I was going to look at what little SC data we have, but I can't seem to find it.

Regardless, I think it's pretty easy to see winners are playing more ships which is the conclusion I've been talking about for a few months.

If you still think the game is fine and activations aren't an issue, do your own data analysis and explain your conclusion.

I'd suggest we leave out player skill and match ups because those are very hard to fit into a data set and interpret.

52 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

Regardless, I think it's pretty easy to see winners are playing more ships which is the conclusion I've been talking about for a few months.

If you still think the game is fine and activations aren't an issue, do your own data analysis and explain your conclusion.

There's 4.36ish activations per top 4 in wave 4 and 4.51 in wave 5. Given the lesser amount of store championships, that doesn't seem significant to me, especially given that wave 5 gave us the Pelta and Arquitens, small ships with low costs that let you field multiples.

Average 7 deployments per top 4 on each doesn't change.

Winners vs top 4 is a similar ~0.25ish difference, again, IMO not enough to be statistically significant with this amount of data. Your full data vs winners shows a ~0.5ish difference in ship numbers. I'm not looking at winners vs bottom 1/4 as I'm sure some amount of those people are those who showed up for the free stuff.

So between wave 4 and 5, we increased ship numbers on average by 0.25 for top 4 and winners. But we see 3-6 ship fleets are viable and do win matches, as opposed to 2-7. So it really looks like the data is proving crazy skew lists are going away.

I'll agree with you that number of ships is going up. I DON'T agree that it's significantly impacting gameplay to a negative experience, else you'd see the data for winners or top 4 skewed entirely in one direction or another (big or small). 2 ship fleets were in your top 4, as was a 7 ship one. But the bell curve is centered around 3-5, with significant drop offs after that in either direction.

You personally can believe that the activation increases are bad, but I personally don't think a 0.25 ship per player increase across the wave is that bad. And it's at that point we've hit opinions again. If the data showed a worse skew you might get more agreement with your data, and I'd join you, but I'm not sure how many you'll get with this small of an increase. I'm willing to re-evaluate when we get the wave 6 regionals data of course, but wave 7 may skew that too.

6 hours ago, Ardaedhel said:

Same at Vancouver. I don't know details on everybody's games, but I know #1/24 went second all day, and I at #3/24 first once and second twice. @Tirion could tell you how it went for him in second.

Did not have bid once.

1st twice 2nd once

2 hours ago, Tirion said:

Did not have bid once.

1st twice 2nd once

Just for more data points - I went with 0 bid. Went second twice, first once (and that was on a roll off).

13 hours ago, geek19 said:

But because of last/first, ABT IS now viable. Avenger used to be A ship you COULD bring, but now it's respectable (and actually worth considering). The Demo nerf has made other builds viable as well, and it's not like last/first builds are completely dominating Regionals so far. Like, last first may be an issue in some local metas, buts it's not sweeping the nation completely.

Is the issue here that last-first is breaking the game PERIOD or breaking the game for you (general you, not specifically targeting anyone here). Because I don't think most people agree with the former.

You won't see last/first fleets dominating the tournament scene ever IMO - however it does nevertheless subtly change the game in a way that is not the best. And this is what makes this build so devious: It is an unreliable parasite - only one can successfully make use of it. If one outbids me or has equal activations the main tactics of the fleet composition collapses. And there is another counter to it: Heavy squad builds, especially Rieekan Ace Holes. Riekaan "survives" the double/triple tap a bit, and thanks to mobile squadrons your opponent most likely won't escape retaliation. So, not very likely that you see last/first winning big tournaments consistently. That is not the problem. And most likely it will never be. The problem is that the danger of meeting the crazy guy who takes a last/first fleet to a tournament severly limits the fleet building choices of all the others. I have to keep a counter in mind: bid, a lot of activations, or a lot of squads.

I already hear somebody rightfully interditing: But that is true of several strong fleet archetypes. One has to prepare against strong squad fleets as well. And this also limits fleet archetypes. So, what is the problem with preparing against last/first? First, to the contrary I can understand those who think that it should be possible to fly without squads in armada. More options is better, right? But I know not everybody does agree. So, let us drop this point. I think there are two reasons that make last/first even worse and non comparable to addressing squads.

One I have already mentioned: last/first is a parasite. Do we want to limit fleet building because of a fleet archetype that is an extreme strategic gamble? If two take a last/first fleet to the table, one has sucked. If two bring a heavy squad list to the table, a most interesting game emerges. I love the strategic aspect of Armada (the fleet design), but I think extreme strategic gambles should not predecide the game. The 3 hours at the table are the first born son of Armada!

