11 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

I'm not certain it is or was. R4 was 2 points reducing the bid to 5, still a substantial bid. If Ani was considering taking off R2, that might have been a sacrifice at a 4 point gain. But again, they still had a bid, even with both astromechs in tow. Even without the astromechs, they are both hyper-repositional ships with 3 force - still worth fielding. Again, I know my definitions are wishy-washy and subject to opinion, but dropping an R4 isn't a sacrifice.

R4 is a typo, should be r2, which makes all of that coherent instead of nonsense hopefully. Yes, giving up two shield upgrades on a ship that is nearly guaranteed to get them is a big sacrifice.

11 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

I'm not certain if I agree.

It's pretty trivially a tautology - a little easier to see if we invert it instead. For you to not be making sacrifices, you'd have to have a list that could not be improved in any way by investing infinity more points into it. All squads make sacrifices by definition to fit into 200 points, or to whatever bid they're going for. It goes back to why I strongly disagree with:

Quote

The things that would have been and actual sacrifice in SoL would have been Juke, Protorps, or AdSens.

People weren't even taking advanced sensors, and already declaring it the best squad in the game and completely broken. The weekend before Mynock Open Dee told me, straightfaced, that Advanced Sensors was a worthless card at 8 points. Now it's a staple and can't be removed? This squad was a known quantity at the time, and doing incredibly well even before AS was added in (or multiple copies of AS). My point is, let's say squad of legend existed, but instead it was 160 points. Would anyone have played it at 160 points? Of course not - we'd have loaded AS onto whisper, hull/shield onto soontir, and kept the 15 point bid or whatever and called it a sacrifice.

Then it would have been nerfed to be +20 points or whatever, and we'd call the new version balanced (and it would be, with respect to the old version). There's no magic balance or true "correct" point values for ships in the game - the meta would just revolve around the new prices of the squad instead of the old. Therefore, saying broad statements like "making sacrifices" is meaningless - you're always making sacrifices, even in the case where the game devolves into exact mirror matches ditching copies of 1 point upgrades for the bid.

2 minutes ago, Brunas said:

R4 is a typo, should be r2, which makes all of that coherent instead of nonsense hopefully. Yes, giving up two shield upgrades on a ship that is nearly guaranteed to get them is a big sacrifice.

But how will he clear the stress from his red moves?

Actually I remember hearing at the time - oh my god I can't believe you're dropping bombs, they're absolutely necessary for it to work. I can't believe you're dropping collision detector for whisper, that's such a huge sacrifice - and the same for predator (which ended up being crack shot, and likely nothing on a long enough time line), as well as shield upgrades, stealth devices, etc.

2 minutes ago, Brunas said:

Actually I remember hearing at the time - oh my god I can't believe you're dropping bombs, they're absolutely necessary for it to work. I can't believe you're dropping collision detector for whisper, that's such a huge sacrifice - and the same for predator (which ended up being crack shot, and likely nothing on a long enough time line), as well as shield upgrades, stealth devices, etc.

It turns out the real upgrades were the orange we made along the way, and also protorps and vader IDK.

Actually, on a long enough timeline, does protorps become like plasma or something dumb? IDK, IDWTFO

57 minutes ago, Brunas said:

Here's another example, but in republic (pre n1 release)

Anakin Skywalker (60)
R2 Astromech (4)
Delta-7B (18)

Mace Windu (45)
Delta-7B (16)

Gold Squadron Trooper (25)

Gold Squadron Trooper (25)
Total: 193

Again, at the time, not having r2 astromech on Mace was a huge sacrifice. But now this is 209 points, even without r2 astro on Mace.

If Mace could have also brought R2 and Heightened Perception... *whistles* And that'd be even without Afterburners.

1 minute ago, Do I need a Username said:

It turns out the real upgrades were the orange we made along the way, and also protorps and vader IDK.

Actually, on a long enough timeline, does protorps become like plasma or something dumb? IDK, IDWTFO

Realistically with new releases, it's impossible to even guess. I think eventually may have turned into grand quiz or something, but I don't remember when he got cheaper or that whole timeline.

1 minute ago, Brunas said:

Realistically with new releases, it's impossible to even guess. I think eventually may have turned into grand quiz or something, but I don't remember when he got cheaper or that whole timeline.

so what your saying is that it doesn't matter because the bench is too deep, got it.

43 minutes ago, Do I need a Username said:

And now I got beaten to the punch, thanks @Mattman7306

You're welcome? Idk what I did

6 minutes ago, Brunas said:

It's pretty trivially a tautology - a little easier to see if we invert it instead. For you to not be making sacrifices, you'd have to have a list that could not be improved in any way by investing infinity more points into it.

I would argue, but I am not even certain what I'm arguing against on this. Should I have considered infinite points in my assumptions?

