Hey guys,
Kinda bored and unmotivated over here, so **** it I'll throw in another onto the ever growing pile of "fix" threads for the sake of discussion and surviving an ungodly commute
So a lot of people are not happy with the competitive state of the meta game, where turrets both exacerbate the effectiveness of bombs and are the counter to them as well (can't get bombed if you don't fly towards the enemy). A lot of people are shifting the blame a bit preemptively onto bombs, which is a bit silly considering the problem turrets have been since wave 5 and how utterly game shaping jumpmasters and miranda have been long before nym entered the picture.
By now, I'm sure most know I don't believe turrets ( as currently implemented, not as a concept in and of themselves because turrets are as Star Wars as the falcon) belong in this game. X-wing miniatures is a self described game of "tactical space combat" where the entire selling point is the ability to set dials in an attempt to predict and outmanuever the opponent. The ability to fire regardless of firing arc is an idiotically significant advantage that comes with no drawback other than points paid (really keeping those fairly priced jumps and TLTs down, ain't it?) that almost infinetly improves your ability to move and attack over a conventional arced ship. The fact that you can shoot at any ship that would have a shot against you, outside of asteroid parking or blinded pilot, is something I find flabbergasting in how badly it removes counterplay and instead forces reliance on dice.
By now, it's fairly apparent that the vast majority of arced ships are seeing far reduced play competitively simply because they are vastly more difficult to use and really do not possess the necessary advantage in strength to overcome that discrepancy. In short, what you lose for not having a turret is nowhere near compensated for by how much more powerful your ship is. This, I believe, has to change.
Once it does (and once jumps get nerfed proper), I believe we'll all see bombs no longer be so dominating and we'll get a lot more variety introduced back into the metagame.
So, here are some small changes I believe FFG could introduce into the game to make firing arcs (and therefore player agency) matter more
1.) No range 1 bonsus for out of arc shots
This is mainly for Dengar, a pilot that is utterly broken based on his cost and double-tap ability but which can also easily fall back on his PS 9 + re-positioning + PWT to ruin your day. It also helps with Miranda who, if ignored, can shove 4 dice up your butt if the situation calls for it.
It lastly also helps future proof the game in case yet another broken PWT comes roaring out the gate.
Given how easy it is to set up a range 1 PWT, especially after using EU on a high PS pilot, it really shouldn't reward the player with extra dice.
2.) TLT could use some kind of limitation
TLT is almost as easy to use and abuse as a PWT, particularly on the higher PS pilots that seem to be running the show.
The easiest thing to do with TLT without ruining it, imo, is to just give it an ATTACK: Target-lock header. This eats up an action that the bearer could otherwise have used to nearly effortlessly dodge your arc and open fire, and it makes turtling up at range 3 a little more difficult (need to do some set up to secure that defensive focus). It's still incredibly potent and still absolutely destroys synched turret as a viable option in any squad
Blaster and Synched Turrets could really use a boost, ofc, but that's a subject for another time because of the extent of the boost they'd probably need to ever see play.
3.) Outmanuever should be a base part of the game
This is the big one for me because I feel out-positioning the opponent should be the focus of the game, but as is it is simply not incentivized because of the impact of turrets and dice. The easiest solution, imo, is this:
No one uses this card because it's 3 stonking points and takes your ept slot. But imagine for a moment if it were a base part of the game.
It would greatly help you against anything that has to run from you, which is a strategy I find to be way too goddamn strong in this game because of how green dice work. Shooting at a range 3 miranda with a primary weapon sucks because she gets two dice and a focus atop her regenerative ability, so unless you roll perfectly you're probably doing zero net damage with a shot. Factoring in the risk of running into bombs while you chase her, and the fact that she regenerates while you just slowly die, this is a horrible situation to be in. Removing half her green dice, however, give you a much needed edge.
Outmanuever would really help against PWTs, Dash and TLTs as well as something else that most players find irritating, r2-d2 rebel regeneration that runs away from you (especially mr. Horn)
In order to prevent abuse of this rule, however, I feel we must limit it to primary weapon only . Otherwise, torp scouts and Ghost/Phantom TLT are going to yuck it up all the way to the bank . Besides, they already deny range 3 bonuses .
The idea has some negatives, however.
1.) decimators and ghosts don't care. I don't personally feel this is a huge deal because neither seem as out and out broken as the current top dogs, but it is worth mentioning as both can flee like they just got caught ******** on your front porch.
2.) The bigger problem is that there are some ships that obviously benefit more from it than others, mainly aux arcs. I personally don't believe anyone would be sad about Firesprays, ARCs or TIE/sf being stronger (because they're cool as ****)
As for the Lancer, I know a lot of people complain about the mobile arc being so similar to a PWT due to coverage (even though it is objectively not true because you can dodge a mobile arc, i.e the possibility exists) and Asajj, though she disappeared from the current meta, is a very strong pilot. Still, I feel that she can be readily outplayed given how her low PS and arc positioning telegraph the crap out of her maneuvers and that the Lancer's offense is not so terribly exceptional that you'd need to be worried about outmanuever shattering the game. I am biased, however, in feeling that all PWTs should have been mobile arcs for the sake of improving gameplay interactions between both players.
You
could
limit outmanever to primary or auxiliary arc only, however. I do feel the need to include
auxiliary arcs
because the poor spray deserves something cool after being maligned for so long
Honorable Mentions
-Defender white 4k would love this base rule; there's a reason it's on the card art
-Jumpmaster white 2-sloop would also love this rule, but that's hardly the only reason it would need to be nerfed. Personally holding out for the "leaked FAQ" to be real; having only one torp would help immensely with its overall balance.
-Strikers with adaptive allerions seem like they would be fun as **** with this
Closing Out
So those are some things I wish the developers would quickly implement in an FAQ in order to improve the quality of this game.
These are by no means an exhaustive list of my pipe dreams, nor do I believe they will come close to creating a complete balancing in the force (as they don't solve underlying mathematical issues of some ships simply being more efficient than others) but I believe that they would help a lot to encourage more variety in competitive settings. If the "leaked FAQ" ever turned out to be a real thing, then so much the better with these changes.
Discuss at your leisure!