

20 minutes ago, Cuz05 said:

Barons.... Yeah well, who cares....

I do. The only keeping me from running them with Ved is I can't get a hold of the minis without breaking the bank...

1 hour ago, Jeff Wilder said:

Objectives 2E!

I'm really hoping epic provides a good replacement - we can go and do it ourselves again (remote rules make life much easier!) but if it had the actual weight of FFGOP, awesome

I'm looking forward to objectives. It may be the thing that gets my oldest in the game again and my middle interested in playing more than occasionally. Fingers crossed!

6 hours ago, Hiemfire said:

I do. The only keeping me from running them with Ved is I can't get a hold of the minis without breaking the bank...