13 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

Random Thoughts:

List building an entire list isnt a skill although it kinda is early in a point cycle or release. Netlisting isnt enough, have to be able to make small list iterations well without destroying what was a good list. Aces and Turret Aces usually arent actually difficult to play. Jousting isnt always wrong or easy or clearly defined, its a bad word. Box Formations arent always bad, just easy to counter with basically anything. Its still not your dice. Your opponent isnt slow playing. Slow play isnt the same thing as fortressing. Moving first isnt an auto loss in all matchups it just requires more effort. Turn 0 doesnt matter as much as Turns 1-3. 100% Destruction isnt necessary or more honorable. Running away can be more risky than fighting. Power Creep and Point Increases are legitimate balancing strategies, players usually have a preference for one vs the other. Bid rules arent a huge problem, high init ship cheap point costs are. Playing “bad” lists at tournaments is fun. Playing “broken” lists at tournaments is fun to. X-Wing should be balanced around Tie Fighters. Aces High is the best X-Wing format. **** takes are fun.

what happened to your font? are you ok

1 hour ago, Boom Owl said:

Random Thoughts:

List building an entire list isnt a skill although it kinda is early in a point cycle or release. Netlisting isnt enough, have to be able to make small list iterations well without destroying what was a good list. Aces and Turret Aces usually arent actually difficult to play. Jousting isnt always wrong or easy or clearly defined, its a bad word. Box Formations arent always bad, just easy to counter with basically anything. Its still not your dice. Your opponent isnt slow playing. Slow play isnt the same thing as fortressing. Moving first isnt an auto loss in all matchups it just requires more effort. Turn 0 doesnt matter as much as Turns 1-3. 100% Destruction isnt necessary or more honorable. Running away can be more risky than fighting. Power Creep and Point Increases are legitimate balancing strategies, players usually have a preference for one vs the other. Bid rules arent a huge problem, high init ship cheap point costs are. Playing “bad” lists at tournaments is fun. Playing “broken” lists at tournaments is fun to. X-Wing should be balanced around Tie Fighters. Aces High is the best X-Wing format. **** takes are fun.

Awful lot of no no words in here

1 hour ago, Boom Owl said:

Turn 0 doesnt matter as much as Turns 1-3

Want to emphasize this one. It's why I prefer "opening" as term to differentiate from turn 0.

5 hours ago, Boom Owl said:

Its still not your dice.

Was thinking about this. It's not your dice. Unless...

If you have N ships, you get N times the number of combat rounds as potential shots. That can be anything from around 8 to 50. And that is huge difference that matters.

Now, your opponent usually gets a say. If you have just two ships then every shot counts more. And because of that, bad luck has way more weight than it does in a list with more ships and shots.

Of course, the same caveats remain: why did you get so few shots? Did you have mods? The right ones? Did you rely on the shot or did you account for the possibility that it whiffs? Even if you get the perfect setup, you might still get bad luck. And that is so much more important for 2 ships.

So when we say "not your dice", we man "the more ships you have the less it is your dice. But also, likely not your dice". Yes? No?

1 minute ago, GreenDragoon said:

Was thinking about this. It's not your dice. Unless...

If you have N ships, you get N times the number of combat rounds as potential shots. That can be anything from around 8 to 50. And that is huge difference that matters.

Now, your opponent usually gets a say. If you have just two ships then every shot counts more. And because of that, bad luck has way more weight than it does in a list with more ships and shots.

Of course, the same caveats remain: why did you get so few shots? Did you have mods? The right ones? Did you rely on the shot or did you account for the possibility that it whiffs? Even if you get the perfect setup, you might still get bad luck. And that is so much more important for 2 ships.

So when we say "not your dice", we man "the more ships you have the less it is your dice. But also, likely not your dice". Yes? No?

Its not your dice. With lower ship count lists its definitely not your dice.

21 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

Its not your dice. With lower ship count lists its definitely not your dice.

You mean the amount and importance of mistakes far outweighs the variance?

7 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

You mean the amount and importance of mistakes far outweighs the variance?

When in doubt if your running a 2 ship list just roll better matchups until the single player game appears.

2 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

When in doubt if your running a 2 ship list just roll better matchups until the single player game appears.

Oh. Yeah matchups are another huge part. I'm new to this 2ship list game. Not sure I like it. Seems to be either frustrating or unfair. ReyPoe is hard enough to make it mainly frustrating, so... yay?

