First things first, I can only base my opinion on what I have personally seen and played with.

I am going to delve into a recent small store championship I played in to discuss how I feel the game is and where balance and is.

The Store championship I was at I played 2^nd of 12 (yes very small sample). Below is my list:

“Backdraft”

Special Forces TIE , Unique

Veteran Instincts (1)

Fire-Control System (2)

Special Ops Training (0)

Lightweight Frame (2)

“Quickdraw”

Special Forces TIE , Unique

Expertise (4)

Fire-Control System (2)

Sensor Cluster (2)

Special Ops Training (0)

Lightweight Frame (2)nts

Valen Rudor

TIE Advanced Prototype, Unique

Intensity (2)

Proton Rockets (3)

TIE/v1 (1)

Guidance Chips (0)

99pts

With this list, I went 3-1, my 3x wins were 100-0 victories and my only loss was to the winner of the tournament (and winner of the last two regionals) running a fair ship rebels build (Biggs + Lowhhrick + Jess + Captain Rex). That loss I felt I should have won, after 2 turns of combat lowhhrick was dead and none of the other ships had any shields left, my force was relatively decent with no shields on the TAP but with 2 shields on backdraft and 1 on quickdraw left. I was also in a good position for shots, however my dice decided it was best to go cold on both defense and offense the rest of the game. (quickdraw went down 2 two shots from jess rolling all blanks on both shots to her all hits, and even having 2 ships in range one for the double tap that had no defensive tokens to go through only doing 1 damage. And it continued like that)

Now having been reading these forums recently I was starting to get jaded and feel like FFG had made some big mistakes however after some practice matches and this store championship it felt like to me the game is in a great space. My Valen Ruder even in a bomb heavy meta (faced 2 bombing lists) was hands down my MVP doing huge amounts of damage, if one was to simply read these forums the Tie Advanced Prototype is unplayable in this meta. Furthermore, in this tournament there as a Poe that just would not die, and a very successful Kath Scarlet (firespray) build that almost took the top spot.

If I expand this further to my practicing before the tournament my list barely lost to a Dengar Nym list and for fun I broke out a 4X blue squadron T-70 list and was able to defeat that same Dengar Nym. I walked away from that feeling like the Quad T-70 is actually very strong.

I can’t connect the endless complaints on these forums with any real-world experience from my end of the game, it feels like I can pick up almost any ship and as long as I build a good list around it I could be successful. So, I am putting my opinion out that the game is in a very strong state of balance, sure it's not perfect but I have never felt like it has been better than it is now.

At the end of the day, this game feels like it is way more about the player than the list. You could argue that my example tournament was won by the much talked about fair ship rebels list, but I would argue it was won by the areas arguably best player (last 2 regionals champion).

Lastly, I want to give my Props to both the game designers and the play testers, you are eating a lot of heat right now and I don’t really understand why. For me this game is great, nothing feels like it is overpowered or breaking the game. I just wanted you guys to know that some people do think you are doing a good job.

I do like a level headed fellow; thanks @Icelom ?

...but Imps don't have the overall synergies and toughness to get through lots of games and are weeded out by safer power lists; history in larger tournament results show this as the sad fact ☹️

Deathfire is a beauty of a ship, but people keep telling me "he dies easily" even though my experience in practice hasn't suggested that: he maybe dies a little while after the first engagement, having used at least a missile, bombed a ship, restricted opponents space with another set of bombs, and maybe hasn't used the last set of missiles, and that's *if* he dies...usually he lives.

I don't mean to shoot you down, but maybe your single experience at a 12 player store championship isn't representative of the state of the game as a whole.

This thread belongs in the Battle Reports subforum.

Nonetheless, congrats on your performance.

I am pleased to hear a voice of reason here and look forward to hearing from others.

In the groupthink I've read on these forums, the margin between a great ship and crap is rather thin. I started up minis gaming 20+ years ago and I get the feeling that some folks here have not had the misfortune dump $ into a game to bang their heads against truly unbalanced mechanics.

X-Wing is not perfect, but I like and find it playable and fun.

This will totally work right?

