7 hours ago, Astech said:

I am specifically saying that all pilots in the game should be equal. It's not possible to get everything totally even though, so it makes sense to give the most popular characters (arguably in all of film) the best abilities, if a tiebreaker is necessary.

Firstly, the old EU Luke is made out to be pretty much a god of the Star Wars universe. The disney Luke isn't far behind that. Sure, there could conceivably be some guy that's better, but there's literally no evidence of it. Dengar, in particular, is a Bounty Hunter - not a pilot. He might be a good pilot, but he should never get close to Wedge Antilles, Soontir or Vader. His PS 9 and outstanding ability just isn't justified by the lore.

The Punishing One is a highly modified scout vessel - not a purpose-built warship. Unlike the Falcon, it hasn't been rebuilt from the ground up numerous times with the best naval technology available. A ship like the X-wing, on the other hand, is designed for a single task - winning space-dogfights. ****, the Defender is probably the most expensive starfighter ever designed - and dominated the field (1v1 on a Ghost it won, remember). The Punishing One might be good, but there is a bigger fish.

You seem to be implying that it's a good thing that obscure characters should have better abilities. Is this the case?

And if we were to start over from scratch, that might be doable. But that boat sailed a long time ago. Whining that Luke should have the better ability now is useless and disrespectful.

Yes, Luke was god-like in the old EU, but that didn't mean there weren't better pilots than him. And having Luke at that level is literally bad for the game. Not prioritizing the better abilities to characters like him mean less lopsided design. If the best abilities go to the movie main cast, what's left for Scum? They used what was out there for Dengar to make a pilot that could keep up with the best of the Empire and Rebels. They did go overboard, but that was a mismanagement of mechanics, not a fault of the character.

No, the Punishing One wasn't rebuilt several times, but it was heavily modified with the best tech available. And this is for a Bounty Hunter who more often than not brought his bounties back dead.

As for your last question, no I don't necessarily thing that more obscure characters should have the better abilities over more recognized characters. But neither should they be needlessly handicapped in order to baby the main movie cast. This is still a game. Characters like Luke were made at the beginning when all they had was theorycraft and initial testing. Dengar was made after they had been doing this awhile, meaning that already had data on what worked and what didn't. Learned lessons were applied to later designs that the first ones didn't have the luxury of. And while I would love for fixes based on that data to be applied to the older ships and characters, but to say that less recognizable characters can't benefit from that knowledge is bull. I don't need this game to tell me how good a pilot Luke or Vader are. I have movies, books, comic books, TV shows, and video games if I want to see them dominate. In this game, I prefer to see a more equal hand applied to ALL characters to give better game balance.

And let's be clear here, most of the pilot abilities for those early releases are actually great. Maybe not Luke's, but pilots like Wedge, Vader, and Han have fantastic abilities. Heck, Biggs has been meta defining for almost the entire life of this game. It's their chassis that need a boost, not the pilots themselves. And if you want something new for Luke, then let's hope he flys something in the Last Jedi. I know I am.

9 hours ago, Astech said:

I'm saying that there's no reason to give obscure pilots phenomenal abilities when the pilots that are supposed to be god-like get lacklustre frames and abilities. It's far worse to have a game with a few no-name pilots dominating (Miranda, Nym, Dengar).

They've under priced all the scum ships since wave 8, with the exception of the quadjumper, which can't really be made cheaper. As for Dengar's ship being better because he "depends on it to survive" - that's exactly what Rogue squadron does - every day, for the entirety of the GCW. As well as the vast majority of pilots in this game - Luke included. ****, some pilots don't even let the techs touch their ships because they're so finely calibrated.

The mechanical problem is absolutely greater - to the point that this debate is kind of trivial while that problem is still around - but not being able to fly the coolest pilots in the game (as chosen by popular vote) and win is incredibly depressing.

Scum Ships that are Bad/Okay:
Scyk (debatable), Firespray, Brobots (debatable), G1-A, Quadjumper. 5 ships total. The rest are excellent, bordering on OP after guns for Hire.

Rebel Ships that are Bad/Okay:
A-Wings, Attack Shuttle, ARCs, B-wings, HWKs, U-Wings, X-wings (post biggs nerf), Y-wings (trumped by scum ones), Z-95s (again, trumped by scum ones). Totalling 9 ships - nearly double scum.

Imperial Ships that are Bad/Okay:
Firespray, Lambda, TIE Advanced, TIE advanced prototype, TIE aggressor, TIE bomber, TIE fighter, TIE Interceptor, TIE Phantom, TIE punisher, TIE striker, Upsilon Shuttle. 12 ships total.

