1 hour ago, Kieransi said:

Just got an email I've never gotten before:

They've never bugged me about the newsletter before now, so it's yet more confirmation that tons of new news are coming up soon...

Same, that was weird.

Also respect to asmodee for defaulting email communication to off, they could have easily snuck a thing in the TOS after the merge about opting in to everything.

22 minutes ago, Wiredin said:

google it

be happy

I'm very scared of googling your guys' references. I learned my lesson with Ahsucka.

Actually I'm moving my question here.

Guri: 2D or 3D?

asking for a friend

5 minutes ago, catachanninja said:

Got a good popublocker ready

I run it on my ipad or xbox. I feel that's safer than running it on my laptop or desktop to avoid pop-up spam.

2 minutes ago, Kieransi said:

I'm very scared of googling your guys' references. I learned my lesson with Ahsucka.

That is a legit and fair statement. However, you will be fine with this one. Streaming access to 90% of the cartoons ever! It's pretty sweet. can be buggy at time, but it's a thing of beauty.

on that note... I wonder if I can get it on Kodi (which I don't have setup at all anymore) to prevent the pop-up garbage.

17 minutes ago, Wiredin said:

That is a legit and fair statement. However, you will be fine with this one. Streaming access to 90% of the cartoons ever! It's pretty sweet. can be buggy at time, but it's a thing of beauty.

on that note... I wonder if I can get it on Kodi (which I don't have setup at all anymore) to prevent the pop-up garbage.

Yeh, no thanks. I'll wait until it's on Prime (you know, once my dad realizes that his eBay purchase was actually Season 2 mislabeled as Season 4, or a preorder, or some other BS)

35 minutes ago, Brunas said:

Actually I'm moving my question here.

Guri: 2D or 3D?

asking for a friend

Depending on the art, she's often a double D.

I now wanna make a Binayre pirate alt-art with the piratebay/kodi/kissanime logos

So, new question, why are aces considered wholesome? Is it because they sometimes require more thought on the part of the player?

I'm thinking of this because we'll be seeing a meta shift most likely. Worlds usually inspires a new FAQ/errata on FFG's part and if when Ghost/Fenn and Miranda dominate, they'll probably get nerfed. And then we've got the "X-WINGS ARE OP FFG PLS NRF" pack and the Krennic Expansion Pack (TM) coming out after that.

I think it was here that we discussed the store champ won by Kylo+Bid. That's an NPE, right?

I flew against an older player a while back. He decided to fly Han/Corran so I thought my Whisper/Tetran/Turr triple PS9 build would be ok. My mistake. Complete NPE, he eventually killed Tetran because I sort of let him. It made me feel sad.

So aren't aces often an NPE? I feel like lots of local metas are completely dominated by Kylo right now because he's not the best ship, but he's the best ship that you don't get shamed out of playing.

So why is it that most people are more comfortable with an ace meta? We have had ordnance metas, bomb metas, swarm metas, turret metas, bunker metas, etc., but during all of those, people complain and want aces to be made better.

Not trying to blame ace players. Just honestly wondering what everyone's thoughts on this are.

7 minutes ago, Kieransi said:

So, new question, why are aces considered wholesome? Is it because they sometimes require more thought on the part of the player?

I'm thinking of this because we'll be seeing a meta shift most likely. Worlds usually inspires a new FAQ/errata on FFG's part and if when Ghost/Fenn and Miranda dominate, they'll probably get nerfed. And then we've got the "X-WINGS ARE OP FFG PLS NRF" pack and the Krennic Expansion Pack (TM) coming out after that.

I think it was here that we discussed the store champ won by Kylo+Bid. That's an NPE, right?

I flew against an older player a while back. He decided to fly Han/Corran so I thought my Whisper/Tetran/Turr triple PS9 build would be ok. My mistake. Complete NPE, he eventually killed Tetran because I sort of let him. It made me feel sad.

So aren't aces often an NPE? I feel like lots of local metas are completely dominated by Kylo right now because he's not the best ship, but he's the best ship that you don't get shamed out of playing.

So why is it that most people are more comfortable with an ace meta? We have had ordnance metas, bomb metas, swarm metas, turret metas, bunker metas, etc., but during all of those, people complain and want aces to be made better.

Not trying to blame ace players. Just honestly wondering what everyone's thoughts on this are.

Unkillable aces, or aces with little-to-no counterplay (kylo, if he was consistently the last mover on the board) is just as much of an NPE as regen (possibly more so, simply because people still *think* they can kill regen ships even when they get to a point they mathematically cant.

That's not to say all aces, or arc-dodging broadly has to be NPE, but the only ones that are playable tend to be.

Edit: Coupled with the fact that most of those aces are simply trying to score points and leave (partially because they lack the ability to kill many meta ships).