Second, last/first fleets are boring to fly (in comparison). The hard decisions of the activation game are mitigated by an activation sequence that is borderline to be transferable into an algorhythm. Also deployment and maneuvering becomes a lot easier. All this critizism I bring up as someone who has played last/first a lot . I would say I am a good player, but not top notch. Nevertheless, I made it through the cut during the VASSAL Spring tournament and only lost against @Dorrin314 , the player who won the tournament with a fleet of Rieekan Ace Holes. I have played it in a CC VASSAL campaign here on the boards, winning every game I played - and this also against @MattShadowlord , a player who I consider far superior to my skills. Heck, I even managed to lose against @Green Knight 's national winning list by merely a MoV of 0 (!) with a fleet I have played the first time ever as first player, merely because of last/first. And he is a completelly different class of player than I am. @Aresius (Italian national champion, European semi-finalist) has never lost with his high bid super doom Liberty + 5 transports list when he had last/first . Yes, we have all heard and read about the guy who achieved to be second place at a major tournament with a dual ISD list. But we should not forget that he had an enormous bid - which prevented his opponents to last/first the **** out of his fleet.

Is Armada broken because of last/first? Far from it. Would it be a better game without it? I ardently believe so!

tl;dr Last/first won't dominate the tournament scence consistently, because it is too much of a gamble. But eliminating last/first sets free a beautifull variety of fleet building options that would enrich the game, it gives more relevance to the tactical aspect of the game, and it wil give more force to hard decisions.

8 hours ago, geek19 said:

There's 4.36ish activations per top 4 in wave 4 and 4.51 in wave 5. Given the lesser amount of store championships, that doesn't seem significant to me, especially given that wave 5 gave us the Pelta and Arquitens, small ships with low costs that let you field multiples.

Average 7 deployments per top 4 on each doesn't change.

Winners vs top 4 is a similar ~0.25ish difference, again, IMO not enough to be statistically significant with this amount of data. Your full data vs winners shows a ~0.5ish difference in ship numbers. I'm not looking at winners vs bottom 1/4 as I'm sure some amount of those people are those who showed up for the free stuff.

So between wave 4 and 5, we increased ship numbers on average by 0.25 for top 4 and winners. But we see 3-6 ship fleets are viable and do win matches, as opposed to 2-7. So it really looks like the data is proving crazy skew lists are going away.

I'll agree with you that number of ships is going up. I DON'T agree that it's significantly impacting gameplay to a negative experience, else you'd see the data for winners or top 4 skewed entirely in one direction or another (big or small). 2 ship fleets were in your top 4, as was a 7 ship one. But the bell curve is centered around 3-5, with significant drop offs after that in either direction.

You personally can believe that the activation increases are bad, but I personally don't think a 0.25 ship per player increase across the wave is that bad. And it's at that point we've hit opinions again. If the data showed a worse skew you might get more agreement with your data, and I'd join you, but I'm not sure how many you'll get with this small of an increase. I'm willing to re-evaluate when we get the wave 6 regionals data of course, but wave 7 may skew that too.

You should be checking winner vs bottom 1/4. Actively not considering is bias on your end and you are skewing your own interpretation. You're also giving motive to the players that showed up, which again, you cannot do.

Looking at the full data vs the top 4 or winners is not a good analysis of the data because the full data contains the top 4, so that data set will fall in between the top and the bottom. Essentially what you are doing is looking at the top vs the average, when you should be looking at the top and bottom.

The difference between winners and bottom 1/4 for wave 5 is around .75, which is almost an entire ship.

10 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

The difference between winners and bottom 1/4 for wave 5 is around .75, which is almost an entire ship.

so it is not even a ship? Lol

9 hours ago, geek19 said:

especially given that wave 5 gave us the Pelta and Arquitens, small ships with low costs that let you field multiples.

We have 1 list that contains 2 Peltas and 2 Nebs that won. 4 ships, so that disproves your statement. There was another 2 Pelta list that placed top 4 and had 5 ships.

There is no list that contains more than 1 Arq that placed top 4. However, there are Arq spam lists that placed in the bottom 1/4, which further proves it's a bad ship but that's not relevant to the conversation.

Here's the ship specific chart. If I were to guess of any ship that you run in multiples, it's the flotillas. Of the 19 winners, 4 only have 1 flotilla. The other 13 had multiple, and 2 had none. Of the top 4, 14 of 60 had only 1 flotilla, and I'm seeing 3 that had none, but one of those won.

What Darth Veggie said...

