6 hours ago, kris40k said:

Game developers should never wait on fixing unbalanced game assets to sell a fix to the players, be it DLC in digital games, or an alternate model packs in tabletop miniatures.

Fix things as soon as they need fixing, and sell new content. Don't sell fixes to your broken game.

Now I can wholeheartedly agree with that, from a consumer's perspective, that's to be expected since when I purchase something, I expect it to work. Accidents can happen, but when something is broken, I expect a solution to that ASAP.

However, FFG doesn't have full freedom with the license. It's easily possible that FFG releases fixes packaged into new product because:
1. Greed
2. Limitations set by Disney or others.

I assume there are contract-related issues with selling card packs for example, which would be a great way to rebalance currently underperforming things in the game. It would sell like hot cake.

But if they can afford to sell fixes in packs which sell like hot cake anyway (Aces packs, Imp Vets or even GfH), they won't do it otherwise. Maximising profits has a priority over consumer happiness in the eyes of corporations.

There are many imperial builds that were doing good pre-wave 11 in Europe which were rarely seen played across the Ocean.

"controllish" RAC + ace (with various combination of Palpatine, Kylo, Rebel Captive, Ions and Jax), Vessery+QD+PalpaYorr, sensor clusters SFs and Bren+Jax+QD all had good results, yet they were mostly unique lists never actually flown by anyone but their creators.

Being August means that in the Old World we still have to play something really meaningful with wave 11, especially if you consider that many of our most active players were busy with the ETC (which wasn't including wave 11).

The meta is still young (and you guys have to consider that List Juggler, and by extension Meta Wing, has mostly USA tournament entries). Let's not cry wolf so early. For a start, the PHeaver hyper defensive build struggles against the Spanish Swam

10 hours ago, kris40k said:

Fix things as soon as they need fixing, and sell new content. Don't sell fixes to your broken game.

Just adjust stuff at home Brah... i done it for years now. Funny thing is FFG will do what I have been doing like the recent 3MOD Card from Guns; to soup up the Krazz...

Just be the veteran you are and make your game time great... don't wait!

3 hours ago, Captain Pellaeon said:

However, FFG doesn't have full freedom with the license. It's easily possible that FFG releases fixes packaged into new product because [of] Limitations set by Disney or others.

This is said very often, but never with even a tiny bit of evidence.

The decision to only sell the cards with the models makes good business sense, but it does not result in the best product from our perspective. There's little more to be said about it.

This business model does not inevitably lead to the sloppy design we've seen.

7 hours ago, Captain Pellaeon said:

<le snip>...But if they can afford to sell fixes in packs which sell like hot cake anyway (Aces packs, Imp Vets or even GfH), they won't do it otherwise. Maximising profits has a priority over consumer happiness in the eyes of corporations.

That issue right there is my own personal complaint with the current state of X-Wing, which is really more a complaint of FFG's business practice than the state of gameplay. As an amateur game developer (albeit video game, not tabletop) I like to analyze game decisions and directions of the games I play some from the outside; however it doesn't take much analysis to understand the words straight from the horses mouth.

I can't imagine any sort of scenario where a game developer of an online wargame could get away with saying, "We know the Space Marine unit is slightly overcosted, not durable enough, and is under-performing compared to other similar units in game. We have plans to lower the construction cost by a couple points, and increase its defense. You will need to buy the Special Forces Space Marine DLC which comes with a new playable unit for your army and the changes for the base Space Marine stats. If you don't buy the Special Forces Space Marine DLC, you will still have to play online against other players with the weaker base Space Marine unit stats and higher construction cost."

Holy ****. I can feel the flames from here.

But in X-Wing, this is the status quo. The developers clearly said they do not want to buff ships or cards unless they can work it into their production schedule to get a new release from it. Its just mind-boggling, and to be honest, a bit offensive. The official card errata and FAQ can effectively be viewed as a "game patch" and used to correct errors or clear up understanding of card functionality and gameplay concepts. They have the means to correct issues without charging for it, they just lack the desire or motivation to do so.

