32 minutes ago, svelok said:

I'm on team zero point struts, up Vulture base cost. If you think the value of a Strutted Vulture is 21 and not 20, that's a conversation, sure. But if you are giving me the choice, I'm not going to opt into the 2 point upgrade.

Same team.

3 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

This is absurd, and I've heard more than one CIS player say it. You'd pay 21 points for a Vulture, but you wouldn't pay 21 points for a Vulture if 2 of those points were struts? It's fundamentally the better for a CIS player that way because they have a choice of 19 points or 21 points. That doesn't make sense, and I need you to make it make sense to me. Help me understand you.

The entire point is that it's better for the CIS player, and we're literally arguing to take the choice away, so it's literally harder to make lists, and keep toys (especially with the choice to simply drop struts to just grab a toy).

3 minutes ago, svelok said:

I'd pay 21 points for a Vulture, but I'd take a 19 point Vulture that doesn't have struts instead if you let me.

Im much less sure I'd pay 21 points for a non-strutted vulture, given a not-strutted hyena is 25...

23 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

This is absurd, and I've heard more than one CIS player say it. You'd pay 21 points for a Vulture, but you wouldn't pay 21 points for a Vulture if 2 of those points were struts? It's fundamentally the better for a CIS player that way because they have a choice of 19 points or 21 points. That doesn't make sense, and I need you to make it make sense to me. Help me understand you.

That's like saying I'd take Boba at 90 with a 0 point Slave I title, but wouldn't take a 85 point Boba with a 5 point Slave I title.

The bigger difference and why I also agree with @svelok and @Tlfj200 is that with the Vultures it's a higher multiplicative value to change the struts from 1 to 2. Usually CIS swarms have 7 vultures + thing. That strut investment turns into 14 pts if they're 2 pts in a list which can pay for a lot of toys more valuable such as DRK Probes, Discord Missiles, Conc Missiles, Tact Relay etc. They'd likely only see play on DFS-311 (butterbot) and more "center piece" Hyenas maybe. I'd personally rather keep the mechanic in the game because I think it hits the theme of the Vultures/Hyenas pretty well.

3 minutes ago, Tlfj200 said:

The entire point is that it's better for the CIS player, and we're literally arguing to take the choice away, so it's literally harder to make lists, and keep toys (especially with the choice to simply drop struts to just grab a toy).

This I'm fine with, but until you said it, no one posed that notion. I've only heard CIS folks say "If Vultures could go up a point and I'd still buy them, but if struts went up a point, I wouldn't." But if CIS folks are just saying they are fine with their ship going up in price, I'm cool with that. Let's do that.

I was just trying to throw CIS bone, and make it a choice: cheap or mildly less cheap instead of just mildly less cheap. Also, I like when there are list building choices. I have been an advocate for X-wing configs costing a point for awhile now as well because I want it to be a choice. It would allow you to lower the cost of all Xs by 1 and run 5X without the utility. Instead FFG lowered the chassis cost to 40 giving us 5X with all the utility of the foils. No choice involved.

1 minute ago, RStan said:

The bigger difference and why I also agree with @svelok and @Tlfj200 is that with the Vultures it's a higher multiplicative value to change the struts from 1 to 2. Usually CIS swarms have 7 vultures + thing. That strut investment turns into 14 pts if they're 2 pts in a list which can pay for a lot of toys more valuable such as DRK Probes, Discord Missiles, Conc Missiles, etc

But those gentlemen (women? folk? folk.) have ceded to the notion of upping the ship to 21 as reasonable which still has same multiplicative effect, disallowing all those other upgrades right out. That's what was baking my noodle.

4 hours ago, Flurpy said:

Doesn't this exact same discussion happen every 3 months with the exact same ideas presented and with the exact same conclusion that bid wars is a symptom of something being undercosted.

First it was Aces of Legend, then it was Jedi now it's Boba/Fenn and I'm forgetting a lot of them in between. And wasn't all of those fixed with simply adjusting the point cost of the offenders.