I think many major archetypes are still valid. People love to say that the swarm is dead, but as a swarm player I would much rather face off against Nym Dengar than classic Palp Aces. I think control lists could also be very effective at combating some of the more common lists currently. Obviously alpha strikes are scary, but we are in a much better place now than we were with trip jumpmaster torpedo boats. With the death of plasma torpedoes, B wings may actually be able to make a resurgence into the meta, too.

@Icelom, you are flying in the face of the 'meta' here on the forums. Imperials are hated by the developers and can't win, 'x' build can't be beat, your experience and observations don't count.

That's pretty much how it goes when you try to be reasonable and think things through here :/

RoV

Thanks for your report and positivity! I'm curious to hear more about Valen. How did you decide to take him? How did he do so much damage, past the Prockets? And how did you keep him alive against the bombing lists?

38 minutes ago, TheHumanHydra said:

Thanks for your report and positivity! I'm curious to hear more about Valen. How did you decide to take him? How did he do so much damage, past the Prockets? And how did you keep him alive against the bombing lists?

I always loved the tie advanced prototype, finished second in a regionals with them right after they came out (4x concussion missile Baron of the empires, it ate triple jumps for breakfast). I used the inquisitor in my list that won the local store championship this year and when intensity hit it just seemed very solid for Valen so decided to try it and was hugely impressed. So decided to run it at the store championship i traveled to last weekend.

How he stayed alive in the bomb meta? Generally speaking I killed the bombers before they dropped many bombs, the scourge especially just pops when you look at it. Usually I hit with the protons then booked it out to boost around and come back in. When that was not possible the title combined with intensity and Valen's ability makes him very hard to focus fire down. If you are shooting at Valen then I am happy as backdraft was my real threat and weakness. I landed in at range one of 4 enemy ships, but after one shot at him he was able to barrel roll out of arc of two of the ships and pick up an evade from intensity to withstand the 4th. Feels like one of the most defensible ships right now, every time I have used him I have been greatly impressed he has passed the inquisitor for me personally.

In this current meta of 1 and 2 defence dice a strongly modified 2 dice attack can do good work even at range 3 and Valen is very good at having strongly modified dice while still being defensible with intensity. On top of everything the protin tickets are just devastating and Valen is one of the best at getting them off, many times I have moved in picked up the TL+ evade been shot at and the used Valen's ability to boost into range one flip intensity for a focus and launch off my TL+focus+chips protons. He can almost always flip intensity back because after he gets shot he can grab a token back, unlike Ptl that gives you the action and so you can only have one focus or evade, intensity allows you to get a second of either of those.

Anyways, I just felt like the game is way more balanced and fun then people here seem to think, maybe that's just my opinion, lucky for me I guess!

Holy **** Valen with Intensity is an amazing idea!

@Icelom I appreciate your enthusiasm and it's good to see the Imperials do well! The Adv Prototype is a good ship (being a "good" ship doesn't seem enough for a lot of the forum's denizens) and your build seems particularly synergistic with Valen. I really must get the Adv Prototype out more but I've been obsessed with the Advanced recently! Also confirms that TIE/SF are the best the Empire has to offer. I must get another one of those...

I took a small SC with Backdraft, Quickdraw, and Double Edge. Out of 6 games, lost 4 ships total. The SFs and AG doesn't get enough respect. People will always follow the path of least resistance when looked at as a whole. That currently is nym/FSR/dash/mindlink lists.

There are more options and there are many things that work against meta, but have a hard time against other aspects. So instead of figuring out how to play against the "hard counter" of a list, people take the easy way out. One of the reasons in Destiny I was able to take a deck that no one expected to win in that meta to a SC victory as well. If you learn to pilot a list against a counter, it will take your opponent by surprise and could very well get you the game.

3 hours ago, Rat of Vengence said:

, you are flying in the face of the 'meta' here on the forums. Imperials are hated by the developers and can't win, 'x' build can't be beat, your experience and observations don't count.

And yet we just saw US Nationals with 1 Imperial in the Top16. Why did those amazing players think they can't win with an imperial list against other amazing players?

9 hours ago, Icelom said:

At the end of the day, this game feels like it is way more about the player than the list. You could argue that my example tournament was won by the much talked about fair ship rebels list, but I would argue it was won by the areas arguably best player (last 2 regionals champion).