50 minutes ago, ovinomanc3r said:

so it is not even a ship? Lol

Nope! You actually have to break the ship and only take 75% of it.

4 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

Nope! You actually have to break the ship and only take 75% of it.

I was surprised by that tiny difference. I thought it would be at least 1 ship. To me that means activation system is far from an issue as the difference between big winners and big loosers is not on an activation difference.

5 minutes ago, ovinomanc3r said:

I was surprised by that tiny difference. I thought it would be at least 1 ship. To me that means activation system is far from an issue as the difference between big winners and big loosers is not on an activation difference.

Actually, 1 ship is all you need. Let's say the average is 4 ships and you take 5 to a tournament.

If you are first
You /me/ you /me/ you /me/ you /me/ you

You can now last/first me by taking 1 extra ship.

If you are second
Me/ you /me/ you /me/ you /me/ you / you

You can no delay my activations and get 2 attacks where I have no reaction.

No need to take 6 ships, unless you know the meta runs 5 ships as the average. Don't really need to bid either since both situations are really good IMO. I run 6 ships with 0 bid because the list is made to go first or second and I out activate everyone who runs 5 ships. If I run against 6, I've finally found an even activation game and things get interesting.

Also, the data set isn't complete which is really important. Some places only reported winners or top 4, and some places had a low turn out so the "top 4" are really the top half or third.

The data doesn't support high activations are a bad play experience, but rather taking a single extra ship improves your chances of winning, and this is a trend we see. The winners tend to take more ships than the bottom quarter.

Wave 7 will be interesting since the activation game will be changed, so I can't really say what we should do besides wait.

1 minute ago, Undeadguy said:

Actually, 1 ship is all you need. Let's say the average is 4 ships and you take 5 to a tournament.

If you are first
You /me/ you /me/ you /me/ you /me/ you

You can now last/first me by taking 1 extra ship.

If you are second
Me/ you /me/ you /me/ you /me/ you / you

You can no delay my activations and get 2 attacks where I have no reaction.

No need to take 6 ships, unless you know the meta runs 5 ships as the average. Don't really need to bid either since both situations are really good IMO. I run 6 ships with 0 bid because the list is made to go first or second and I out activate everyone who runs 5 ships. If I run against 6, I've finally found an even activation game and things get interesting.

Also, the data set isn't complete which is really important. Some places only reported winners or top 4, and some places had a low turn out so the "top 4" are really the top half or third.

The data doesn't support high activations are a bad play experience, but rather taking a single extra ship improves your chances of winning, and this is a trend we see. The winners tend to take more ships than the bottom quarter.

Wave 7 will be interesting since the activation game will be changed, so I can't really say what we should do besides wait.

But that's happening only 3/4 matches and not counting those where the difference is more than 1 ship. What, again, to me it seems far from an issue.

And also proofs what I already thought. The activation war works exactly the same way other things does. It is not powerful by itself rather than powerful in a given meta. If activations were so powerful you would see 7+ fleets rolling over everything. But they don't. With so many activation you are trading too much firepower gaining no more against 5,4,3 activation fleets. Also 2,3 activation fleets that doesn't bother if the disadvantage is 2-5 ships suffer from 4 ships fleets which didn't trade too much firepower also gaining the activation advantage. That ended in a 4-5 ships environment. If you have a lot of 5 ship fleets around you could move to 6 ships to win but the environment will change again to 7 or to 4. It seems it does to 4, changing again and again and again.

It is not so different to h9-ECM-AP.

It didn't ended in a "everyone plays 8 ships" apocalypse and that is meaningful.

Also first shot is the only thing far from being guaranteed and didn't reach everyone bidding crazy. Is it powerful? It is. And I am concerned about it being an issue. But I didn't see a double tap madness around me yet. I am that guy here cause I like (and play) ships that really benefit from it and I will welcome upgrades that allows tactics that can fight other tactics. But removing completely a tactic from the game, please don't.

2 minutes ago, ovinomanc3r said:

With so many activation you are trading too much firepower gaining no more against 5,4,3 activation fleets.

This isn't true.

I run a fully loaded Vic II, Demo, Insidious, 2 ER Raiders and a Comms Net. In a single round of engagement, I can drop 46 dice in a single round. Vic with GT+DC for 12, Demo and Insidious with 8 each, both Raiders using ER with a double arc for 8, and the Gozanti with 2. And that's not including CF. It's just a lot of dice. My sacrifice is squads. Nearly all high activation fleets sacrifice their squadrons rather than ships, because if you kill all the ships, you win.

