6 minutes ago, Sparklelord said:

Ehhhhhh... it's possible you're right, but that's a really big oversight.

Or, maybe there's a smaller oversight responsible for that comment: it almost makes sense that, since by their own admission they're playtesting a different game than the one that's on the tables now, it slipped their minds that the current Sabine can affect every friendly bomb instead of just the ones coming from the ship she's on.

Oh, crap, if this is true and that meta bender can slip their mind....man, we really are in trouble.

It sounds like they have a practiced explanation for the difficulties of the current development and testing methods.

This says to me they have been making that same argument to folks in their company and that we will see a pretty big shift in the way the game is made and perhaps played.

My wild dream is an app to replace cards and a public testing program.

7 minutes ago, clanofwolves said:

Oh, crap, if this is true and that meta bender can slip their mind....man, we really are in trouble.

It's not the only possible meta bender that slipped their mind.

They ramble about how Whisper was a bad call, but dismiss just Adv. Sensor Barrel Roll as not an issue. Then they talk avout Silencer Kylo as if it occured to nobody to put PtL on it.

4 minutes ago, TylerTT said:

It sounds like they have a practiced explanation for the difficulties of the current development and testing methods.

This says to me they have been making that same argument to folks in their company and that we will see a pretty big shift in the way the game is made and perhaps played.

My wild dream is an app to replace cards and a public testing program.

I think warmachines app is really nice, and I could totally see an x-wing version of that in the future, but I still prefer my pieces of paper.

32 minutes ago, Sparklelord said:

it almost makes sense that, since by their own admission they're playtesting a different game than the one that's on the tables now, it slipped their minds that the current Sabine can affect every friendly bomb instead of just the ones coming from the ship she's on.

Unlikely. Every bomb would need an "owning ship" token.

If Sabine is nerfed -- sigh -- it will be to make her a discardable.

6 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

Unlikely. Every bomb would need an "owning ship" token.

If Sabine is nerfed -- sigh -- it will be to make her a discardable.

Wouldn't you just be able to tell which ship Sabine was on without having a token on the board?

Just now, FlyingAnchors said:

Wouldn't you just be able to tell which ship Sabine was on without having a token on the board?

... Wut?

37 minutes ago, FlyingAnchors said:

Wouldn't you just be able to tell which ship Sabine was on without having a token on the board?

You can tell which ship, but it’s easy to forget which bombs were dropped by that ship (especially if you’ve got two bomblet generators on the table, ie you’re having a Nym). Already a bit of an issue with Scum Nym, and I’m not sure it’s worth exacerbating.

I’m a big fan of Sabine being discard on use. Might not fix everything, but it’ll help; plus, it keeps her relevant on other ships, like the Rebel TIE.

1 minute ago, Ailowynn said:

I’m a big fan of Sabine being discard on use. Might not fix everything, but it’ll help; plus, it keeps her relevant on other ships, like the Rebel TIE.

I guess I haven't seen her as being toxic enough in my local meta to make her discard to use. Seems extreme to me. I wish there were an elegant way to make her exhaust, and then have some way to ready her (as she's rigging the next bomb to BOOM bigger).

1 minute ago, Parakitor said:

I guess I haven't seen her as being toxic enough in my local meta to make her discard to use. Seems extreme to me.

I don't think she needs to be fixed, personally. (I also didn't think Palpatine needed a nerf.) I just think if she is, the easiest "fix" is making her discardable. And FFG loves easy. I think SLAM -- not Advanced SLAM -- needs to be changed, but otherwise I think bombs are fine. (That's not the same thing as saying Nym is fine. Nym is ridiculous.)

The bomb issue is really multifaceted, but it basically boils down to the fact that there aren’t really any lists against which bombs are bad. They do enough damage that even low agility ships care about them. Bombs are healthy for the game in so far as they allow a counter to high-agility ships that you otherwise couldn’t catch. They’re unhealthy when they counter all ships and have no counters themselves.

@Darth Meanie @Azrapse and any others interested in alternate play after the Devs made that comment about a 300-page alternate play thread: I made the start of the thread.

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/261076-the-big-alternate-formats-thread/

Get in there and help me fill it out.

9 hours ago, AlexW said:

Biggs+Low+Rex+Jess was never tested? Wow. It won a store championship (multiple I think) the first week it was out.

That's kind of monstrous. Literally the first thing I think whenever I see a new Rebel range 1 ability is "how does this combo with Biggs?"

2 hours ago, Transmogrifier said:

The Kylo crew discussion was frustrating to me since their argument was basically "In most builds Kylo's ability is fine since it can be counter-played and, assuming a 3+ ship meta, it's not all that powerful". So they are basically looking at the ability in general and saying "Most of the time this is worth about 3 points".