6 minutes ago, Kieransi said:

So, new question, why are aces considered wholesome? Is it because they sometimes require more thought on the part of the player?

I'm thinking of this because we'll be seeing a meta shift most likely. Worlds usually inspires a new FAQ/errata on FFG's part and if when Ghost/Fenn and Miranda dominate, they'll probably get nerfed. And then we've got the "X-WINGS ARE OP FFG PLS NRF" pack and the Krennic Expansion Pack (TM) coming out after that.

I think it was here that we discussed the store champ won by Kylo+Bid. That's an NPE, right?

I flew against an older player a while back. He decided to fly Han/Corran so I thought my Whisper/Tetran/Turr triple PS9 build would be ok. My mistake. Complete NPE, he eventually killed Tetran because I sort of let him. It made me feel sad.

So aren't aces often an NPE? I feel like lots of local metas are completely dominated by Kylo right now because he's not the best ship, but he's the best ship that you don't get shamed out of playing.

So why is it that most people are more comfortable with an ace meta? We have had ordnance metas, bomb metas, swarm metas, turret metas, bunker metas, etc., but during all of those, people complain and want aces to be made better.

Not trying to blame ace players. Just honestly wondering what everyone's thoughts on this are.

I'm pretty sure it's an unironic

BUT IT LOOKS LIKE YOU'RE PLAYING THE GAME

Aces at least feel like xwing enough to not give that violent visceral response that some of the current top meta stuff does.

2 minutes ago, Kieransi said:

So, new question, why are aces considered wholesome? Is itwhen because they sometimes require more thought on the part of the player?

I'm thinking of this because we'll be seeing a meta shift most likely. Worlds usually inspires a new FAQ/errata on FFG's part and if when Ghost/Fenn and Miranda dominate, they'll probably get nerfed. And then we've got the "X-WINGS ARE OP FFG PLS NRF" pack and the Krennic Expansion Pack (TM) coming out after that.

I think it was here that we discussed the store champ won by Kylo+Bid. That's an NPE, right?

I flew against an older player a while back. He decided to fly Han/Corran so I thought my Whisper/Tetran/Turr triple PS9 build would be ok. My mistake. Complete NPE, he eventually killed Tetran because I sort of let him. It made me feel sad.

So aren't aces often an NPE? I feel like lots of local metas are completely dominated by Kylo right now because he's not the best ship, but he's the best ship that you don't get shamed out of playing.

So why is it that most people are more comfortable with an ace meta? We have had ordnance metas, bomb metas, swarm metas, turret metas, bunker metas, etc., but during all of those, people complain and want aces to be made better.

Not trying to blame ace players. Just honestly wondering what everyone's thoughts on this are.

Still need @catachanninja to define what an ace is before answering.

I kid.

For me the "traditional" ace is all about risk vs. reward and the skill ceiling required to master them. They usually are low health, High PS, agile ships that reward intelligent play and absolutely punish mistakes. Run Soontir over a rock and that very well could be a dead Soontir this turn. Run a Ghost over a rock? "Who gives a ****, I meant to do that...I even have Dash crew!"

Bombs have been a slow strangle on Aces and at one point, removed them entirely from gameplay. Kylo is just a reaction to the current game state. He can tank a bomb. And is an Empirical answer to the 50 point Miranda and/or 43 point Poe's. The only "NPE" with him is when a Kylo player kills enough points to basically bail on the rest of the game and just run for the remaining time. If you don't have more than one ship, if he doesn't want to get shot at, he likely isn't going to get shot at. Playing against that style of play isn't fun, but it's where we are with competitive play and how the tournament scene has structured win conditions.

My continuous argument about so many states of the game is not that "X" ship needs to be better. It's that "Y" and "Z" need to be less good. Aces don't need to be better. Bombs and turrets and token stacking defense need to be less good.

High PS Aces, even the AS/PTL Kylo, can be outflown and killed by lower PS ships if you understand how to set up killboxes and clever blocking. Been there, done that. If you are lower skill than them and fail to setup the situations or catch them in it, or just brought a list that can't play that game, then it may feel like you never had a chance. Unlike a numerical issue (I get X number of evades on average, you do X amount of damage on avg, carry the regen, you numerically cannot win) that cannot be changed via player input like positioning, just being outflown is not a NPE generally.

20 minutes ago, Brunas said:

Aces at least feel like xwing enough to not give that violent visceral response that some of the current top meta stuff does.

In the context of the individual game losing to aces feels better than winning against TLTs. External to that game, there's definitely a certain level of satisfaction in dumpstering someone running an obviously broken list. But gameplay wise it's just not that fun and since this is just a form of entertainment that's all that really matters in the long run.

