3 hours ago, Npmartian said:

Herald the return of the large base meta?

Well, I put a random squad in YASB, got something out, and modified it to my interests by changing pilots+upgrades to be better.

Han Solo (80)
Ship total: 80 Half Points: 40 Threshold: 7

Jake Farrell (36)
Ship total: 36 Half Points: 18 Threshold: 2

Lando Calrissian (79)
Nien Nunb (5)

Ship total: 84 Half Points: 42 Threshold: 7


Total: 200

View in Yet Another Squad Builder 2.0: https://raithos.github.io/?f=Rebel Alliance&d=v8ZhZ200Z42XWWWWWWWY50XWWY43XWWWW52WWW&sn=Random Squad&obs=

Behold the double saucer doom machine, with Jake because he fits. The YTs aren't totally tricked out, but that's a lot of health and I think that they should be decent enough as they are.

I wonder if Leia would be better... The Force is just easy and consistent, while Han and Lando both have to worry about positioning in some way. Doesn't save many points (1-5), but that could buy an upgrade, if something makes sense. Intimidation Arvel? Arvel is pretty sweet with that Lando "coordinate."

2 hours ago, Kyle Ren said:

hey we can go as off topic as we want!

Ania Solo is best girl fight me

Thrawn is nothing but a violent psychopath who, like all Imperial leaders, fails due to his own hubris and cruelty.

Catra uis for FITE ME.

Catra dosent talk about fite.

So don't really fite, just hot-take me back.

Thrawn is really a bad leader yeah, that doesn't even seem like a hot take to me

1 hour ago, theBitterFig said:

I wonder if Leia would be better... The Force is just easy and consistent, while Han and Lando both have to worry about positioning in some way. Doesn't save many points (1-5), but that could buy an upgrade, if something makes sense. Intimidation Arvel? Arvel is pretty sweet with that Lando "coordinate."

I considered Leia, but I feel like Han is better since he's not really that hard to trigger, plus as long as his ability affects more than 1 roll/die he's probably doing more than 1 force token on average. Maybe instead of Lando, but double actions are hard to turn down, especially since all the moves you'll regularly do are blue except for 3 turn and the occasional 4 straight. Definitely worth a try, and I'd certainly prefer Arvel over Jake if I could fit him. Only experimentation will tell here.

10 hours ago, Kyle Ren said:

Thrawn is really a bad leader yeah, that doesn't even seem like a hot take to me

People have hangover from the old Thrawn series, where he was apparently a military genius. He might still come out lacking from those books, as well, but it has been so long since I have read them.

remember this expansion

12 hours ago, theBitterFig said:

Thrawn is nothing but a violent psychopath who, like all Imperial leaders, fails due to his own hubris and cruelty.

It's been a while since I saw Rebels, but in the new books he's characterized as a strategic genius with a pretty honorable code. Everything he does is calculated and there isn't a slight hint of the typical Imperial cruelty in his motivations.

52 minutes ago, svelok said:

remember this expansion

Why is the jumpmaster in hyper but not this? I know the reason, but it's a bad one.

3 minutes ago, Ablazoned said:

Why is the jumpmaster in hyper but not this? I know the reason, but it's a bad one.

because people might actually use the jumpmaster

1 hour ago, gennataos said:

It's been a while since I saw Rebels, but in the new books he's characterized as a strategic genius with a pretty honorable code. Everything he does is calculated and there isn't a slight hint of the typical Imperial cruelty in his motivations.

Then it's a totally different characterization from the show.

When we're first introduced to Thrawn, he was fresh from some campaign against dissidents in some other sector. It's then observed by an Imperial Officer (OK, Kallus, but we didn't know he was Fulcrum yet) that civilian casualties outnumbered enemy combatant casualties. Thrawn shrugs and comments that the campaign was effective.

While he doesn't seem to have a code, per se, he does like to *appear* as if he's civilized and honorable, but there are scenes where he snaps, and it's clear it's just an act.

For strategy, Thrawn does a few of the "I'm letting them get away, so I can hit them harder later" things, but he messes up the "hit them harder later" parts. He's smarter than most Imperial officers, but that's not saying much, and he falls to the same flaws as the rest.

2 hours ago, 5050Saint said:

People have hangover from the old Thrawn series, where he was apparently a military genius. He might still come out lacking from those books, as well, but it has been so long since I have read them.

Yep.

I feel like I've come across a belief that Thrawn's plans can't fail, but can only be failed. At least in Rebels, that really isn't the case.

Just because there's no (real) X-Wing or any mods, doesn't mean the thread has to drop off the front page.

I don't understand why people talk about points very much. I get saying something is over or under costed, but what's the real point in going beyond that? You play in the environment presented or...don't?

