20 minutes ago, RampancyTW said:

Ion and stress can also break up the Biggs formation and lower enemy offensive output. A ship pointed the wrong way or a ship that can't turn around can be a huge advantage.

Net damage output is the name of the game. Obviously if you can't finish off enemy ships you won't win, but sometimes it just makes more sense to split. Not all the time, not even a majority of the time, but often enough to matter, and to influence list-building.

But not where it matters most. Yay, ARC builds are gonna need to adjust, that changes the meta land scape.

What has put Biggs over the edge is FSR and it has enough tricks that your suggested fix won't matter enough.

46 minutes ago, clanofwolves said:

So you're saying, we all must measure range all the time and make determinations that greatly effect the game, but determining if Biggs is closer to an attacker that another enemy ship is....is too hard to accomplish? How many times would it be so visually close that you'd need to use anything to measure? 1 out of 100? If you wanted Biggs to eat that shot rather than Ship A, you'd make d*** sure he was closer, wouldn't you?

I think it works......easy.

39 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

Disclaimer: it would be my most favorite solution, but I don't think it can work.

There is no game mechanic that distinguishes distance besides range bands. Figuring out who is closer when theres next to no difference is not something the game can do.

Let's say you measure closest corner to closest corner, you have a turret. There are two ships on opposite sides. How do you even keep track of one distance? Do you hold your finger on a range ruler to mark the spot? Sorry, I don't see that happening outside of casual games

37 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

For what it's worth, I have made these exact arguments before, in a different context that mattered, and got immediately and completely shut down on it. In short, what you and I think "works ... easy" doesn't matter much.

As far as the bolded question, how many times do you already see rules-abuse douchebaggery like "measuring for TL" on a ship at Range 5ish? Maybe you don't see it if you don't play competitively, but I see it at least twice a tournament ... and more often in an "important" tournament. Any rule that uses language like "closer" is just begging to be abused.

(BTW, HotAC uses "closer" all the time in its rules. But the people playing HotAC, for whatever reason, don't seem to abuse it ... )

How about adding a clause in the case of a "tie"? Like "If you are unable to discern which ship is closer, Biggs's ability applies" or some such. Wording isn't my strong suit, so how ever you think it should be worded, adjust away.

12 minutes ago, SabineKey said:

But not where it matters most. Yay, ARC builds are gonna need to adjust, that changes the meta land scape.

What has put Biggs over the edge is FSR and it has enough tricks that your suggested fix won't matter enough.

ARC, Miranda, Kanan are all much more vulnerable. I don't think Biggs/Kanan stays viable with the change. Anything low agility doesn't like the prospect, really.

Fairship becomes far more vulnerable to turrets. It struggles a little bit as-is, but ships that can stay out of arc and chip away will eat it alive if they can bypass the defensive synergy when it makes sense to do so. It also survives alpha strikes specifically because all of the ships likely survive the salvo if targeted, and Biggs has to be the target of any follow-up shots. Lowhhrick surviving with 1 or 2 hp is suddenly a lot less stable for the FSR player.

26 minutes ago, SabineKey said:

How about adding a clause in the case of a "tie"? Like "If you are unable to discern which ship is closer, Biggs's ability applies" or some such. Wording isn't my strong suit, so how ever you think it should be worded, adjust away.

"When an opponent is selecting a target for attack, Other ships within range 1 (of biggs) cannot be targetted if they are equadistant or farther from the attacker than you."

1 hour ago, RampancyTW said:

ARC, Miranda, Kanan are all much more vulnerable. I don't think Biggs/Kanan stays viable with the change. Anything low agility doesn't like the prospect, really.

Fairship becomes far more vulnerable to turrets. It struggles a little bit as-is, but ships that can stay out of arc and chip away will eat it alive if they can bypass the defensive synergy when it makes sense to do so. It also survives alpha strikes specifically because all of the ships likely survive the salvo if targeted, and Biggs has to be the target of any follow-up shots. Lowhhrick surviving with 1 or 2 hp is suddenly a lot less stable for the FSR player.

It comes down to evidence. You don't have any, thus I find all your arguments hollow as you are talking theoretical while I am using doctrine that is intricate to not just this game, but many others. I am quite interested in hearing how your and Jeff's practice game goes, but until you have data from rigorous testing, your arguments still don't beat sound doctrine.