How undercosted is Boba/Fenn, though?

I don't think Fenn's over- or under-costed. I think he's pretty fair for what other Init 6 ships cost in this game.

So Boba. Is he really 15 points undercosted? Slave One should be more expensive (5-ish?), Maul is probably priced correct but probably shouldn't be hyperspace (and even then, 0-0-0 and PerCo are fine, so no massive difference), and I guess Boba should probably be a little bit more expensive, but does Boba himself need to go up another 5-10?

5 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

This I'm fine with, but until you said it, no one posed that notion. I've only heard CIS folks say "If Vultures could go up a point and I'd still buy them, but if struts went up a point, I wouldn't." But if CIS folks are just saying they are fine with their ship going up in price, I'm cool with that. Let's do that.

I was just trying to throw CIS bone, and make it a choice: cheap or mildly less cheap instead of just mildly less cheap. Also, I like when there are list building choices. I have been an advocate for X-wing configs costing a point for awhile now as well because I want it to be a choice. It would allow you to lower the cost of all Xs by 1 and run 5X without the utility. Instead FFG lowered the chassis cost to 40 giving us 5X with all the utility of the foils. No choice involved.

so, I don't like the idea of upping the foil configs for the reason of confusion: same reason as droids, some players will then start mixing and matching, and then opponents will need to remember "is this the one with foils, or that one?"

To that point...

3 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

But those gentlemen (women? folk? folk.) have ceded to the notion of upping the ship to 21 as reasonable which still has same multiplicative effect, disallowing all those other upgrades right out. That's what was baking my noodle.

folk

3 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

But those gentlemen (women? folk? folk.) have ceded to the notion of upping the ship to 21 as reasonable which still has same multiplicative effect, disallowing all those other upgrades right out. That's what was baking my noodle.

it does have the same multiplicative effect, except what it does it it FORCES a few things:

1. it forces uniformity - no more weird "this droid has struts, but this one doesnt" and the opponent just hoping that the player is nice enough to clearly mark their ships of which is which.
2. it actually forces harder, but more interesting list building

on #2, right now, we all basically just build as much cool toys as possible, then throw in struts as an after thought (there's some other heuristics, such as discords dont appear to be worth it unless you dedicate to all 3 equipped, but man, do we even know that's actually true? It's likely just the easiest path).

Anyway, a "forced" strut on each vulture (via baked in cost at 0, but upped chassis), now removes space for easy, nearly 'automatic' toys, and now the real choices and sacrifices come in without just 'loldropastrut' choice.

Further, from a points balancing perspective, I suspect it's actually easier to balance the combo chassis (vulture + strut) than try and balance the two separately, where you lead to the "if struts are 2, I stop bother outside of DFS or a missile platform" scenario, while also accidentally bringing up the entire chassis, AND forcing the entire chassis to play in the thematic, and importantly, universally predictable manner opponents expect.

2 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

Also, I like when there are list building choices. I have been an advocate for X-wing configs costing a point for awhile now as well because I want it to be a choice. It would allow you to lower the cost of all Xs by 1 and run 5X without the utility. Instead FFG lowered the chassis cost to 40 giving us 5X with all the utility of the foils. No choice involved.

And basically what we're saying is we'd never make that choice. Two point struts is too steep, when there are other options to spend the points on instead. If you take away the choice entirely, then you're instead discussing what the value of a strutted vulture should be. Whether that's 20 or 21 is a conversation; but its just a matter of whether you think the combination should be nerfed a point relative to now. 21 point Strutty Bois happens to align with your proposal, but it's just a balance thing. If 19 Vulture + 1 strut = 20 is worth taking, then 20 Vulture + 0 strut = 20 will obviously be worth taking too.

It seems you understand this intuitively, because you understand why X-Wings would prefer to have the choice to not take a ``1 point S-Foils rather than being forced to, but that's all it is. I wouldn't pay 2 points for struts willingly but I'd pay 21 points for a strutted Vulture if my only alternative was no Vulture at all.

