Is it too late to get in on this **** show?

Woe, Imperials..!

Woe are Imperials.

Bring back PGS

I went 3-3 at NoVa and net decked the heck out of it (Rebels). It was fun and felt good to play competitively again - but you better believe the Imperial showing was disappointing. Tyler and his sweat band couldn't get it done; Duncan was hit like the broad side of a barn by Pheaver heaving bombs..

I say this all of this to raise the question, what chance do any of us stand playing with RAC/Kylo? It's not just a good player and a "good" list. Imperials can't get it done "statistically" or whatever, even with elite players at the helm.

8 minutes ago, Rinzler in a Tie said:

I say this all of this to raise the question, what chance do any of us stand playing with RAC/Kylo? It's not just a good player and a "good" list. Imperials can't get it done "statistically" or whatever, even with elite players at the helm.

Don't get me wrong, Imperials are lagging as far as OP squads (or current Tier-1 squads ) are concerned, however I strongly believe that there are more competitive Imperial options with the same level of performance as Kylo/RAC. It still may not be enough (or to be precise - unlikely) to get to that top spot, but it can still do a lot of damage in the hands of the skilled player.

4 minutes ago, PT106 said:

Don't get me wrong, Imperials are lagging as far as OP squads (or current Tier-1 squads ) are concerned, however I strongly believe that there are more competitive Imperial options with the same level of performance as Kylo/RAC. It still may not be enough (or to be precise - unlikely) to get to that top spot, but it can still do a lot of damage in the hands of the skilled player.

From the data I've been seeing, it looks like RAC + Ace are the most consistent at getting past the top 64 drop off, even making it to top 16 in some cases (at least at higher level events). That said, there are some interesting Imp builds out there that I do think have merit, just not in this environment. First Order Aces have actually been my go to list for awhile, but I've only had marginal success with it and I haven't gone beyond Store Champ level with it.

1 hour ago, SabineKey said:

From the data I've been seeing, it looks like RAC + Ace are the most consistent at getting past the top 64 drop off, even making it to top 16 in some cases (at least at higher level events).

What data are you using? I did a quick look through nationals and it seems like Vader alpha strike and QD+Vess+support are seen as often as RAC. I didn't categorize all the lists though.

I keep wanting to see TIE/Ds show up: You'd think they'd eat AGI1 Nym & Miranda & co alive.

But Defenders, a little bit like Aggressors (Funny how their fates are so linked, sometimes) don't play well with PS inflation, and with VI Nym and PS 11 alpha strikes, I don't think I've seen PS inflation quite this hard since the pre-nerf Whisper days.

27 minutes ago, PT106 said:

What data are you using? I did a quick look through nationals and it seems like Vader alpha strike and QD+Vess+support are seen as often as RAC. I didn't categorize all the lists though.

I mainly get updates here:

though going through the data again, I see what you mean. I am mentally lumping these Nationals in with the post-nerf System Opens and Worlds, so that could also be skewing my point of view.

Well the game wasn't named TIE Fighter now, was it?

12 hours ago, Favoritism Flight Games said:

List Juggler Results as of 9/19/17

All right! We are rapidly approaching the milestone of having no Imperial lists in the Top 20! Just so everyone understands the significance: The game has NEVER had one faction be so poorly represented at any time since the release of Scum and the 3 faction game. I, for one, would like to extend my warmest congratulations to the Dev team- YOU'RE SO CLOSE TO YOUR DREAM OF REMOVING IMPERIALS FROM THE GAME! REACH FOR THE STARS!

But everyone loves the Imperials!

(Stop using List Juggler as evidence of anything more than; 'people are playing these things at the moment')

9 hours ago, Lobokai said:

@Sekac enough of us have played enough games to know pretty quickly when the table's tilted.

I've been wargaming competitively for 20+ years. It's not tough to feel out when a faction or army has an edge or is lacking.

Well I've only been gaming for 16 years so maybe I'll figure it out in a few more.

But in the paltry few years I've been gaming, I've noticed the lamentations of the most competitive crowd, and gamers who live vicariously through the competitive crowd rarely have much to do with the average gamer's (ie 99% of us) experience.

"XYZ is unplayable" is the constant refrain.

"Unplayable" in this case means "good enough to win 5 games out of 7, but can't reliably get on a hot streak and win 3-5 more in a row."

When we're debating the merits of imperials because their best lists are only capable of winning 70% of their Swiss matches, I think we're taking the imbalances a little far. Especially when we're creating forum accounts with conspiratorial handles to reinforce the point.

37 minutes ago, Sekac said:

"Unplayable" in this case means "good enough to win 5 games out of 7, but can't reliably get on a hot streak and win 3-5 more in a row."

When we're debating the merits of imperials because their best lists are only capable of winning 70% of their Swiss matches, I think we're taking the imbalances a little far.

Thank you very much for this.

It's part of why I keep saying that top8 or top16 is a ridiculous metric to determine faction balance

^

I played against more Imperial lists in Swiss and Hangar Bay than any other faction at Nationals.

RAC/Vader x 2

Quickdraw / Vader / Countdown x 1

RAC/Patrol Leader x 1

Quickdraw / Backdraft / Kestal x 1

Also saw plenty of other Imperial lists during the rounds, including a couple of TIE swarms, triple Defenders and even 5 x Alpha Squadron pilots which seemed to be doing quite well

15 hours ago, Favoritism Flight Games said:

All right! We are rapidly approaching the milestone of having no Imperial lists in the Top 20!

Keep calm and pray for GUNBOAT!!!

Lets feed more Gungans to that Rancor! Blood for the GUNBOAT! Blood for the GUNBOAT!