2 minutes ago, kris40k said:

High PS Aces, even the AS/PTL Kylo, can be outflown and killed by lower PS ships if you understand how to set up killboxes and clever blocking. Been there, done that. If you are lower skill than them and fail to setup the situations or catch them in it, or just brought a list that can't play that game, then it may feel like you never had a chance. Unlike a numerical issue (I get X number of evades on average, you do X amount of damage on avg, carry the regen, you numerically cannot win) that cannot be changed via player input like positioning, just being outflown is not a NPE generally.

I somewhat agree, except when those aces defensive stack.

For example, there are no amount of 2/3 dice attacks at range 3 that will scare a token-ed soontir with stealth, thrusters, and palp in the background. Inquisitor borders on this as well, but the criticality of not having stealth device matters.

Also... adv. sensors Kylo, when he's the the last moving ship on the board, is not scared of swarms (unless time is an issue).

See, the problem with Kylo isn't in super-competitive play, it's in casual play. In small local communities, the "casual" players try to shame people out of using Dash, Ghost/Fenn, Miranda, Nym, anything at PS10 or PS11, so Kylo quickly becomes unbeatable because he exists as a counter to things that don't exist anymore. For Kylo to be balanced, he needs all that other super powerful stuff to be what he's competing against. If he comes to one of those places where there's sort of a subliminal "banlist", he becomes an NPE.

To clarify, Kylo is pre-nerf Phantom on steroids. He's either out-PSsed or out-turreted and very sad, or a completely unhittable NPE.

Against stuff as good as him (i.e. the top stuff on meta-wing), he's fine. Against casual jank lists, he's totally not.

2 minutes ago, Kieransi said:

See, the problem with Kylo isn't in super-competitive play, it's in casual play. In small local communities, the "casual" players try to shame people out of using Dash, Ghost/Fenn, Miranda, Nym, anything at PS10 or PS11, so Kylo quickly becomes unbeatable because he exists as a counter to things that don't exist anymore. For Kylo to be balanced, he needs all that other super powerful stuff to be what he's competing against. If he comes to one of those places where there's sort of a subliminal "banlist", he becomes an NPE.

I brought the PS 6 generic with a 6 point bid to a no-dupes, no-unique, only forward-firing arcs tournament.

That silencer always moved last.

It was my first time playing the silencer, and after the first game, my silencer was never in danger of dying.

Addendum: I won.

Double Addendum: I felt bad afterwards.

3 minutes ago, Tlfj200 said:

I brought the PS 6 generic with a 6 point bid to a no-dupes, no-unique, only forward-firing arcs tournament.

That silencer always moved last.

It was my first time playing the silencer, and after the first game, my silencer was never in danger of dying.

Addendum: I won.

Double Addendum: I felt bad afterwards.

Taking this back to your Listener Series...how much of that is because you are are pretty **** good player and put yourself into the right position to be successful vs. the chassis being OP?

There's no doubt it's a very solid ship with great action economy. But it's still 6 health behind 3 green dice with no native evade. Mistakes will still punish you badly.

Also what was the point cap on the format? Was a 35 point furball or something?

See, in my experience at the casual level at least, I brought a jank FAA/IA Luke, x2 rookies, and a PS 2 U-Wing with Jan/Jyn (which ironically is about to get more powerful) against a typical Whisper + AS/PTL Blackout list. Traded Luke for Whisper which left 3 low PS ships v. high PS AS/PTL Silencer. I created a situation when I predicted his 2-hard move, self-bumped to leave a U-Wing in his way when it couldn't 0-stop, and had all possible BR/Boost + 2 Hard covered in arcs. Boom.

It takes skill to fly that ship and not get caught, which is rewarded, but skill is something people won't complain about as much as just numerical mechanics simply being weighted a particular matchup. Sure, it has x1000 options to position, but if you don't watch yourself, someone will lay a trap and say, "Ok, try and fly somewhere that doesn't bump or leave you in arcs with nothing but a Focus token at best.

12 minutes ago, viedit said:

Taking this back to your Listener Series...how much of that is because you are are pretty **** good player and put yourself into the right position to be successful vs. the chassis being OP?

There's no doubt it's a very solid ship with great action economy. But it's still 6 health behind 3 green dice with no native evade. Mistakes will still punish you badly.

Also what was the point cap on the format? Was a 35 point furball or something?

No point cap - just a no unique, no dupe, primary-forward arcs only pirate tournament.

I wanted to experiment with kylo 2x gunboats, so I brought the PS6 silencer, an actual rho boat with harpoons, and a Kimo with harpoons.