1 hour ago, PhantomFO said:

Because they're right? It's impossible to design a game where things are equally valuable against 2-ship builds and 4-ship builds. Kylo is certainly a monster against low-agility 2-ship builds, but swarms could care less about him.

I play a ton of Imperials. RAC is basically the only place where Kylo is even a thing, and even there he's not exactly lighting up the charts.

Except Harpoon missiles, they're gonna be good against everything.

The irony I found in the conversation was that their justification for Kylo was the same as their defense of harpoon missiles (which is ridiculous that we've gotten to the point of asking questions about technically unreleased cards, but whatever). The argument for Kylo was "RAC isn't that popular right now and neither are 2 ships, so it likely won't matter if we buff him." And for harpoons "swarms aren't that popular right now, so it doesn't matter if we nerf them."

The exact same argument for directly opposite design philosophies within minutes. Especially once they throw in that right now is hard to grasp since they're playtesting ahead (which is fair). Why make assumptions about why releasing X "probably won't matter" based on what's popular right now if right now doesn't matter from a playtesting standpoint?

The game design choices are yours to make, dev team, ask yourselves what would you like to see popular in the future?

Regardless, I appreciate them taking time to do this, knowing this conversation would take place. It was good to hear them directly as that hasn't happened in a while.

Thanks for the episode!

Did Blair hang up or something?! He asked the harpoon question and then disappeared after the response. I wouldn't blame him, it was a moment of clarity that the people designing the game are not competent.

I vote no confidence.

I was prepared to be angered by the interview.

And I was !

They dodged every attempt at a REAL answer like a well trained greasy politician.

Really good effort trying to ask tough questions. I applaud the attempt.

But all three of them are never going to even admit to a problem much less answer any questions relating to the problems.

The day the community driven rewrite of this game hits can't come soon enough.

This ranks as one of the most disappointing interviews I have ever heard.

2 hours ago, TylerTT said:

My wild dream is an app to replace cards and a public testing program.

I'd love for this to happen, but look how long the Imperial Assault has taken to (not even yet) come out. I wish for it to be possible before Star Wars 9 comes out.

33 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

... Wut?

If you change Sabine so that she only works on the ship she's on, then she would proc only when the bomb dropped from her ship. It's pretty easy to look across the table and see Sabine is on warden #2 and which bomb they dropped.

22 minutes ago, FlyingAnchors said:

If you change Sabine so that she only works on the ship she's on, then she would proc only when the bomb dropped from her ship. It's pretty easy to look across the table and see Sabine is on warden #2 and which bomb they dropped.

Even that leftover Cluster Mine token that was dropped eight rounds ago that you and your opponent have long since stopped thinking about?

Jeff's right; if there is some kind of Sabine nerf in the future, it'll be something straightforward, such as discard or range limit.

10 minutes ago, DR4CO said:

Even that leftover Cluster Mine token that was dropped eight rounds ago that you and your opponent have long since stopped thinking about?

Jeff's right; if there is some kind of Sabine nerf in the future, it'll be something straightforward, such as discard or range limit.

I'd love it to be a discard. That would make me very happy.

8 minutes ago, DR4CO said:

Even that leftover Cluster Mine token that was dropped eight rounds ago that you and your opponent have long since stopped thinking about?

Jeff's right; if there is some kind of Sabine nerf in the future, it'll be something straightforward, such as discard or range limit.

How hard would it be to put a tracking token or even a critical hit token on an action bomb? Even shield tokens would work, there’s plenty of those things given out every wave. If there’s two Sabines on the table one uses one kind of token, the other Sabine uses another. It’s not that hard.

Just now, RufusDaMan said:

I'd love it to be a discard. That would make me very happy.

Boba says she’s already a discard.

Just now, GrimmyV said:

Boba says she’s already a discard.

Ironically I thought Kylo was actually supposed to be a clever answer to a two Ship meta (one that people most despised when it was around in Wave 5) and push people to bring a higher number of ships.

1 hour ago, DR4CO said:

Even that leftover Cluster Mine token that was dropped eight rounds ago that you and your opponent have long since stopped thinking about?

Jeff's right; if there is some kind of Sabine nerf in the future, it'll be something straightforward, such as discard or range limit.

Um, yeah? We might need to assign a tag to it for @Stoneface

(nothing against you, most of us will eventually be as old as you)

but it's not that hard to keep track of.

Discard I feel is to hard a nerf, unless you have the ability to flip it back over after X number of rounds, and range limit while it might be more thematic doesn't feel like it's a nerf. Unless they pull a manaroo and make it range 1 only. But then you've only addressed one particular rebel nym build and not the problem as a whole.