15 minutes ago, Brunas said:

The weekend before Mynock Open Dee told me, straightfaced, that Advanced Sensors was a worthless card at 8 points. Now it's a staple and can't be removed?

Dee is fallible and can be wrong, and for this upgrade, he largely isn't wrong. AdSens is good on three pilots: Redline, Guri, and 4-LOM. All three of those have means to get extra action economy; for everyone else, yes, it is likely garbage. For Redline, it changes him from a high initiative bruiser like Wedge into a bruiser ace like Whisper.

I feel like I'm going loony. 🙃 Are the merits of AdSens on Redline really in question? Am I the crazy one on this?

7 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

AdSens is good on three pilots: Redline, Guri, and 4-LOM. All three

Rexler here be like

Hey guys, what's going on? This is a really long thread!

Well, @Boom Owl thinks Poe is a fair ace, and so that's why Poe doesn't having a lot of competitive success.

Ima lean towards pushing the other super aces (minus Soontir... I think he's thematically the only exception to this rule) higher so that's they are more at Poe's "fair, so maybe I'll take one so I can say I have an endgame piece" kind of level.

I'm sorry I don't have a lot of math or much besides subjective conjecture at the moment.

My experience as a primary Resistance player up to this point leads me in the discussion.

I have to really try to take Poe to something... because I really really want to do well with that pilot. (Enter @gennataos crusade).

Vader and Obi and Ani and Boba get a little of that "plot armor discount" treatment on their cost... But I'm confused as to why it feels like Poe gets the opposite conservative treatment in his faction.

2 minutes ago, PigglesMcgiggles said:

Hey guys, what's going on? This is a really long thread!

It’s not worth scrolling up. We argue a while and usually settle down eventually, and sometimes there is valuable stuff hidden in all the chaff. Good luck!

AS Redline >>> not AS Redline. Clearly you can remove it and he still does a thing, but it isn't a ridiculous BS thing.

Florkmargle. I like what you've got there, but I think I'd make a couple changes.

I mean, it's well off meta, which can be useful, but I feel like that 2nd r is trying to be an n. At which point you just switch out the l and r for an n and go full meta with fork mangle. You know what you're dealing with there and it's pretty simple to use.

Personally, I'd lean harder into the leftfield and take a 2nd o, gives you a decent florkmorgle. It has some nice internal synergy and you'll definitely catch people out with it.

Or, even more off meta, you can drop the bid and take a 3rd o instead for florkmoogle. It's probably only really a casual thing then but spam has a utility of its own.

Personally, I like klorfmoggle, but that's just me.

20 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

AdSens is good on three pilots: Redline, Guri, and 4-LOM. All three of those have means to get extra action economy; for everyone else, yes, it is likely garbage. For Redline, it changes him from a high initiative bruiser like Wedge into a bruiser ace like Whisper.

AdvS would be good on any pilot that can take it. Actions before red moves, premovement reposition, and block mitigation are all very strong.

Paul literally won a world's off the back of advS b wings

3 minutes ago, Cuz05 said:

AS Redline >>> not AS Redline. Clearly you can remove it and he still does a thing, but it isn't a ridiculous BS thing.

Florkmargle. I like what you've got there, but I think I'd make a couple changes.

I mean, it's well off meta, which can be useful, but I feel like that 2nd r is trying to be an n. At which point you just switch out the l and r for an n and go full meta with fork mangle. You know what you're dealing with there and it's pretty simple to use.

Personally, I'd lean harder into the leftfield and take a 2nd o, gives you a decent florkmorgle. It has some nice internal synergy and you'll definitely catch people out with it.

Or, even more off meta, you can drop the bid and take a 3rd o instead for florkmoogle. It's probably only really a casual thing then but spam has a utility of its own.

Personally, I like klorfmoggle, but that's just me.

Content

6 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

I would argue, but I am not even certain what I'm arguing against on this. Should I have considered infinite points in my assumptions?

I'm attempting to not be condescending so don't take the wrong tone as it's not my intent. The two statements I made are identical - one is just inverted to hopefully be more understandable. GreenDragoon phrased it better:

32 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

It necessarily is. If you filled every slot and are happy, you could in theory empty the slots, add the next ship, and now you're missing upgrades again.

TLDR squad building is always making sacrifices - 200 points is just the first sacrifice, any bid afterwards are by definition additional sacrifices.

7 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

Dee is fallible and can be wrong, and for this upgrade, he largely isn't wrong. AdSens is good on three pilots: Redline, Guri, and 4-LOM. All three of those have means to get extra action economy; for everyone else, yes, it is likely garbage. For Redline, it changes him from a high initiative bruiser like Wedge into a bruiser ace like Whisper.

I feel like I'm going loony. 🙃 Are the merits of AdSens on Redline really in question? Am I the crazy one on this?