37 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

Was thinking about this. It's not your dice. Unless...

If you have N ships, you get N times the number of combat rounds as potential shots. That can be anything from around 8 to 50. And that is huge difference that matters.

Now, your opponent usually gets a say. If you have just two ships then every shot counts more. And because of that, bad luck has way more weight than it does in a list with more ships and shots.

Of course, the same caveats remain: why did you get so few shots? Did you have mods? The right ones? Did you rely on the shot or did you account for the possibility that it whiffs? Even if you get the perfect setup, you might still get bad luck. And that is so much more important for 2 ships.

So when we say "not your dice", we man "the more ships you have the less it is your dice. But also, likely not your dice". Yes? No?

generally when you have a lot of ships your ships are not moving last, otherwise something is wrong with the game or your opponent has a really weird list that breaks this dice discussion some other way.

so unless your opponent is opting into suboptimal engagements, if you're the person with more ships, you're not getting shots with all of them. so arguably, your dice matter more because you don't likely have as many passive mods (if passive mods are cheap, there's something else wrong with the game). for example, if I form a six ship killbox against advanced sensors Guri, I'm probably getting two shots against her because she's gonna avoid most of them and maybe init kill one of them. those two shots matter a lot because after this I have less ships to build a killbox with. do I have Guri's free focus or some other passive mod on all six of my ships?

I think the argument would make a little more sense if there were less passive mods in the game but still, I think two ship lists are generally pretty good at denying shots to their opponents when flown correctly.

3 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

Oh. Yeah matchups are another huge part. I'm new to this 2ship list game. Not sure I like it. Seems to be either frustrating or unfair. ReyPoe is hard enough to make it mainly frustrating, so... yay?

Most two ship lists have really strange matchups. A couple matchups are typically a complete joke in their favor, others are really challenging without a lot of middle ground in between.

If you just run a three i5 ace list like FFG wants you to you can even out those matchups and still pretend to two ship flex on people after one of the three dies in a joust of your choosing.

8 minutes ago, Kieransi said:

or your opponent has a really weird list that breaks this dice discussion some other way.

I'm inclined to see Guri as a special case.

BobaFenn, RACWhisper, double Jedi, KyloTavson, DashJake. At some point Luke Wedge. Then the weirder ones like double Infiltrator, double deci, double falcon, Kylo QD.

Guri stands out as especially hard to pin down. Kylo and Jedi are almost or equally hard to get. The rest not really.

We could limit this to the most frequent ones, or the most successful ones. If it would matter.

10 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

I'm inclined to see Guri as a special case.

BobaFenn, RACWhisper, double Jedi, KyloTavson, DashJake. At some point Luke Wedge. Then the weirder ones like double Infiltrator, double deci, double falcon, Kylo QD.

Guri stands out as especially hard to pin down. Kylo and Jedi are almost or equally hard to get. The rest not really.

We could limit this to the most frequent ones, or the most successful ones. If it would matter.

they're still moving last against almost anything with 4+ ships though right? a little reposition with perfect board knowledge goes a long way. and all those lists have a hefty helping of passive mods.

11 minutes ago, Kieransi said:

they're still moving last against almost anything with 4+ ships though right? a little reposition with perfect board knowledge goes a long way. and all those lists have a hefty helping of passive mods.

So it boils down to the question which list actually gets more shots?

I'm also fine with that. The (boring) idea is that dice matter more with lower amounts of shots. And lower amount of ships is one way to get that.

We compare different lists. You went for the comparison of different lists within the same game. I think I'm more interested to compare two sets of lists in their respective games, not two lists playing each other. Eg FennGuri vs X and Y vs X.

Btw I don't think they are necessarily moving last. Eg a miniswarm with Soontir or Vader; Fenn and 3 fangs; and then of course all the triple ace lists.

Anyway, I thought there is something worth discussing. Maybe not.

1 hour ago, GreenDragoon said:

Anyway, I thought there is something worth discussing. Maybe not.

There's a conversation there, but it won't bear fruit unless the participants have real table experience with what they're talking about. Not a couple games. Lots of games, with lots of iteration. And the different lists are different. Double Jedi is different than RAC + 1, with different win conditions. They can't really be lumped together and I think that's an important distinction. I don't take umbrage to someone saying double Jedi isn't very dice-dependent. However, anyone who wants to refute me when I say losing an engagement or two which, average variance, I should have won will cost me games with Rey/Poe is invited to play it a few dozen times then tell me how I'm so bad at the game and don't know what I'm talking about.