And Darth Veggie already addressed by they aren't dominating the game. If they run into Rieekan Aces, they get stomped pretty hard. Rieekan is the only thing that counters last/first every single time.

Plus, the data shows 1 more ship is required, not 2 or 3. 5 ships seems to be the sweet spot because it balanced activations and squads. This is where Rieekan Aces was sitting. 3 GR-75s, 1 carrier, Yavaris, 134 points of squads.

So what you're saying is that there are forces pushing for more ships, and forces pushing for fewer ships, with the optimal balance lying somewhere between 4-6 depending on the meta and the build specifics.

Sounds like great game design to me.

I would be for the role that says a ship can not activate twice in a row. I also don't see how that would push a fleet to have one extra activation. Activation count is a consequence of meta to a large degree, you want more than your opponent is likely to bring and that's all. I don't need an extra activation because of this rule. All I did was reorder the activations I already had.

Technically yes I could pack in an extra activation to have two on the back end like you are all thinking, but at minimum that going to cost the fleet 18-24 points that they have to pull from something else. To me that would never be worth it for most fleets as they are today. It will telegraph so much of my strategy for one, and leave my with a ton of easily hunted ships also. The meta might initially after the change Spike that way, but it would just settle back down to like five activations again after awhile.

My thoughts anyway.

This is why I'd be terrible at politics... @Darth Veggie Illustrated in 1 post what I couldn't in multiple.

My vote is for the Sith Lord of the most ignored part of the food pyramid.

1 hour ago, Undeadguy said:

This isn't true.

I run a fully loaded Vic II, Demo, Insidious, 2 ER Raiders and a Comms Net. In a single round of engagement, I can drop 46 dice in a single round. Vic with GT+DC for 12, Demo and Insidious with 8 each, both Raiders using ER with a double arc for 8, and the Gozanti with 2. And that's not including CF. It's just a lot of dice. My sacrifice is squads. Nearly all high activation fleets sacrifice their squadrons rather than ships, because if you kill all the ships, you win.

And Darth Veggie already addressed by they aren't dominating the game. If they run into Rieekan Aces, they get stomped pretty hard. Rieekan is the only thing that counters last/first every single time.

Plus, the data shows 1 more ship is required, not 2 or 3. 5 ships seems to be the sweet spot because it balanced activations and squads. This is where Rieekan Aces was sitting. 3 GR-75s, 1 carrier, Yavaris, 134 points of squads.

Ok. You may build 6 ship's fleet with firepower. Perfect. It doesn't change anthing of my reasoning. Only adds number 6 as a good one to build a fleet what doesn't surprise me either. Also look your fleet. 1 coms net flotilla. ER helps raiders to don't trade firepower so you use them instead of flotillas. Helping high activation environments to lower their number for more efficient ships like those raiders. Also more raiders means less scatters making GT on big ships more dangerous. Does that vicII brings DC?

Also low activation environment may increase its number with new dangerous things. But the balance remains.

Flotillas rose up the number of activations but I didn't see a change after wave 5 and 6 and wave 7 seems is not going to change that either.

Yes, in concept it is a good design. But when it can be abused is when the problems come up like the Demo triple tap.

Is the potential abuse a bad play experience? Should FFG remedy the situation? A lot of people have asked about the activation system. It happened right after Worlds, and it's happening now.

Is it great game design when a few experienced players are able to navigate the activation game but the new players struggle with it? If you and I and all the other good players don't struggle with taking on a 7 ship fleet, why would we not change the game so newer players can? Why not change the game so someone doesn't have to struggle against BTA or Demo or Yavaris? Or should we continue to tell them that they are wrong and can't ask for a game change because "we" don't want that because "we" believe the game is perfect?

This is why people quit. You get people who have the loudest platform who scream the game is fine and we shouldn't change it unless the data proves it, and then people like @geek19 blatantly disregard the data to continue to support their own position.

Armada is a **** good game. But I've watched a lot of people leave because of these issues. So go ahead, continue to pat yourselves on the back for touting the game is perfect and the game design is great.

I'm done though. This community is incapable of even acknowledging there MIGHT be a problem with the game. There is never a discussion to be had. It's literally a shouting match until the person who asked the question has given up. How many times was @Blail Blerg told he was wrong in his squadron analysis? Or of @Reinholt when he was concerned about flotillas? I'm not without blame either.

At least you can still bump this thread though.

Enjoy your time without me.