Scum can field more than half their options and have a strong list, whereas both Rebel and Imperial players are limited to 3-4 ships if they actually want to compete. Even after this recent wave of nerfs, Scum meta lists are still stronger than Rebel and Imperial ones. The game format doesn't favour them - it favours regen and damage prevention because MoV is a thing, but they've been released at such BS point costs that they become absurd regadless of what they were actually designed for.

I also don't see a lot of starvipers or K's but maybe Guns for Hire will fix that. However, most scum ships that are seeing play are large base (or small base with enough health to be large base), high hull, and sometimes even ridiculously maneuverable. Pair that with the increase in damage output and you get a play format that favors their ships. I am not saying scum isn't strong or that the factions are in anyway balanced. I am just contesting that it is intentional. Rebels and Imperials have to deal with being the older format (for the most part). There is no doubt FFG has changed their ship cost formulas and their damage effectiveness. Scum has benefited from being younger.

Poor imperials though, as I have pointed out before on other posts, the imperial ship design is a real and valuable method of keeping fighters alive but the game does not agree because the game does not simulate a true dogfight.

7 hours ago, SabineKey said:

And if we were to start over from scratch, that might be doable. But that boat sailed a long time ago. Whining that Luke should have the better ability now is useless and disrespectful.

Yes, Luke was god-like in the old EU, but that didn't mean there weren't better pilots than him. And having Luke at that level is literally bad for the game. Not prioritizing the better abilities to characters like him mean less lopsided design. If the best abilities go to the movie main cast, what's left for Scum? They used what was out there for Dengar to make a pilot that could keep up with the best of the Empire and Rebels. They did go overboard, but that was a mismanagement of mechanics, not a fault of the character.

No, the Punishing One wasn't rebuilt several times, but it was heavily modified with the best tech available. And this is for a Bounty Hunter who more often than not brought his bounties back dead.

As for your last question, no I don't necessarily thing that more obscure characters should have the better abilities over more recognized characters. But neither should they be needlessly handicapped in order to baby the main movie cast. This is still a game. Characters like Luke were made at the beginning when all they had was theorycraft and initial testing. Dengar was made after they had been doing this awhile, meaning that already had data on what worked and what didn't. Learned lessons were applied to later designs that the first ones didn't have the luxury of. And while I would love for fixes based on that data to be applied to the older ships and characters, but to say that less recognizable characters can't benefit from that knowledge is bull. I don't need this game to tell me how good a pilot Luke or Vader are. I have movies, books, comic books, TV shows, and video games if I want to see them dominate. In this game, I prefer to see a more equal hand applied to ALL characters to give better game balance.

And let's be clear here, most of the pilot abilities for those early releases are actually great. Maybe not Luke's, but pilots like Wedge, Vader, and Han have fantastic abilities. Heck, Biggs has been meta defining for almost the entire life of this game. It's their chassis that need a boost, not the pilots themselves. And if you want something new for Luke, then let's hope he flys something in the Last Jedi. I know I am.

Useless? It would make thousands of fans happy for a long time. Disrespectful? To whom? It's as simple as releasing a second X-wing expansion pack with actually good versions of the pilots people know and love.

Soontir Fel has... hundreds of confirmed kills? Wedge and Vader might break a thousand? Han's probably in the hundreds, and so is Luke. Dengar is a bounty hunter, not a prodigy pilot who spends every day of their career in a cockpit. It's like comparing a highschooler who likes maths to Steven Hawkins - they might both have skill, but they're of a completely different calibre.

Great! So we agree on the main point - no characters should be OP in comparison to others. I can accept that there are errors, but Dengar falls far outside the norm - as does every JM5K pilot. It was a mistake in the other direction. I don't want to see Luke change all blanks to crits/evades or something crazy like that, I just want to see him on a decent frame, with a good ability and the PS 9 he deserves so that I can fly him without taking a handicap.

In this game the frame's part of the ship (part of the crew, part of the ship...), so it makes the pilot worse. Vader was garbage until his fix came out - and he enjoyed 6 months of fame until better things came about. Wedge has always been worse than generics because at first TIE swarms wrecked him, and then B-wings were a better frame. I hope that TLJ has some T-85 X-wings in it that are released as a fix for the T-65.

13 minutes ago, Astech said:

Useless? It would make thousands of fans happy for a long time. Disrespectful? To whom? It's as simple as releasing a second X-wing expansion pack with actually good versions of the pilots people know and love.