I always want to emphasis, which was already pointed out, CIS lists are cutting struts to bring other toys now, at one point. That's a common occurrence. This price basically already achieves your apparent preferred list-building outcome. (Around 25% of Vultures and 35% of Hyenas go without).

6 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

have ceded to the notion of upping the ship to 21 as reasonable which still has same multiplicative effect, disallowing all those other upgrades right out. That's what was baking my noodle.

See above - yes, if I have a choice, there are other things I would spend the points on. Yes, if you take away the choice, I can't spend it on the things I'd prefer to. Yes, that would be a point nerf.

Also re: choice, choice is only valuable if it's a real one. As mentioned, two point struts isn't really a choice if there's always one correct answer (leave them at home). Conversely, "I have 8 ships and 4 vultures have struts but these 2 vultures don't and of these 2 hyenas this one has struts and that one doesn't" gets eliminated if they're free, which is just less mental tax on the player and much less mental tax on the opponent.

1 minute ago, Tlfj200 said:

(there's some other heuristics, such as discords dont appear to be worth it unless you dedicate to all 3 equipped, but man, do we even know that's actually true? It's likely just the easiest path).

I'm not about to draw knives over the distinction between 2 vs 3 discords but they're definitely a card that gets better the more of them you have. Vultures tend to just die or to not be pointed at the enemy's final position, the token occupies physical table space, etc... I'd fly 8 Discord/Strut Vultures if they let me (and they made more discords cheaper than $20), but I don't see any reason to ever bring just one. Pretty sure I'd spend 16 points for four more readily than I'd spend 8 points for two.

7 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

This I'm fine with, but until you said it, no one posed that notion. I've only heard CIS folks say "If Vultures could go up a point and I'd still buy them, but if struts went up a point, I wouldn't." But if CIS folks are just saying they are fine with their ship going up in price, I'm cool with that. Let's do that.

I was just trying to throw CIS bone, and make it a choice: cheap or mildly less cheap instead of just mildly less cheap. Also, I like when there are list building choices. I have been an advocate for X-wing configs costing a point for awhile now as well because I want it to be a choice. It would allow you to lower the cost of all Xs by 1 and run 5X without the utility. Instead FFG lowered the chassis cost to 40 giving us 5X with all the utility of the foils. No choice involved.

In the abstract sense, I think you're mostly right most of the time, but I'm with team 0-point-struts.

Non-Strut Vultures are such an odd ship. It's quite weak, so the price needs to be low. But we're sort of seeing that prices this low on Vultures are a little too good. However, raise the price and they're a little too bad. So if a ship can't be fairly priced for it's current capacities, what can you do?

You can increase it's capacities to justify a higher price. Enter struts. I think the effect of being able to mostly ignore obstacles is worth... 1.5 to 2 points. But in the interest of making sure the Vulture is, overall, a fairly-priced ship, I think it'd be better for the struts to cost 0, but the Vulture to be 20-21.

I think sometimes choices about listbuilding and utility should have to take a back seat to balance.

Also potential mixing of strut/nonstrut is bad.

19 minutes ago, Tlfj200 said:

Lots of well said stuff.

I understand your point, and as well as I can tell, I get your point. But that is contrary to what @RStan was saying. 2 point struts equals choice of toys (struts among them). 0 points struts with ship increase equals plenty of struts and no other toys. No sacrifices can be made except to drop a ship.

Again, I'm fine with just raising the base cost instead of the strut. I just thought I was being fair by offering the strut choice.

19 minutes ago, Tlfj200 said:

also accidentally bringing up the entire chassis,

Which is one or two pilots, as most of the others are not taken. Which is a decent argument for raising the base I1 instead of the strut: it would encourage the use of the "named" Vultures.

26 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

How undercosted is Boba/Fenn, though? I don't think Fenn's over- or under-costed. I think he's pretty fair for what other Init 6 ships cost in this game.