Here's what I learned (in order):

• After getting a feel for what I could do with the advanced sensors + PTL silencer, I realized I could dial in something generic and basically be fine if I was last mover (always starting with the decision t 2-turn, 3-bank, or 5-straight, and then justifying why those are not the right maneuvers if I wanted to do another maneuver).
• The kimo is not a gunboat. It's not close.

What I found out after round 1 was that, since I can double-reposition if needed (the goal is to not need it), I could program more generic maneuvers that are "fixable" with 1 or 2 repositions, and since I will always have perfect knowledge of the boardstate after everyone is committed to moving, the silencer was nearly untouchable by forward arcs.

I'll elaborate, because unless you have seen it, it's not actually very obvious (and watching streams, people are not doing this):

I usually have the option of boosting left-or right and:

1. bumping into you
2. disengaging, or creating a range 3 and/or obstructed shot, vastly lowering your chance to hit me
3. arc-dodging you completely

There's a little more science to it ( @Brunas noted that you generally want to dial in a manuever that lets you face the direction you want to be in (so bank if you want to be 45-degrees, etc). Still, not-committing too hard, and you can just end up where you need to be, with a little patience.

While I won't say I'm bad, I don't actually think this takes a lot of skill, once you know what you're looking for (need to 'see' it).

All of what I just said about it not being "okay" aside... it is fun to be able to reposition, and the silencer is king of repositioning. I wish there was a way to reconcile the two

5 minutes ago, kris40k said:

I predicted his 2-hard move, self-bumped to leave a U-Wing in his way when it couldn't 0-stop, and had all possible BR/Boost + 2 Hard covered in arcs. Boom.

I think you took the wrong lesson. It takes skill to trap the AS/PTL Silencer. Your opponent got a bit aggressive and you made him pay for it. It's also why my record against Fel is pretty good with Rookie X-Wings... If my opponent gets greedy, he dies. If my opponent bugs out when I point my fighters in his general direction, generally I'm slowly beaten.

3 minutes ago, LagJanson said:

I think you took the wrong lesson. It takes skill to trap something the AS/PTL Silencer. Your opponent got a bit aggressive and you made him pay for it. It's also why my record against Fel is pretty good with Rookie X-Wings... If my opponent gets greedy, he dies. If my opponent bugs out why I point my fighters in his general direction, generally I'm slowly beaten.

Sure, but that's the point: the ship can be outflown.

That's what prevents it from being an NPE. Its not a ship that flies itself, or could maybe make the cut when flown by AI like Ghost/Fenn. If someone gets greedy and gets caught, it gets blown up.

Now, pre-nerf Palp + AT + Evade + Focus Fel was another matter. The Silencer generally doesn't have that kind of defensive stack. Typically a Focus + AT + title at best in many lists. I generally don't see or hear people talking about Palp/Kylo lists except when they are on the same RAC.

21 minutes ago, kris40k said:

I generally don't see or hear people talking about Palp/Kylo lists except when they are on the same RAC.

Its because Kylo is so expensive your wingman is very limited. I flew Primed Thrusters Kylo with a Palpshuttle and Trick shot Pure Sabacc, simply because that's the best Kylo Wingman I can fit in there. You can take a Palp Upsilon but then you're limited to Wampa as the 3rd. My Primed Thrusters version was 99 points, hardly enough for the bid you really want, but other PS9's aren't really around either a month ago. I think the list is better than I flew it. I made stage 2 at adepticon with it but lost out to Nym/Nunb list that was amazing. I don't think its ever lost to Rey/Wingman, but Ghost/Fenn is pretty tough for it. I usually lost Pure Sabacc early on. He's an offensive monster with trick shot and palp backup. At PS6 people were still complaining that it was OP. Sure I throw 5 dice at your ship with palp-crit, but you're usually up 2 green dice. What other wingmen fit in the 24 points or lower that are great with that list? ASTS OL?

2 hours ago, Brunas said:

Same, that was weird.

Also respect to asmodee for defaulting email communication to off, they could have easily snuck a thing in the TOS after the merge about opting in to everything.

Not to take respect away from Asmodee (cue the laugh track), but no, they really couldn't. Between the GDPR in Europe and the Canadian anti-spam laws, not getting explicit consent to send marketing material to someone could have hit them hard in the wallet. The GDPR is not yet fully active, so the multi-million dollar fines haven't kicked in yet, but Canada has been sending notices to comply or face fines for a few years now, and fines were imposed quite a few times already. Any business that operates in the EU or Canada or may send a commercial email to someone in Canada or Europe really should read up on how to be compliant.

You're welcome, everyone else, for all the privacy policies that will nonetheless cover you to be safe and all the spam that won't get sent to you just in case

I guess it looks more novel when you don't deal with these issues frequently, kinda like how you have to relearn to play to fly 5 X-wings