The only real motivation that works here is customer satisfaction/feedback/complaints, or more severely, withholding money/ not buying new content or quitting. I don't quite want to quit playing yet, I really like this game.

4 hours ago, Joe Boss Red Seven said:

Just adjust stuff at home Brah... i done it for years now. Funny thing is FFG will do what I have been doing like the recent 3MOD Card from Guns; to soup up the Krazz...

Just be the veteran you are and make your game time great... don't wait!

Personally, I'm doing fine with the game, thanks to my local scene not being a hyper competitive one, and with more interest in Epic, HotAC, missions and alternate formats increasing. I was just trying to answer Captain Pellaeon's earlier question about why the forums and podcasts appear to be raging these days.

To me, X-Wing TMG is still a great game, there has been however a serious dent put in the reputation of the developers.

2 hours ago, kris40k said:

Personally, I'm doing fine with the game, thanks to my local scene not being a hyper competitive one, and with more interest in Epic, HotAC, missions and alternate formats increasing. I was just trying to answer Captain Pellaeon's earlier question about why the forums and podcasts appear to be raging these days.

To me, X-Wing TMG is still a great game, there has been however a serious dent put in the reputation of the developers.

Honestly, I don't care too much if some ships or cards or squads are unbalanced therefore too frequently seen; new stuff will come out that beats the old stuff, and if things really get out of hand, the OP stuff will get "banned" (FFG has a really tortuous, sometimes misguided way to do that, but we've seen they're willing to do it).

I don't particularly think the game as a whole (i.e. the system) is in a bad place. I just find absurd and totally counterproductive from a business point of view that a game with just three factions is developing in a way that seems to advance two of them at the expenses of the third. And I think it's kind of a recent phenomenon, ir at least it never felt that way in the past (more so back when there were just two factions). I mean, it's only three factions, how hard can it be to keep them all at the same perceived power level? (Mind you, "perceived" is a key word here). I'm a MTG player, and there aren't really factions there, yet the five colors are constantly balanced, they get the same number of power cards, and even if the best ones in a given set belong to some of them, you never feel like some colors are being left behind in their development.

And with a miniature game it's different. I know there are players who buy everything (because, again, there's just three factions), but I think most players don't want to spend that kind of money, so they decide what faction they like best, and buy everything for that one, then maybe own enough ships to field one squad each of the other two (that's my case). I think miniature games naturally emphasize this approach. I mean, how many players own all existing factions of any GW game? Not even for Blood Bowl you would do that. FFG should keep that in mind, make sure no single-faction player ever feels left behind or punished. I'm confident in the long run they'll shift the balance again toward the center, but just the fact that they got to this point is a dangerous mistake to make: a 3-faction game is too fragile, one faction equals roughly one third of the player base, and no company can't afford to alienate one full third of your customers for too long (and they know they can't react too quickly to these situations, because they release very little content per year compared to other games).

On 11.08.2017 at 11:32 PM, Jeff Wilder said:

Now, for the record, I personally believe the Palp nerf was not strictly needed, but the nerfed version is playable, and that the x7 nerf is really weird (especially in combination with the bizarre ruling that a template overlap counts as a general overlap, and denies the evade token), but still playable.

Wait, what?
"Overlapping an obstacle occurs when the maneuver template or the ship's final position overlaps an obstacle. Overlapping a ship occurs when the ship's final position would overlap a ship." -> ADV SLAM Faq. So template overlap only denies the evade token if you overlap an obstacle, yes? For a moment there I thought that overlaping a ship with the template only cancels the evade.

About my only complaint with Imperials is their lack of access to upgrade cards. I really don't understand the mentality behind restricting Imps from so many cards when they are clearly in need of some love. I think Scum has what, Twice the upgrades as Imperials? Anyone have an exact number?

only imp ships that actually have upgrade options is the SF and ordnance carriers (if you count torps/missile/bombs that is).
Our large ships are basically just multi-crew, upsilon's price kinda limiting its options more than its slots i'll admit.