I strongly disagree that AS is only good on those three pilots, but that's way off the point. The point I'm trying to make is either not being clearly explained, or going over your head, so in either case, sorry. The point is not that specifically advanced sensors on redline is good or bad - that is an example to highlight the real issue. I'll try and spell it out a bit more, with no steps skipped.

1. Players discover Soontir/Redline/Whisper, in a form which usually involved tragedy sim and bombs

2. Players decide Soontir/Redline/Whisper is totally broken, and way better than other lists.

3. Refinement is done! Advanced Sensors starts replacing bombs <---- this is the given example for why Dee's takes were mentioned.

4. Advanced Sensors makes the squad even better than it previously was.

5. It all gets burned to the ground with points/slot changes.

So to go back to the original point - your statement was that squads are only OK when they're making sacrifices. Now, with hindsight for how things ended, we say that Advanced Sensors was a piece of the squad that could not be sacrificed. But... during steps one and two, that wasn't true at all. It's easy to demonstrate - here's metawing filtered to the day before mynock open (when AS was popularized) https://meta.listfortress.com/pilots?ranking_start=2018-09-13&ranking_end=2018-11-02&large_tournament_multiplier=true&widespread_use_multiplier=true&use_ranking_data=all&tournament_type=&format_id=&. You can see there - 13 out of 87 redlines took advanced sensors. It was clearly not a necessary component for the list (at the time).

Why railing on this one point so much? Because the point is, squad power level is relative. Back to the hypothetical in my previous post - let's say all this stuff was even more busted than it already was, and Whisper got stealth device, redline got shield upgrades, same for soontir etc. There's no magic balanced state for the game, so those things would have been toned down, but still be significantly more powerful than they are now. But the main point is - we would say their power level, even though it is much higher than it is now, is balanced/what the game's power level is. It would likely (mostly) dominate the meta, but the point is we'd have an entirely different view of what squads can/should/would be good. Much like when vultures were running amok, you had to have a plan and build around vultures, we'd say you need to have a plan for that variation of triple aces.

This is all a lot of words to come back to disagreeing with your original statement:

1 hour ago, 5050Saint said:

This is where I am at. The main thing is that Triple Aces in any faction shouldn't be able to fit all the toys they want and a bid. They should be sacrificing something at some point for that bid.

Because of the reasons above, "sacrificing something" is a meaningless statement. Back to our 160 point squad of legend hypothetical, post nerf it would now be 185, and we'd be saying look at all the sacrifices you had to make - soontir lost two health, whisper lost advanced sensors, and vader crew turned into fifth brother!

6 minutes ago, Bucknife said:

Well, @Boom Owl thinks Poe is a fair ace, and so that's why Poe doesn't having a lot of competitive success.

Ima lean towards pushing the other super aces (minus Soontir... I think he's thematically the only exception to this rule) higher so that's they are more at Poe's "fair, so maybe I'll take one so I can say I have an endgame piece" kind of level.

booms argument is cost aces like poe. And if all aces were costed like poe, poe like aces would see more play

So.... what's your favourite X Wing thing ever?

It's multiple choice-

A) Swarms

B) Aces.

That's it. There's no other choices.

This is obviously a stupid pot stirring question, the right answer is to not answer

4 minutes ago, Cuz05 said:

AS Redline >>> not AS Redline. Clearly you can remove it and he still does a thing, but it isn't a ridiculous BS thing.

I am so confused that this (and @5050Saint's) response to my hypothetical is that apparently I'm arguing that AS redline is bad. The reason I'm using it as an example is because I remember it well because it was my tuning in the first place!

Am I explaining this badly, or are people having trouble engaging with a hypothetical?

3 minutes ago, Bucknife said:

Vader and Obi and Ani and Boba get a little of that "plot armor discount" treatment on their cost... But I'm confused as to why it feels like Poe gets the opposite conservative treatment in his faction.

62 > 67 to go from Luke to Vader? Or 62 > 52 to still get Grand Inquisitor?

2 minutes ago, Brunas said:

I am so confused that this (and @5050Saint's) response to my hypothetical is that apparently I'm arguing that AS redline is bad. The reason I'm using it as an example is because I remember it well because it was my tuning in the first place!

Am I explaining this badly, or are people having trouble engaging with a hypothetical?

Sorry, I just read something about AS/not AS Redline in the middle of a bunch of stuff I wasn't really following and knee jerked.

I did have something about triple aces, but then the thread went on a bit, I couldn't remember what I had and didn't care enough to think back on it.

So I just started being stupid instead.

8 minutes ago, svelok said:

62 > 67 to go from Luke to Vader? Or 62 > 52 to still get Grand Inquisitor?

Don't compare points. Only insanity lies in that direction

3 minutes ago, Cuz05 said:

I did have something about triple aces, but then the thread went on a bit, I couldn't remember what I had and didn't care enough to think back on it.

So I just started being stupid instead.

Content.