So Boba. Is he really 15 points undercosted? Slave One should be more expensive (5-ish?), Maul is probably priced correct but probably shouldn't be hyperspace (and even then, 0-0-0 and PerCo are fine, so no massive difference), and I guess Boba should probably be a little bit more expensive, but does Boba himself need to go up another 5-10?

Popping Slave I up 4 points, and maybe Maul or Boba himself by 1 point would be a six point jump for the list which wouldn't be insignificant. It would certainly put it in the realm where other things could bid with it. Dropping Maul from Hyperspace, as you say, would just increase Boba's bid with decent option still on the table, so dropping Maul from Hyperspace might be worse for the bid problem.

15 minutes ago, Tlfj200 said:

there's some other heuristics, such as discords dont appear to be worth it unless you dedicate to all 3 equipped, but man, do we even know that's actually true? It's likely just the easiest path

I ran just 2 back when they cost 6 points and it was still enough critical mass to be effective/worthwhile. You do have to think of them as bringing multiple copies of the card to ensure that you get *one* copy to be effective though. I would definitely say that if you're expecting each discord to carry its weight individually, you're thinking about it wrong.

7 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

it would encourage the use of the "named" Vultures.

no! we've gone too far! stop!

Seismics should affect every obstacle in r1...

2 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

Which is one or two pilots, as most of the others are not taken. Which is a decent argument for raising the base I1 instead of the strut: it would encourage the use of the "named" Vultures.

I'd love to see more Haor Chall Prototypes and Precise Hunters around. Collapsing the price structure of Vultures could be pretty interesting...

• 20 point Trade Fed
• 21 point Haor Chall
• 22 point Separatist
• 23 point DFS-311 and Precise Hunter and DFS-081

Now, I'm not saying 20 point Trade Feds is necessarily correct, but if they were 20 points, it'd certainly be cooler for the "dot" versions to stay the same or get cuts.

3 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

Popping Slave I up 4 points, and maybe Maul or Boba himself by 1 point would be a six point jump for the list which wouldn't be insignificant. It would certainly put it in the realm where other things could bid with it. Dropping Maul from Hyperspace, as you say, would just increase Boba's bid with decent option still on the table, so dropping Maul from Hyperspace might be worse for the bid problem.

True. Even small nerfs mean that it's a little bit easier for someone else to deal with it.

But Maul in or out doesn't impact bidding either way. Any player now simply has the option to run 0-0-0 instead of Maul, and make the bid even deeper.

3 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

Seismics should affect every obstacle in r1...

So long as it doesn't do 3 damage for 3 obstacles...

1 minute ago, theBitterFig said:

So long as it doesn't do 3 damage for 3 obstacles...

1 per obstacle. If you're within all 3, well...

2 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

• 20 point Trade Fed
• 21 point Haor Chall
• 22 point Separatist
• 23 point DFS-311 and Precise Hunter and DFS-081

Under this pricing structure, I would still never fly Haor Challs, Precise Hunters, or DFS-081.

18 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

I understand your point, and as well as I can tell, I get your point. But that is contrary to what @RStan was saying. 2 point struts equals choice of toys (struts among them). 0 points struts with ship increase equals plenty of struts and no other toys. No sacrifices can be made except to drop a ship.

I wasn't able to articulate my point well, but @svelok and @Tlfj200 nailed it in their longer posts above. Instead of trying to say the same stuff again, I'll just go with a good old... I AGREE (with svelok and Tlfj200)

24 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

I understand your point, and as well as I can tell, I get your point. But that is contrary to what @RStan was saying. 2 point struts equals choice of toys (struts among them). 0 points struts with ship increase equals plenty of struts and no other toys. No sacrifices can be made except to drop a ship.

Again, I'm fine with just raising the base cost instead of the strut. I just thought I was being fair by offering the strut choice.

Everyone is literally already dropping struts for toys, and we all agree that something is undercosted... you even noted you thought struts were undercosted, and the CIS players in the room are looking at you and directly telling you we won't pay 2 points for struts.