Soontir Fel has... hundreds of confirmed kills? Wedge and Vader might break a thousand? Han's probably in the hundreds, and so is Luke. Dengar is a bounty hunter, not a prodigy pilot who spends every day of their career in a cockpit. It's like comparing a highschooler who likes maths to Steven Hawkins - they might both have skill, but they're of a completely different calibre.

Great! So we agree on the main point - no characters should be OP in comparison to others. I can accept that there are errors, but Dengar falls far outside the norm - as does every JM5K pilot. It was a mistake in the other direction. I don't want to see Luke change all blanks to crits/evades or something crazy like that, I just want to see him on a decent frame, with a good ability and the PS 9 he deserves so that I can fly him without taking a handicap.

In this game the frame's part of the ship (part of the crew, part of the ship...), so it makes the pilot worse. Vader was garbage until his fix came out - and he enjoyed 6 months of fame until better things came about. Wedge has always been worse than generics because at first TIE swarms wrecked him, and then B-wings were a better frame. I hope that TLJ has some T-85 X-wings in it that are released as a fix for the T-65.

If you can't see your disregard for characters you don't know/lack is disrespectful, then I see I've been wasting my time. This has been about trying to make you see that even if you don't know someone's backstory doesn't automatically mean that the characters you do know are more deserving.

I'm sorry you can't see that. Good day, sir.

Luke has a great ability. As does Wedge. I'm not actually sure you could give either of them abilities that are a whole lot better.

The problem is that the T-65 kinda sucks. And none of the droids for that can be added to the T-65 makes them better enough to be worth using. And there isn't really anything else to customize the ship.

So: fix the T-65 and we'll start seeing Luke and Wedge again. Until then, you can't change either of their pilot abilities to make them better enough to be worth taking.

38 minutes ago, SabineKey said:

If you can't see your disregard for characters you don't know/lack is disrespectful, then I see I've been wasting my time. This has been about trying to make you see that even if you don't know someone's backstory doesn't automatically mean that the characters you do know are more deserving.

I'm sorry you can't see that. Good day, sir.

I've never once said that Dengar (and other such characters that come to life in the EU) are not deserving of good pilot abilities on good frames - I'me saying that every character needs a good pilot ability on a good frame. If it's utterly necessary to have some characters be OP, then it makes a lot of sense for those Op characters to be the famous ones, as that will make the most people happy.

26 minutes ago, Punning Pundit said:

Luke has a great ability. As does Wedge. I'm not actually sure you could give either of them abilities that are a whole lot better.

The problem is that the T-65 kinda sucks. And none of the droids for that can be added to the T-65 makes them better enough to be worth using. And there isn't really anything else to customize the ship.

So: fix the T-65 and we'll start seeing Luke and Wedge again. Until then, you can't change either of their pilot abilities to make them better enough to be worth taking.

Luke's ability is, by it's definition, worse than Poe's. Sure, he can't be blocked, but his offense sucks.

If Luke's ability was along the lines of 'when defending, you may receive one stress token to add 1 [evade] result', he'd be worth taking. If Wedge's ability was "when attacking, reduce the defender's agility value by 1 for every focus token you have" he'd be worth taking. Neither are OP, but at least they'd see play.

Well, at least Dengar you've heard of, and maybe a cybernetically-enhanced swoop bike racer makes a decent pilot. It's not like they gave PS 9 to some nobody that no one ever heard of or anything like that.

... oh, wait.

40 minutes ago, Astech said:

If Luke's ability was along the lines of 'when defending, you may receive one stress token to add 1 [evade] result', he'd be worth taking. If Wedge's ability was "when attacking, reduce the defender's agility value by 1 for every focus token you have" he'd be worth taking. Neither are OP, but at least they'd see play.

I'm not sure I agree. One of the great things about the T-65- and what should be the hallmark of jousters generally- is their action independence. Tying either of those pilots to actions would reduce their power, I think. I fact: I'm not sure how regularly Wedge would even be able to get more than one focus token. Without that token, Wedge would be strictly worse than he is now.

Yeah, Wedge's ability is solid. He reduces agility, that's almost like getting one extra hit. Any ship that relies on defence dice hates to see Wedge on the other side of the table. Even the mighty Fenn Rau get's concerned because suddenly he's rolling 3 dice instead of his 4, or worse 2 at range 2. The reason you don't see Wedge as much is that the frame isn't that great and everyone pretty much agrees: The X-Wing needs a boost. Not some kind of upgrade, a bonafide title that grants it a benefit, not a fix that takes up one of your existing slots and thus limits your options.