I think I agree, points are the method given to us in second edition as the easiest way of fixing problems with the game, the whole game has been designed around the points not being static, but just like how when FAQs/errata were our method of having things "fixed" in first edition, it got real tiresome to go to the forums and see dozens of "errata on [xyz thing] when?" threads.

For the record, I also find listbuilding talk very tiresome... people love thunking up new lists and acting like they're a genius for putting it together but we assume some dev and then some playtester put two and two together before right? Also I find that the typical player spends way more time building lists than actually playing the game, which feels backwards to me.

I really wish we could spend more time talking about flying (you know, actually playing the game) because personally, I feel like I've really missed out on a lot of that in my time playing X-Wing and it was only when 2.0 rolled around that I started really thinking about strategy that much. Back in 1.0 I was busy smashing words together to find card combos and stuff, and I really burned out on that. X-Wing isn't really a great card game in my opinion.

45 minutes ago, gennataos said:

I don't understand why people talk about points very much. I get saying something is over or under costed, but what's the real point in going beyond that? You play in the environment presented or...don't?

Talking about problems is the next best way for them to get addressed, behind tournament results, I would think. I will say that right now it might be a little pointless as we have no major or even minor events swaying the meta or even oppressing local game nights. Everything right now is casual play, so you can play however you like.

In the end however, yes, you play the environment given to you. And right now, we have one of the most balanced meta's I've played in. Droid swarm is a little strong for my liking, and Slave 1 is a little to good in hyperspace, but honestly things feel good.

But the biggest reason we are talking about points is that we are bored and want some X-wing. The easiest things to get passionate about right now is our perceived balance injustices. Points topics would be around without Covid, but right now we can't fly in the environment presented, so we will complain about it. Complaining is how we care. I know I want to be hyped about X-wing, but man, it takes effort since I can't truly see table time.

3 hours ago, gennataos said:

You play in the environment presented or...don't?

Exactly.

"But don't you know the pre/post game banter is more than half the point?!"

3 hours ago, 5050Saint said:

Talking about problems is the next best way for them to get addressed, behind tournament results, I would think.

Is there evidence that point discussions by the community has any impact on points changes?

6 hours ago, gennataos said:

Just because there's no (real) X-Wing or any mods, doesn't mean the thread has to drop off the front page.

I don't understand why people talk about points very much. I get saying something is over or under costed, but what's the real point in going beyond that? You play in the environment presented or...don't?

I mean, back in 1e, there were discussions on the best ways to errata cards like TLT and Harpoon Missiles.

3 hours ago, gennataos said:

Is there evidence that point discussions by the community has any impact on points changes?

On a live stream this year (I think it was the last points update in January), one of the devs rolled his eyes and said something like, "don't worry...we've done something about Oddball... All the Oddballs have come down in points..."

That's literally just from memory. But the spirit of it was very clearly that that the devs had heard / read enough complaints about how useless and overpriced Oddballs were, so thy made it a point to help him out.

That's the only real evidence that comes to mind, but I mostly recall Radio TCX and maybe Mynocks ranting and joking a fair bit about Oddball, not necessarily forum discussion.

8 hours ago, gennataos said:

I don't understand why people talk about points very much. I get saying something is over or under costed, but what's the real point in going beyond that? You play in the environment presented or...don't?

8 hours ago, Kyle Ren said:

I really wish we could spend more time talking about flying (you know, actually playing the game) because personally, I feel like I've really missed out on a lot of that in my time playing X-Wing and it was only when 2.0 rolled around that I started really thinking about strategy that much

Talking about flying instead of points is so much more work.

Let's take openings or target priorities as examples. You need to take two specific lists as examples. Everyone involved in the discussion needs to somewhat understand how the lists involved work. And after all the work to frame the discussion correctly it might boil down to a simple "i agree".

Maybe we could open dedicated threads for both, where people can ask for help for specific matchups? Eg, "here's my list, going against a droid swarm/rebelbeef /imp aces, how do i set up?"

11 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

Maybe we could open dedicated threads for both, where people can ask for help for specific matchups? Eg, "here's my list, going against a droid swarm/rebelbeef /imp aces, how do i set up?"

I would love threads like that. Sadly it almost always devolves into "here's my opponent's list, what list to I build to hard counter it?"

3 minutes ago, Kyle Ren said:

I would love threads like that. Sadly it almost always devolves into "here's my opponent's list, what list to I build to hard counter it?"

Exactly.

Btw, I always thought batreps should be those threads, because the lists and circumstances are already given. But asking for reasons behind specific decisions seems to be taken as a personal attack.
That's why I go to such ridiculous lengths in my batreps, I try to remove that barrier and give my reasons unasked. A side effect is unfortunately that it comes off as if I knew everything when I have no idea what I'm doing! The 5A thread had the bold and completely ignored disclaimer in the first post: "Please tell me when you think I had the target priority wrong, misidentified the threat, deployed incorrectly, had a bad idea for the game, or drew the wrong lessons." At some point I realized that the batreps help me anyway, so I kept doing them.