I agree with that, to a large part. And for the record, I repeatedly said that the game is great right now, and way better than the past year. But there are three problems which are the ones primarily being discussed, as far as I understand:

1) What you said breaks down when two people are roughly equals, showing that some lists are much better than others over a large amount of played games by different people

2) The game is heading towards a large problem for four reasons that were already - and almost prophetically - outlined by @SOTL back in February, and so far he was on point: Power creep, complexity creep, mechanics balance and non-starwars ships dominating. While all are important we seem to accept power creep quite well. Complexity creep has its own problems, pushing out older players and attracting certain newer ones. And Theme, or Star-Wars-ness also pushes out older players while drawing in less newer ones.

3) The mechanics balance is a problem of its own. It includes what the Mynocks and Krayts among others see as NPE - the dwindling importance of maneuver choice compared to the ever increasing feeling of a card game. And this point often gets conflated with "being OP" while it really is not. The question is how widespread the feeling is to make it a true NPE (as that implies a shared feeling among many).

So the game is great at the moment but has troubles staying great. The new wave for example does not really fit with the last two and guns for hire (which is GOOD), as it seems to be way too well on the balance curve just based on the stats. No 9-10 HP, no 4dice attacks, no double repositioning, no harpoon missiles, no PS10 bombing after repositioning, no revenge shots, and so on. The cards/abilities might still change that of course. So maybe FFG can turn it around, but for now it looks like SOTL was correct back in February and might be so for the future, too.

2 hours ago, DragoonKainKatarn said:

Holy **** Valen with Intensity is an amazing idea!

Agreed. Push The Limit never seemed to suit him because it 'locks you out' of an unknown but potentially large number of future actions.

I do like the TIE Advanced Prototype, and I'd like to try getting some more use out of it. The fact that instead of Push The Limit you can pack Intensity and the TIE/v1 title sounds very nice.

10 hours ago, Icelom said:

If I expand this further to my practicing before the tournament my list barely lost to a Dengar Nym list and for fun I broke out a 4X blue squadron T-70 list and was able to defeat that same Dengar Nym. I walked away from that feeling like the Quad T-70 is actually very strong.

Agreed. I've been using 5 generic TIE strikers recently, and, like 4 T-70s, it does surprisingly well - that is, I've lost games because I'm not a great player, I can point back at "where I screwed up", and I've not yet had a game where I don't think I had a chance (with the exception of a the first couple of games against specific pilots, where I didn't yet understand how to face them* and ran into the learning curve at speed).

Recently, heavy and superheavy swarms have seemed a lot more tempting, especially with people seeming to settle on 2-ship lists, and everyone bringing lists designed to kill or cripple 2-ship lists.

6 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

The mechanics balance is a problem of its own. It includes what the Mynocks and Krayts among others see as NPE - the dwindling importance of maneuver choice compared to the ever increasing feeling of a card game. And this point often gets conflated with "being OP" while it really is not. The question is how widespread the feeling is to make it a true NPE (as that implies a shared feeling among many).

That is something I do think is getting addressed - to an extent - in that whilst Poe and Nym are achieving their shonky maneuvers by boosts, barrel rolls and so on, it is ultimately all about positioning - arcs of fire and range 1 bubbles. Similarly, cruise missiles are devastating if you can set up the firing run right. Even Dengar - the current villainous primary turret fun-killer of the game, still gives a monkeys which way his arc of fire is pointing, which makes him much more tolerable to play than Han Solo or Rear Admiral Chiraneau

* "Who's that?" "Miranda Doni" "What does she do, then?" [CLUSTER-KRAKOOM!!!!!] "Ah. I see. Good Game. I shall try not chasing her next time, then..."

11 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

And yet we just saw US Nationals with 1 Imperial in the Top16. Why did those amazing players think they can't win with an imperial list against other amazing players?

I agree with that, to a large part. And for the record, I repeatedly said that the game is great right now, and way better than the past year. But there are three problems which are the ones primarily being discussed, as far as I understand:

1) What you said breaks down when two people are roughly equals, showing that some lists are much better than others over a large amount of played games by different people

2) The game is heading towards a large problem for four reasons that were already - and almost prophetically - outlined by @SOTL back in February, and so far he was on point: Power creep, complexity creep, mechanics balance and non-starwars ships dominating. While all are important we seem to accept power creep quite well. Complexity creep has its own problems, pushing out older players and attracting certain newer ones. And Theme, or Star-Wars-ness also pushes out older players while drawing in less newer ones.