52 minutes ago, SabineKey said:

It comes down to evidence. You don't have any, thus I find all your arguments hollow as you are talking theoretical while I am using doctrine that is intricate to not just this game, but many others. I am quite interested in hearing how your and Jeff's practice game goes, but until you have data from rigorous testing, your arguments still don't beat sound doctrine.

Dang dude, I bet you're drowning in evidence that taking multiple low-probability shots at a long range target is better than taking n-1 high probability shots at the closer, more dangerous target

I bet you're drowning in evidence that ioning a third or more of the enemy's firepower out of the fight is a total waste of a shot

I bet you're drowning in evidence that a list that literally is 100% reliant on every shot getting reduced by a die shooting at an obstructed Biggs is totally unaffected by a change that prevents that exact scenario

I find your arguments narrow and short-sighted and utterly ignorant of practical realities vs. theoretical ideals of focus fire, but by all means keep losing matches you could have won if you weren't busy slamming your head pointlessly into an overly rigid wall of doctrine. Cheers.

26 minutes ago, RampancyTW said:

Dang dude, I bet you're drowning in evidence that taking multiple low-probability shots at a long range target is better than taking n-1 high probability shots at the closer, more dangerous target

I bet you're drowning in evidence that ioning a third or more of the enemy's firepower out of the fight is a total waste of a shot

I bet you're drowning in evidence that a list that literally is 100% reliant on every shot getting reduced by a die shooting at an obstructed Biggs is totally unaffected by a change that prevents that exact scenario

I find your arguments narrow and short-sighted and utterly ignorant of practical realities vs. theoretical ideals of focus fire, but by all means keep losing matches you could have won if you weren't busy slamming your head pointlessly into an overly rigid wall of doctrine. Cheers.

You continue to miss the point. I find your attempts to argue against points just as short-sighted and ignorant. Like I said, if you can prove your point with rigorous testing, I'll concede. But that is consistent data over multiple lists and multiple opponents. Until then, I'm just hearing someone too inamoured in their own idea to acknowledge it's flaws. It's not utter garbage, but it is not the miracle you keep claiming.

The ball is in your court, sir. Cheers.

Just now, SabineKey said:

You continue to miss the point. I find your attempts to argue against points just as short-sighted and ignorant. Like I said, if you can prove your point with rigorous testing, I'll concede. But that is consistent data over multiple lists and multiple opponents. Until then, I'm just hearing someone to inamoured in their own idea to acknowledge it's flaws. It's not utter garbage, but it is not the miracle you keep claiming.

The ball is in your court, sir. Cheers.

What a farce

"It's always better to fire all of your shots at Biggs"

"Sometimes it's not, here's some examples"

"It's always better to fire all of your shots at Biggs"

I never claimed a once-per-round nerf to Biggs was a miracle, I claimed it would make a difference and lead to Biggs players having to adjust their list-building and/or flying since being too greedy with either category would get the ships Biggs currently is designed to protect caught out.

I was arguing against two things: that it A.) Wouldn't make a difference and B.) That it was pointless to shoot at another ship if you couldn't take it down a single round of fire.

In my testing with Jeff, most of the time, I'm probably going to just focus down Biggs. But there are definitely going to be lists/situations where doing so isn't optimal, and I'll fire N-1 attacks at not-Biggs. In a more general sense, sometimes it just makes more sense to switch targets if it's clear you're unlikely to be able to take your initial target off the board or will be screwed for future rounds if you commit to doing so.

6 minutes ago, RampancyTW said:

What a farce

"It's always better to fire all of your shots at Biggs"

"Sometimes it's not, here's some examples"

"It's always better to fire all of your shots at Biggs"

I never claimed a once-per-round nerf to Biggs was a miracle, I claimed it would make a difference and lead to Biggs players having to adjust their list-building and/or flying since being too greedy with either category would get the ships Biggs currently is designed to protect caught out.

I was arguing against two things: that it A.) Wouldn't make a difference and B.) That it was pointless to shoot at another ship if you couldn't take it down a single round of fire.

In my testing with Jeff, most of the time, I'm probably going to just focus down Biggs. But there are definitely going to be lists/situations where doing so isn't optimal, and I'll fire N-1 attacks at not-Biggs. In a more general sense, sometimes it just makes more sense to switch targets if it's clear you're unlikely to be able to take your initial target off the board or will be screwed for future rounds if you commit to doing so.

There is a difference between having to switch targets due to circumstances or taking advantage of an opportunity and making splitting fire the strategy, which is what you are suggesting is the right way to deal with Biggs in the fix you are suggesting. As a tool in the box, divided fire has its uses. But it is not a main tactic, as your posts suggests.