It's just a lot of work to talk about the cool parts of Xwing.

4 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

It's just a lot of work to talk about the cool parts of Xwing.

It kinda has to be. X-Wing is a super visual game and without proper framework, it is very hard to talk about specific decision making trees and details. That's why I like to read blogs with lots of colourful pictures. 😉

Or why the Oli P files are so great, when he talks over his recorded games.

15 hours ago, Kyle Ren said:

I really wish we could spend more time talking about flying (you know, actually playing the game) because personally, I feel like I've really missed out on a lot of that in my time playing X-Wing and it was only when 2.0 rolled around that I started really thinking about strategy that much. Back in 1.0 I was busy smashing words together to find card combos and stuff, and I really burned out on that. X-Wing isn't really a great card game in my opinion.

I liked making the the “In Game Tactics vs XYZ” threads and ones like them. And agree with dragoon it was occasionally just a good way to put ideas on paper to find out where assumptions are wrong.

Thinking about how to beat Boba or CIS Swarms or Trip Aces actually is interesting. Much more so the swarm matchup because of how much longer the list of archetype options feels for having a relatively even game and how much variation there is in the matchups vs various archetypes. Some of the best content I have seen from various sources in 2.0 has centered around playing with or against Swarms and Medium/Higher Ship Counts (4+). That stuff is genuinely interesting and still seems like we have the least amount of language for describing higher ship count game strategy. Carry over from 1.0 probably.

The thing you have to preface it all with regardless of the archetypes is basically “How do I make this matchup better even though I already know its not ideal and the real answer is absolutely list building?” The actual uninteresting reliable stuff is often genuinely just about your list choices. Which leads to legitimate conversations on design and points when the game starts to get to simple and the in game tactics get lost. Also worth mentioning that just the process of evaluating and breaking down in game matchups options typically shows pretty clearly where there are cracks developing or baked into the points or card design.

11 hours ago, gennataos said:

Is there evidence that point discussions by the community has any impact on points changes?

Not necessarily point changes, but they do pay attention. The first image is from October 2016, and the Guns for Hire upgrade came out November 2017. Someone's custom upgrade on the forums became reality. It's not an exact copy, but it is unique enough of an idea for a specific ship that FFG likely took inspiration from the custom card. I saw something similar for the T-65 Renegade Refit that came out in Saw's Renegades; it had nearly the same wording, except it was a title and not remove a torpedo slot.

FFG pays attention, but obviously not to everything. If something need addressed, the more often we talk about it, the more likely they will see it and possibly address it.

38 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

Not necessarily point changes, but they do pay attention. The first image is from October 2016, and the Guns for Hire upgrade came out November 2017. Someone's custom upgrade on the forums became reality. It's not an exact copy, but it is unique enough of an idea for a specific ship that FFG likely took inspiration from the custom card. I saw something similar for the T-65 Renegade Refit that came out in Saw's Renegades; it had nearly the same wording, except it was a title and not remove a torpedo slot.

FFG pays attention, but obviously not to everything. If something need addressed, the more often we talk about it, the more likely they will see it and possibly address it.

Get out of here with your "Way Back" machine!

I don't really doubt they try to at least have a little bit of a finger on the pulse of the community. I just haven't seen any reason to believe the community has as much of an impact as some would like to believe.

1 hour ago, 5050Saint said:

Not necessarily point changes, but they do pay attention. The first image is from October 2016, and the Guns for Hire upgrade came out November 2017. Someone's custom upgrade on the forums became reality. It's not an exact copy, but it is unique enough of an idea for a specific ship that FFG likely took inspiration from the custom card. I saw something similar for the T-65 Renegade Refit that came out in Saw's Renegades; it had nearly the same wording, except it was a title and not remove a torpedo slot.

FFG pays attention, but obviously not to everything. If something need addressed, the more often we talk about it, the more likely they will see it and possibly address it.

I remember the curved barrel rolls where also part of Stele*/Nova Open's Hunger Games side format before Guns for Hire came out

*RIP

45 minutes ago, gennataos said:

I don't really doubt they try to at least have a little bit of a finger on the pulse of the community. I just haven't seen any reason to believe the community has as much of an impact as some would like to believe.

No doubt. Tournament results are primo for what changes they make, but they must be listening to more than just that. Before the Nantex started making any good showings, FFG started making ability queue changes and tractor changes due to the community cries of "NPE!". They likely don't have a finger on our pulse, but they do hear us shouting and hollering.