3) The mechanics balance is a problem of its own. It includes what the Mynocks and Krayts among others see as NPE - the dwindling importance of maneuver choice compared to the ever increasing feeling of a card game. And this point often gets conflated with "being OP" while it really is not. The question is how widespread the feeling is to make it a true NPE (as that implies a shared feeling among many).

So the game is great at the moment but has troubles staying great. The new wave for example does not really fit with the last two and guns for hire (which is GOOD), as it seems to be way too well on the balance curve just based on the stats. No 9-10 HP, no 4dice attacks, no double repositioning, no harpoon missiles, no PS10 bombing after repositioning, no revenge shots, and so on. The cards/abilities might still change that of course. So maybe FFG can turn it around, but for now it looks like SOTL was correct back in February and might be so for the future, too.

To your point 3.

I do not usually run turrets (disclaimer) for me positioning and maneuvering is extremely important. Especially with some of the new mechanics coming in. If you think maneuvers don't matter with Bombs and Cruise missiles in every second list then I really don't know how I can convince you. You are going to get wrecked if you don't fly well. I was wrecked by cruise missiles when they first came out, now I don't really fear them as I have learned to maneuver against them and they usually don't even get shot at me anymore. If the people who whine don't think maneuvering is important to the game than I can see why they complain about a bunch of stuff because most of it can be dealt with maneuvering.

If you somehow think the game had a higher importance of maneuver choice to fly against 4x naked b-wings with a Z-95 than it does to fly against a list with Cruise missiles TLT and Bombs then there is no helping you. When you thread a Tie advanced prototype past a cruise missile loaded TLT ship with bombs while firing off your proton rockets you feel like your maneuvering choices really f-ing mattered.

Sorry, this is a pet peeve of mine, maneuvering is so important in this game right now and I keep reading that people think it's not... I don't know what game they are playing but they probably are not playing it very well. Even flying TLT ships takes a kind of skill at maneuvering (i actually really suck with them and am always in range one, so much so I don't even try to run them anymore as i just die horribly)

40 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

And yet we just saw US Nationals with 1 Imperial in the Top16. Why did those amazing players think they can't win with an imperial list against other amazing players?

1

How much of this is the simple fact that a lot of the top players (and players in general) are playing with the new exciting stuff, and the Tie aggressor is a boring TLT carrier that no one is really excited to fly?

2 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

And yet we just saw US Nationals with 1 Imperial in the Top16. Why did those amazing players think they can't win with an imperial list against other amazing players?

Well one of them did. As for the others, I know a fair few people who like to play whatever is the new black. Then there is the 'shiny new toy' syndrome, and the concept an unfamiliar squadron will make getting through the lower levels easier (assuming the higher levels are people who have prepared). Did they think they can't win? I doubt it. Did they think what they chose to take might give them an edge? For sure.

RoV

Equating "this ship is not often used" with "this ship is not competitive' EVERY TIME is the worst logical fallacy of this forum.

3 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

So the game is great at the moment but has troubles staying great. The new wave for example does not really fit with the last two and guns for hire (which is GOOD), as it seems to be way too well on the balance curve just based on the stats. No 9-10 HP, no 4dice attacks, no double repositioning, no harpoon missiles, no PS10 bombing after repositioning, no revenge shots, and so on. The cards/abilities might still change that of course. So maybe FFG can turn it around, but for now it looks like SOTL was correct back in February and might be so for the future, too.

I'm not always right, but more often than not.

My opinions often differ to those of the forum because I'm extrapolating into the future, not looking at the past. It's why @Mynock Delta has a similar funk - we are both extrapolating to the future as much as we are experiencing the present - those extrapolations aren't always correct but we've been pretty much on point a bunch of times. It's been quite common over this past year to hear my own thoughts (that I got shot down for at the time) be echoed back to me with a three month delay.

I think the game is now shattered and will NOT be repaired. If you enjoy the new shape of the game then go for it, have fun, more power to you. If you're not enjoying it then... it won't change, it will only get worse. Get out. The elements you don't like are the elements that FFG love and are going to reinforce.