Your Luke idea, with respect, sucks:

X-Wings have bad greens making it difficult to shed stress so taking a stress is a big deal. Especially since it makes a K-Turn impossible and if you are in close combat range, you want to K-turn next round. The only good thing about it is that it does encourage using Greens so it synergises with R2-D2. One of the things I like about recent upgrade options for Poe Dameron is that it has made BB-8 much more viable than R5-P9 as his pilot.

In my opinion, the best way to make Luke more viable: fix the T-65.

I mean if you think about it, Luke's ability is very good. It's a free defensive mod. He's essentially like Poe Dameron defence wise but doesn't need to have a focus token for the one conversion. The only thing he lacks is he can't convert an offensive focus to a hit. However, that's the price you pay for having an ability that always activates and is not beholden to having a particular token. He already synergises with R2-D2 who is a very defensive focused card.

Shadow345 doesn't play x-wing, he just comes here to troll it up and everyone falls for it every week.

On 5.11.2017 at 6:32 AM, Punning Pundit said:

Chris Blair?

He said electrifying, must be Todd Marschall

On 11/4/2017 at 1:03 AM, Gadgetron said:

Its not so much the use of previously unknown characters or secondary characters, but the lack of main character support in this game, Luke Skywalker hasn't seen the table since wave 1. Vader saw some resurgence with the release of the advanced fix, Han saw good use early on, but really, none of the primary characters are very good by current standards. Everything being used is obscure. People would be forgiven if they walked in on a worlds tournament and didn't recognize that the game was based on Star Wars, none of the icons meet competitive standards.

YEP!

Its the lack of relevance of core iconic ships and characters.

To be fair, Torani Kulda is far from the first 'cross-polination' from FFG's own Star Wars games:

• Kaa'To Leeachos is from the first ever Edge of the Empire adventure, Under A Black Sun
• Graz The Hunter is from Fly Casual
• Thweek is from The Long Arm Of The Hutt
• Lowwhrick is from Imperial Assault

Any others I'm forgetting?

54 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

To be fair, Torani Kulda is far from the first 'cross-polination' from FFG's own Star Wars games:

• Kaa'To Leeachos is from the first ever Edge of the Empire adventure, Under A Black Sun
• Graz The Hunter is from Fly Casual
• Thweek is from The Long Arm Of The Hutt
• Lowwhrick is from Imperial Assault

Any others I'm forgetting?

Kad Solus and Old Teroch

Oh and Sunny Bounder

1 hour ago, Magnus Grendel said:

To be fair, Torani Kulda is far from the first 'cross-polination' from FFG's own Star Wars games:

• Kaa'To Leeachos is from the first ever Edge of the Empire adventure, Under A Black Sun
• Graz The Hunter is from Fly Casual
• Thweek is from The Long Arm Of The Hutt
• Lowwhrick is from Imperial Assault

Any others I'm forgetting?

And thats a great thing!

On 11/5/2017 at 6:02 AM, Mackaywarrior said:

I disagree that there is favoritism towards scum. I just think their strategy and general design is more successful for this game.

imperials are all about large numbers with little health and high agility. That design does not work in this game (for the most part). Rebels are all about synergy and team work and the power of friendship annnd, well, with FSR nerfed and many lists just being two ship builds that leads us to assume that the scum design is superior in the game environment since the rebels are now just copying it.

you know, how scum have freighters that hit like semis and are largely built around one ship doing all the work and then bring a second ship that can also do all the work. Don’t forget how many ships scum don’t get to bring to play (like most of their small base synergy ships)

I disagree that it is favoritism. the game engine itself just favors their design format and also since scum ships are newer, they have all the fancy high damage stuff. Anyone else remember how long Games took before fat Han? I do.

It will swing back around. Don’t worry.

It doesn't matter if scum only has 3 ships that are better than everything else if the game allows you to run a 3 or fewer ship lists with no penalty. And scum has more really good ships than 3.

Scum doesn't need to field other ships. They have A or A+ tier ships in every category. Yeah, they have worse, but no one actually bothers to use them.

Fenn Rau is one of the best arcdodgers. Dengar is one of the best pwts. Nym is one of the best bombers. TBC is one of the best small based jousters. Assaj is one of the best controls.

They have jank, but their "main ships" are good enough to carry them.

I don't understand this thread. It's nuts to complain about getting a variety of new pilots to fly the variety of new ships this game gets... but what's even more nuts is to see a heated discussion that involves one side actively criticizing the premise of buffing incredibly underpowered early-release heroes so that they're tournament viable. What the fudge, people? Why is it wrong to want a better Luke Skywalker or Wedge or Lando or or Nien Numb or whomever?