Actually, I want to kind of clarify my grumpy statement above. @GreenDragoon's 5A thread was (and still is) so great because it had participants who had a lot of experience with it, iterated on it and played it in competitive events. If 5A was going to be reduced to being essentially easy mode 360 turrets, it's going to be those folks with experience to say so. Not the masses who played it a couple times, or played against it a few times, or watched some streamed games. Those masses are essentially talking out their collective asses.

Red dice variance or green dice variance?

Just now, jagsba said:

Red dice variance or green dice variance?

For what I'm doing, mostly red dice. I always assume the worst on green dice. If I assume the worst on red dice as well, then risk aversion becomes standard and things actually just get worse.

1 minute ago, gennataos said:

For what I'm doing, mostly red dice. I always assume the worst on green dice. If I assume the worst on red dice as well, then risk aversion becomes standard and things actually just get worse.

What's the sort of red dice variance that's getting you? Like oops all blanks? Or like 2 hits instead of 3?

Just now, jagsba said:

What's the sort of red dice variance that's getting you? Like oops all blanks? Or like 2 hits instead of 3?

Well, it's complicated and I'm not sure if I can articulate it without it sounding squarely like MUH DICE. Like, Rey purposefully going 1v1 against something which she clearly should win the engagement, but doesn't for whatever reason. It's not like X amount of swingy engagements equals a loss. It's that the damage clock has advanced a little faster when that happens and if it keeps happening it can be too much to recover.

Also, my response has nothing to do with the list I'm playing, but rather blanket statements made and supported which I question have any basis beyond limited anecdotal experience and/or headsim. I don't know. It just triggers me, maybe I should just be quiet. I should probably be quiet. There's probably not much to be gained from not being quiet.

assuming why people are saying what they are is dangerous territory. I personally have a couple dozen reps each with a couple different two ship lists in second edition, and I felt that dice mattered less than they did in my games with higher shipcount lists. I definitely wasn't trying to imply anyone's bad or good at the game.

either way, I think the reason "it's not your dice" is true is because dice variance is to be expected. ultimately, a good strategy should involve being ready for dice variance. one example of a trap I've fallen into is assuming that a ship is going to be dead and then it doesn't die and gets a shot at my fragile ace.

ultimately this is why I stopped playing two ship lists. the optimal strategy too often involved running away rather than engaging, and it just wasn't much fun anymore. I respect people who enjoy the game of cat and mouse, it's just not the game I want to play.

1 hour ago, gennataos said:

Actually, I want to kind of clarify my grumpy statement above. @GreenDragoon's 5A thread was (and still is) so great because it had participants who had a lot of experience with it, iterated on it and played it in competitive events. If 5A was going to be reduced to being essentially easy mode 360 turrets, it's going to be those folks with experience to say so. Not the masses who played it a couple times, or played against it a few times, or watched some streamed games. Those masses are essentially talking out their collective asses.

By this logic, palp ace players were the only ones we should have trusted in saying the list was a joke to play. I disagree with this line of reasoning.

6 minutes ago, Kieransi said:

assuming why people are saying what they are is dangerous territory. I personally have a couple dozen reps each with a couple different two ship lists in second edition, and I felt that dice mattered less than they did in my games with higher shipcount lists.

What were the lists and why did you not feel dice mattered as much? I can detail how Rey can face a single "regular" focused 3-die gun, end up doing zero damage and lose all of her shields in return. It doesn't happen a lot, but it happens and when it does I'm super far behind and possibly too far to recover.

9 minutes ago, Brunas said:

By this logic, palp ace players were the only ones we should have trusted in saying the list was a joke to play. I disagree with this line of reasoning.

Assuming they're honest, why not?

41 minutes ago, gennataos said:

Assuming they're honest, why not?

Because they could be trying to be honest, but be so biased for it to be meaningless. If you've played 249857394867 games with list A, it's likely because you enjoy it and think you're making interesting decisions. You might also like winning, and just have it be a really good list.

I don't think the people playing palp aces were lying - they thought they were really good at a game that was balanced. They were super wrong, but that's not particularly relevant. It's just that the people with the most investment into something aren't the best judges of things like fairness or difficulty.