14 minutes ago, SabineKey said:

There is a difference between having to switch targets due to circumstances or taking advantage of an opportunity and making splitting fire the strategy, which is what you are suggesting is the right way to deal with Biggs in the fix you are suggesting. As a tool in the box, divided fire has its uses. But it is not a main tactic, as your posts suggests.

... and therefore, the nerf would make a difference.

Are we done here? Because "N-1 shots at not-Biggs has its uses" is a spot-on summary of my posts in this multi-page ****-show, and it should not have taken this long for that to sink in.

2 minutes ago, RampancyTW said:

... and therefore, the nerf would make a difference.

Are we done here? Because "N-1 shots at not-Biggs has its uses" is a spot-on summary of my posts in this multi-page ****-show, and it should not have taken this long for that to sink in.

Heh, you are still missing the point. The nerf doesn't do enough. That's what this has all been about.

7 minutes ago, SabineKey said:

Heh, you are still missing the point. The nerf doesn't do enough. That's what this has all been about.

You can't get all soap-boxy about evidence and then just throw this out there. Similar adjustments to things like Palp and TIE/x7 had major impacts on their usage. If you lower the favorability ratios of any given set of matchup possibilities then a list starts looking less attractive.

I never claimed this nerf was the cure. It wasn't my idea, either. I took issue with the idea that it would make no difference (i.e., wouldn't even be a nerf). Having just had a narrow victory over Kanan/Biggs at a SC this past weekend with an ion/stress control list, I known darn well it would have an impact.

33 minutes ago, RampancyTW said:

You can't get all soap-boxy about evidence and then just throw this out there. Similar adjustments to things like Palp and TIE/x7 had major impacts on their usage. If you lower the favorability ratios of any given set of matchup possibilities then a list starts looking less attractive.

I never claimed this nerf was the cure. It wasn't my idea, either. I took issue with the idea that it would make no difference (i.e., wouldn't even be a nerf). Having just had a narrow victory over Kanan/Biggs at a SC this past weekend with an ion/stress control list, I known darn well it would have an impact.

Still missing the point.

5 hours ago, RampancyTW said:

I was arguing against two things: that it A.) Wouldn't make a difference and B.) That it was pointless to shoot at another ship if you couldn't take it down a single round of fire.

Multiple, as long as it's not destroyed.

And of course if you have an extraordinary effect which relies on attacking to be delivered, then shooting another target has additional benefit besides doing damage. Not that ion breaks up the formation, but stress prevents actions, Kylo could be triggered, and so on.

But we're not mindless lemmings that have to argue a point within a vacuum - we're specifically discussing Biggs and how his design might be improved. That's why I insist on ignoring such effects for our discussion. So is it really better design to require such effects and otherwise he will remain the same? Or is one of the many other ideas better?

Again: if x ships shoot against Biggs+y, then the latter will win if they can focus fire and x can't. X can of course focus Biggs, but then the change didn't do anything.

You're arguing that it's enough for the rare case where the X squad will have an effect which can be applied to one of those Y ships by attacking. And I'm arguing that it's bad design to require these effects, hence me ignoring them. Maybe that clears things up.

My imaginary unicorn is better than your imaginary unicorn.

14 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

Disclaimer: it would be my most favorite solution, but I don't think it can work.

There is no game mechanic that distinguishes distance besides range bands. Figuring out who is closer when theres next to no difference is not something the game can do.

Let's say you measure closest corner to closest corner, you have a turret. There are two ships on opposite sides. How do you even keep track of one distance? Do you hold your finger on a range ruler to mark the spot? Sorry, I don't see that happening outside of casual games

Good point; I'm schooled.

14 hours ago, Jeff Wilder said:

For what it's worth, I have made these exact arguments before, in a different context that mattered, and got immediately and completely shut down on it. In short, what you and I think "works ... easy" doesn't matter much.

As far as the bolded question, how many times do you already see rules-abuse douchebaggery like "measuring for TL" on a ship at Range 5ish? Maybe you don't see it if you don't play competitively, but I see it at least twice a tournament ... and more often in an "important" tournament. Any rule that uses language like "closer" is just begging to be abused.

(BTW, HotAC uses "closer" all the time in its rules. But the people playing HotAC, for whatever reason, don't seem to abuse it ... )

Piling on great points; schooled again. Guess in my games, be they beer casual games or I'm sweating it out and it means win or watch from the distance, they're never been an argument over distance -range- when we both really looked at it. I've never had the issue really; I don't think I'm too threatening of a fellow and I've certainly never played anyone in that category.?