"Maybe FFG can turn it around?" They don't want to turn it around, they're going full steam ahead.

15 hours ago, Icelom said:

"Interesting stuff..."

I can’t connect the endless complaints on these forums with any real-world experience from my end of the game, it feels like I can pick up almost any ship and as long as I build a good list around it I could be successful. So, I am putting my opinion out that the game is in a very strong state of balance, sure it's not perfect but I have never felt like it has been better than it is now.

"some more interesting stuff..."

This is exactly how I feel most of the time on here...

Maybe you're lucky?

On 8/21/2017 at 5:27 AM, Stay On The Leader said:

Maybe you're lucky?

Or they aren't cynical and look for the better option instead of going group think. I know the mynocks. They have a tendency to think their strategy is the winningest. They have the numbers to prove it. But they also don't always come out on top because of it. If I had the ability to drive down to some more of their tournaments I would like to challenge them more often. Sadly I no longer have that ability. A good player can pilot a random list just fine to the winner bracket.

From what I've seen, complaints about stuff like nym general ly correspond to unwillingness to adapt to new mechanics

This is different from op like all the jumps and fairship because nyms strength is not a simple question of numbers but rather manueverability with bombs. You can play around it and adapt, just not necessarily effectively because of the dengar that is the actual op of the list

Just Adapting, though, is really not that difficult. Locally, no one has had any problem making me might to my last hull or winning just by flying ps 9 sf and learning that chasing nym is not a great idea. Those with arced ships have figured out how to spread out to avoid bombletts aoe and maximize arc coverage

But if anyone just wants an easy nym-be-gone, roll VI Cruise chips vader and QD (obvious atc and fcs respectively) with a vi fcs backdraft

You will RUIN his **** regardless of whether or not he shows up with dengar, miranda, corran or dash. Can't get to him? Nuke the wingman instead (Though id recommend killing someone like miri first as she's the vastly superior threat )

Agree with OP. In many ways this game (this forum in particular) is stuck in an efficiency phase. TLT and ABT are the most efficient turrets so anything else is immediately considered wrong to play. Sometimes though, synergy or role in the squad trumps efficiency. Ion turret seems great right now (especially on TIE/Aggs). FCS+Synched Turret on Nym is actually the more flexible load-out if you can win the bid/fly better than opposing Nym as it lets you get into the TLT bubble and out of the ABT bubble. Conventional wisdom also says that FCS is the system dejour for QD- but I've seen a lot of success with Accuracy Corrector. People are so locked into evaluating things in a static vacuum that they often miss or declare many things bad until someone else puts up a high finish. Obviously some things are just bad (Expose for example) but I find many cards and pilots that people think are bad actually fill roles quite well in certain squads, it just takes some imagination.

Congrats on a good showing, but be careful trying to extrapolate the state of the game as a whole from one limited run performance. It's an extremely small sample size to stand on while saying "everyone who says otherwise is wrong, the game balance is fine".

I've gone undefeated with Wedge, Wes, and a U-wing at a league night, seen triple rebel hwk-290s beat a Corran and allies, went 4-1 with a Talonbane Cobra list, beat Paratanni with scum aces, and got crushed by a list with procket and accuracy corrector Tempest Squadron TIE advances.

There are plenty of variables that go into a given game of X-Wing, player skill disparity and dice luck included. Small events and individual game results are more likely to be affected this way. The closer the player skill comes to being equal, and the more games played, the more we would expect luck to average out over time and we can consider player skill to be equivalent, if not always 100% equal.

When something consistently does extremely well over a long period of time (Dengar, other Jumpmasters, Miranda, Biggs, etc) or is heavily represented at the top of a large, many player event (Nym, Jumpmasters, Miranda, Biggs), its at least worth considering that the reasons that only certain things are doing so well consistently is because of a power imbalance.

It's still possible to do well individually with ships that are strictly speaking not high level competitive, especially if you are skilled with your list, your opponents are unfamiliar with yours or their own list, your skill level exceeds theirs, or any number of other reasons. You also might have discovered an incredible combo that will soon be sweeping the meta, someone had to be the first to play Dengaroo after all. But taking a 12 player sample tournament and extrapolating your own performance out to the overall state of the meta is not going to hold up.