Gunboat won't do it. It requires an arc, it doesn't have high PS, it doesn't have any of the things currently making the successful ships successful. Same for the Kihraxz, the Starviper, the Kimogila and the Silencer.

We need a drastic FAQ to rescue the whole concept of having a firing arc.

1 hour ago, Stay On The Leader said:

Gunboat won't do it. It requires an arc, it doesn't have high PS, it doesn't have any of the things currently making the successful ships successful. Same for the Kihraxz, the Starviper, the Kimogila and the Silencer.

We need a drastic FAQ to rescue the whole concept of having a firing arc.

So you think we should start to sacrifice Ewoks too?

1 hour ago, Stay On The Leader said:

Gunboat won't do it. It requires an arc, it doesn't have high PS, it doesn't have any of the things currently making the successful ships successful. Same for the Kihraxz, the Starviper, the Kimogila and the Silencer.

We need a drastic FAQ to rescue the whole concept of having a firing arc.

Amen to this.

14 minutes ago, Hannes Solo said:

So you think we should start to sacrifice Ewoks too?

Start?

49 minutes ago, Hannes Solo said:

So you think we should start to sacrifice Ewoks too?

I never stopped.

So it is still not enough...

...Wookiees then.

2 hours ago, Hannes Solo said:

So you think we should start to sacrifice Ewoks too?

2 hours ago, clanofwolves said:

Start?

1 hour ago, Keffisch said:

I never stopped.

Roast them and chew their little arms and legs down to the nub nub!

7 minutes ago, Sekac said:

Roast them and chew their little arms and legs down to the nub nub!

To be fair, they started eating prisoners first. Its only meeting their escalation of force against the Empire.

4 hours ago, Stay On The Leader said:

Gunboat won't do it. It requires an arc, it doesn't have high PS, it doesn't have any of the things currently making the successful ships successful. Same for the Kihraxz, the Starviper, the Kimogila and the Silencer.

We need a drastic FAQ to rescue the whole concept of having a firing arc.

Myep, sad but true

Turrets give you an almost literally infinite advantage over firing arcs with the only real exception being the range 1 limited autoblaster that at least forces you to hang out near your target

The ability to effortlessly fire without cost or any regard for facing really should never have been included in a game about manuevering and positioning

Now I do think that linked battery hlc gunboats have at least the potential to hit deadeye SCURRG levels of power, but yeah they're not turrets

Time to make outmanuever a base rule (also helps against fleeing Regen ships!), remove r1 bonsuses from out of arc attacks and do something about TLT (personally in favor of a TL restriction ala synched)

It's not an easy nut to crack. I was always against the idea of a straight nerf on out-of-arc attacks (eg. attacker rolls 1 less red dice, or defender rolls 1 more green dice etc) because I like variety of strategies existing in the game, and that means I like the option to fly turrets like the Falcon evasively - after all that's what happens multiple times in the movies.

It's all about how you choose to draw your circles over the venn diagram of issues - do you centre it on turrets or on something else? In the past I've always preferred to add the R3 green dice back against secondary weapons (squeezing torpedo squads as well as TLT and HLC Outrider, but leaving non-TLT turret upgrades unaffected). We're not THAT far forwards from a time when turrets weren't really an issue, but back then torpedoes were an issue (and the biggest problem turrets with those secondaries that fired at R3) so a 'fix' that's relatively painless to the rules and pulls back two problems at once seems quite elegant.

However we can't put the issue solely on turrets, as they've been around a long time and had natural predators. It's the push to make bombs better that has doubled-down on turrets. They need to be answered too. Bombs were rubbish for a long long time, and although many people mused 'oh I wish we could use our bombs' they would largely agree that things were better when bombs were bad.

I attended Nova Open and I faced only two imperial players in flight two. Went 4-2 and missed the cut by like 30 some mov. I played rebels.

For the current meta it really does seem like imperials are not in the best of spots and haven't been in a while. If you want to buff imperials that may be difficult to do considering the design space at the moment. The faction was designed to be low health and high agility. I don't know the proper fix because I'm not a playtester or designer and I'll leave that to those who have the experience designing this game and are paid to work on the fix. However, I am confident that there will be a fix. All of this negativity on this forum is pretty toxic though.

The fix will be coming in the form of an FAQ or with the release of the gunboat (ugh.). Give it some time I mean it's not like there are any serious competitive events in the US in the immediate future. If you don't like the meta at your local game night ask your opponent to fly something else it's not like they got a major tournament to practice for atm.

7 hours ago, Sekac said:

Well I've only been gaming for 16 years so maybe I'll figure it out in a few more.

But in the paltry few years I've been gaming, I've noticed the lamentations of the most competitive crowd, and gamers who live vicariously through the competitive crowd rarely have much to do with the average gamer's (ie 99% of us) experience.

"XYZ is unplayable" is the constant refrain.

"Unplayable" in this case means "good enough to win 5 games out of 7, but can't reliably get on a hot streak and win 3-5 more in a row."

When we're debating the merits of imperials because their best lists are only capable of winning 70% of their Swiss matches, I think we're taking the imbalances a little far. Especially when we're creating forum accounts with conspiratorial handles to reinforce the point.

Yes, there are ways to take it too far and I do think the OP is definitely taking it too far, but I still think that the Imperials being unable to keep up with the other two factions is worrisome and a detriment. Imperial lists aren't dead, but they aren't in a healthy place when compared to the other factions.

I don't think it's an anti-Imperial bias, and I don't think anyone else really genuinely thinks that either. It's just that the Imperial fleet is a bit more one-dimensional than the other factions (primary arc, fewer upgrade slots, green dice, low hull, weak big ships), so when successful mechanics are against it there isn't really much of a Plan B to fall back on.