You guys are correct though, this could be tough at super close distances or could have the crap potentially abused out of it.

How about this then:

"Other friendly ships at Range 1 cannot be targeted by attacks if you are in a closer range band to the attacker and they could target you instead."

That way only if he's closer than any other enemy ship is he the only shot, otherwise, choice has entered the game again. Without Selflessness this is uber harsh, but with that power, maybe not? I realize this might effectively kill Biggs in lists without Selfishness, as he couldn't just be the meat shield; he'd have to be flown as a sacrificial lamb.....hummmm?

"Other friendly ships at Range 1 cannot be targeted by attacks if the attacker is at Range 1-2 of you and could target you instead."

1 hour ago, Stay On The Leader said:

"Other friendly ships at Range 1 cannot be targeted by attacks if the attacker is at Range 1-2 of you and could target you instead."

That's another good one.

seriously, by now there are so many good ideas floating around that the 'once per round' is completely unnecessary

6 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

You're arguing that it's enough for the rare case where the X squad will have an effect which can be applied to one of those Y ships by attacking.

5 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

That's another good one.

seriously, by now there are so many good ideas floating around that the 'once per round' is completely unnecessary

No, no I'm not. That's one of the things I think it would make a difference for, but not the only thing.

And seriously? If your concern is about splitting fire any percent of the time, a change that relies on keeping Biggs at R3 to have an effect is better? I don't hate that idea either, but it's going to meaningfully trigger even less than the proposal that you think makes no difference.

I'm not even remotely married to the once-per-turn idea, but I genuinely don't think you're even arguing in good faith at this point

Going to quote @Makaze here, since it apparently got lost in the mess:
"Generally speaking whichever choice lets you take a ship off the board first, whether or not it's on this particular turn isn't relevant. That's the whole point to begin with, to erode their offensive capabilities by removing them from the board. Concentrating fire it's just a method, not the end goal in and of itself. In most situations it's the right choice but in some edge cases, and Bigg's ability expands that list of edge cases immensely, splitting your fire may allow you to drop another ships faster than you could drop Biggs and in that case it's likely the correct choice."

13 minutes ago, RampancyTW said:

No, no I'm not. That's one of the things I think it would make a difference for, but not the only thing.

And seriously? If your concern is about splitting fire any percent of the time, a change that relies on keeping Biggs at R3 to have an effect is better? I don't hate that idea either, but it's going to meaningfully trigger even less than the proposal that you think makes no difference.

I'm not even remotely married to the once-per-turn idea, but I genuinely don't think you're even arguing in good faith at this point

Going to quote @Makaze here, since it apparently got lost in the mess:
"Generally speaking whichever choice lets you take a ship off the board first, whether or not it's on this particular turn isn't relevant. That's the whole point to begin with, to erode their offensive capabilities by removing them from the board. Concentrating fire it's just a method, not the end goal in and of itself. In most situations it's the right choice but in some edge cases, and Bigg's ability expands that list of edge cases immensely, splitting your fire may allow you to drop another ships faster than you could drop Biggs and in that case it's likely the correct choice."

Edge cases aren't enough. We are talking about value for cost. While the "once per turn" has some value, based on my experience over multiple games over multiple genres, I do not believe that value exceeds the opportunity cost of potentially better fixes. It's like counting on the dice to roll natural all crits all the time. It'll work out from time to time, but not enough to base an entire strategy on.

1 minute ago, SabineKey said:

Edge cases aren't enough. We are talking about value for cost. While the "once per turn" has some value, based on my experience over multiple games over multiple genres, I do not believe that value exceeds the opportunity cost of potentially better fixes. It's like counting on the dice to roll natural all crits all the time. It'll work out from time to time, but not enough to base an entire strategy on.

K cool, get it, you don't think it's enough of a nerf, heard ya the first 3 times and I don't think we have any further confusion to clear up

12 minutes ago, RampancyTW said:

K cool, get it, you don't think it's enough of a nerf, heard ya the first 3 times and I don't think we have any further confusion to clear up

Maybe not on your end, but I am still confused why you think you have to defend this course of action when you yourself said you would likely not use it all that much. If it isn't going to give you a consistent value for cost, why are you championing it?

All these silly Biggs changes when you can just turn him into reverse xizor

8 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

All these silly Biggs changes when you can just turn him into reverse xizor