As far as I'm concerned, every mechanic in the game should be reevaluated, particularly munitions, primary weapon turrets, and small/large ship movement. Then, every single ship should be rebuilt with consideration of the all the new maneuvers, actions, affects, and tokens added throughout the waves while getting appropriately re-priced. Re-release it as X-Wing 2.0, and let us buy all the cardboard and cards necessary to update our existing ships, or give us 5 extra sets in each upgraded ship expansion.

Well, other alternatives are...

1. No new ships w/o new movies.

2. New ships but with pilots we know that might not have flown them.

3. Just have Sabine in every ship.

4. GUNBOAT

The only SW media I’ve consumed is the movies, but I am glad to learn about more obscrue characters in that galaxy far far away by playing with their ships. ?

Do I want to see X-Wings on the table sometimes, sure. FFG needs to guve us a pdf of new pilot costs for tourney use (that is the only fix we need). I like new toys!

5 minutes ago, Arttemis said:

but what's even more nuts is to see a heated discussion that involves one side actively criticizing the premise of buffing incredibly underpowered early-release heroes so that they're tournament viable. What the fudge, people? Why is it wrong to want a better Luke Skywalker or Wedge or Lando or or Nien Numb or whomever?

It doesn't even need to be a 'second edition'.

Imperial Assault has two versions of Luke Skywalker. The Star Wars LCG has.....what? Six, so far? All with different abilities, costs and icons.

I don't see why (just as with Poe Dameron) releasing a 'better' version of Luke would be a problem if they really wanted to.

But at the same time, I've no problem with FFG using their own characters from their own other sources.

Good pickup on Kad Solus. I forgot Friends Like These.

For that matter, the Starviper MkII is from Mask Of The Pirate Queen.

On 11/4/2017 at 4:13 PM, Darth Meanie said:

You peeved just because we still don't have Ree Yees.

No thanks, I killed enough of those 3 eyed freaks in dark forces to last a lifetime. I can still here the 'tink tink tink' of the thermal detonators....

6 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

To be fair, Torani Kulda is far from the first 'cross-polination' from FFG's own Star Wars games:

• Kaa'To Leeachos is from the first ever Edge of the Empire adventure, Under A Black Sun
• Graz The Hunter is from Fly Casual
• Thweek is from The Long Arm Of The Hutt
• Lowwhrick is from Imperial Assault

Any others I'm forgetting?

Dormitz is from the force awakens roleplaying game

4 hours ago, Pewpewpew BOOM said:

The only SW media I’ve consumed is the movies, but I am glad to learn about more obscure characters in that galaxy far far away by playing with their ships.

FWIW: the Clone Wars cartoon is _very_ good. It starts off a bit janky, but picks up quickly.

Lucasfilm basically hired someone who understood the prequel story Lucas wanted to tell, but was better at telling that story than Lucas proved himself to be.

How good is it? There's an arc in a later season that makes the _banking clan_ into an interesting and compelling set of bad guys.

If you're in America (possibly other countries, but I can't speak to that) the series is on Netflix.

On Sunday, November 05, 2017 at 1:07 AM, Astech said:

I am specifically saying that all pilots in the game should be equal.

This is entirely possible, wildly simple, and mind-numbingly boring: each ship is a direct analog, complete with pilots, dials, available upgrades, et al..., for a ship among the other two factions. Every faction is identical, except for the neat little plastic space ship bit. Completely even-stevens, complete trash as a game.

So that's out.

1 hour ago, E Chu Ta said:

This is entirely possible, wildly simple, and mind-numbingly boring: each ship is a direct analog, complete with pilots, dials, available upgrades, et al..., for a ship among the other two factions. Every faction is identical, except for the neat little plastic space ship bit. Completely even-stevens, complete trash as a game.

So that's out.

Equal doesn't have to mean symmetrical or identical. Asymmetry is the driving force behind every ship. Keep all the quirks, just appropriately price each ship and upgrade so that the points cost : performance ratio is equal.

1 hour ago, Arttemis said:

Equal doesn't have to mean symmetrical or identical. Asymmetry is the driving force behind every ship. Keep all the quirks, just appropriately price each ship and upgrade so that the points cost : performance ratio is equal.

As soon as asymmetry is produced you have a best and a worst, as soon as there's a best and worst people will gravitate toward the best at the expense of the worst, and as soon as there are minor differences there is inequity, as soon as any inequity is perceived someone(s) will be complaining about it but also everything else.

Should the span between best and worst be flattened out? Yeah, to some degree, ideally. But you make that graph completely flat and you no longer have a miniatures game, you have an esoteric philosophical exercise where nobody wins because nobody bothers playing.