What more do you want?

24 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

No sacrifices can be made except to drop a ship.

We've arrived at a real cost.
The 'realer' answer is that, no, people will finally drop a discord, or actually make a choice of "is adding 2-3 discords or other toys to my list worth the 8th body?"

That's an actually interesting choice, versus "is adding the third discord to my list worth 3 struts? Yep"

28 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

Which is one or two pilots, as most of the others are not taken. Which is a decent argument for raising the base I1 instead of the strut: it would encourage the use of the "named" Vultures.

...or lowering the cost of the named vultures...

18 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

Seismics should affect every obstacle in r1...

Seismics are sadly the only good bomb.

It's weird I say sadly, but man, the new kinds of bombs are actually interesting, and they're basically not worthwhile. The only reason seismics are good is their threat radius, and now you're saying they should be an electroproton bomb?

Um...

24 minutes ago, Tlfj200 said:

What more do you want?

At this point, to understand that I understand that we agree.

26 minutes ago, Tlfj200 said:

...or lowering the cost of the named vultures...

That, too. I'm genuinely curious as to whether the "named" Vultures are sneaky good but no one knows because no one has a significant amount of reps with them. @theBitterFig price chart seems a good place to start.

50 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

Seismics should affect every obstacle in r1...

You are mad lad. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing, but holy schnikies that would be a bonkers experience.

23 minutes ago, Tlfj200 said:

Seismics are sadly the only good bomb.

It's weird I say sadly, but man, the new kinds of bombs are actually interesting, and they're basically not worthwhile. The only reason seismics are good is their threat radius, and now you're saying they should be an electroproton bomb?

Um...

I thought we're all just throwing our **** takes and see what sticks The only indicator of the pure bait were my three dots.

By the way, anyone heard the Midwestscrub math episode? To give a very basic summary (and I hope @5050Saint will correct me), they took a look at cost per stat. E.g., how many points do you pay for a red die, let's say 12 points for empire and 14 for separatists Then they get the best score for that category. It is a fun exercise, obviously misses a lot. But what stood out to me is that Seps and Empire score the best if all are combined, then FO/Scum, and the Reeeeee factions at the end. It would be necessary to take a good, close look. Is there any way to get this data and play around with it?

6 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

I thought we're all just throwing our **** takes and see what sticks The only indicator of the pure bait were my three dots.

By the way, anyone heard the Midwestscrub math episode? To give a very basic summary (and I hope @5050Saint will correct me), they took a look at cost per stat. E.g., how many points do you pay for a red die, let's say 12 points for empire and 14 for separatists Then they get the best score for that category. It is a fun exercise, obviously misses a lot. But what stood out to me is that Seps and Empire score the best if all are combined, then FO/Scum, and the Reeeeee factions at the end. It would be necessary to take a good, close look. Is there any way to get this data and play around with it?

The show notes should have some of work done for you. As you say, it doesn't account for many things (ship abilities, repostion, initiative), but I'd be down for folks taking a deeper look into it.

1 hour ago, GreenDragoon said:

1 per obstacle. If you're within all 3, well...

Too rich for my blood.

While 3 is probably a rare situation, doesn't seem that impossible to hit two, and that's kind of more than I want a 3-point bomb to do to a single ship with a single drop.

If it's 1 anywhere, or roll 1 die for each obstacle beyond the first, maybe. But overall it's just more damage than I'm comfortable with.

1 hour ago, svelok said:

Under this pricing structure, I would still never fly Haor Challs, Precise Hunters, or DFS-081.

To each their own, but at least it's closer.

Honestly, Grappling struts not being zero with the cost baked in is very 40k-like. In 40k you have a ton of options to lovingly represent countless minor permutations for units and vehicles...and hundreds of these options see zero play by anyone. The only really purpose they serve is to allow you to min-max a list that much better and that's kind of all having struts as a non-zero card does.