I know there is no real way to measure it but looking at all if this in a vacuum that ignores player skill is imo the wrong way to look at it. If JJ takes an arq spam for example he had a solid chance of getting to 4. Whereas the average player may not. Stating that arq spam is bad because it didn't finish high isn't not automatically correct. I will use @Ardaedhel no squadron list as an example. If the average player brings a no squadron list they are probably not placing 3rd, yet there he was.

I'm not saying that looking at fleet composition is fruitless just that in my mind player skill matter more than it does. We like play the "all other things being equal" game on here a lot, but in my experience (and it is nothing more than that) they rarely are.

2 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

Enjoy your time without me.

This is exactly what I was afraid of, bringing up the discussion. I wanted the facts to be brought out and views shared, but the intense need for immediate closure drives a wedge. I hope that the dust settles a bit and you guys with solid opinions and strong data can regain your patience. There are always disagreements in a community, and some of them will not be resolved without one side capitulating their argument. That's not in the best interest of the game. No design is perfect - we can only hope that it will be stable and hopefully improving over time.

I'd like to toast strong opinions and even greater patience. The game has avoided some major design pitfalls so far (we can't forget to count our blessings in an imperfect system), and I believe that our discussions here are noticed and impact the designers. They are just setting command dials further ahead than we can see (albeit imperfectly).

Thanks for your time and efforts on here @Undeadguy (and his detractors).

16 minutes ago, deDios said:

This is exactly what I was afraid of, bringing up the discussion. I wanted the facts to be brought out and views shared, but the intense need for immediate closure drives a wedge. I hope that the dust settles a bit and you guys with solid opinions and strong data can regain your patience. There are always disagreements in a community, and some of them will not be resolved without one side capitulating their argument. That's not in the best interest of the game. No design is perfect - we can only hope that it will be stable and hopefully improving over time.

I'd like to toast strong opinions and even greater patience. The game has avoided some major design pitfalls so far (we can't forget to count our blessings in an imperfect system), and I believe that our discussions here are noticed and impact the designers. They are just setting command dials further ahead than we can see (albeit imperfectly).

Thanks for your time and efforts on here @Undeadguy (and his detractors).

This had nothing to do with you. This debate has been festering since wave 5 dropped, reached a boiling point in April when IFF mostly quit the game, and died down after Worlds and the FAQ. Now the debate is popping up again and it's related to Boarding Trooper Avenger, but the same people who drove out Reinholt, Caldias, and Wufame are still saying there is no issue.

Don't feel bad for me leaving the community. I was half way out after the rumors of wave 7 dropped.

6 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

This had nothing to do with you. This debate has been festering since wave 5 dropped, reached a boiling point in April when IFF mostly quit the game, and died down after Worlds and the FAQ. Now the debate is popping up again and it's related to Boarding Trooper Avenger, but the same people who drove out Reinholt, Caldias, and Wufame are still saying there is no issue.

Don't feel bad for me leaving the community. I was half way out after the rumors of wave 7 dropped.

I'm gonna feel bad if you leave the community. We're not such a big group that we can afford to keep dropping active members.

1 minute ago, Megatronrex said:

I'm gonna feel bad if you leave the community. We're not such a big group that we can afford to keep dropping active members.

Agreed. The community needs lots of voices. It helps keep thinking from getting stale.

I think one of the most telling things here is the disparity in inclusion of flotillas, and medium based ships. Flotillas were present in basically every fleet, whereas medium bases only found homes at the bottom of the lists.

@Undeadguy

Okay here's what I don't get.

Supposedly, there's a large number of people who have an issue with this core mechanic, enough so that they feel it is ruining the experience enough to leave.

Why are they bringing this issue here and expecting something to change?

You're getting hurt because your (otherwise) friends on the forums find the mechanic fine the way it is and are disagreeing with your input, but in all reality, no one here has any real control over the game mechanics, especially something that has existed since core release. Why are you leaving the community and getting pissed at them for disagreeing (especially since this has been a feature since the start)?

They have no control over this.

If disagreeing with someone about the state of the game is considered "driving out" how is anyone supposed to discuss anything?

If this group of people really feels so strongly about this, why have they not made their case to FFG? They own the IP not anyone on this forum.

Instead you've come on to a forum, stated an opinion, and, whether consciously or not, expected people to support that opinion. Maybe I'm wrong for saying but that's a hella unrealistic goal. Even if you expected argument, just because no one is budging on their opinion doesn't mean they're "driving folks out". We just disagree.

Frankly, every person I've gotten into an argument with on these forums I have respect for, and I don't ever expect them to come away agreeing with me, or that my input, no matter how researched, is gonna change the state of the game. It's just a way to share ideas.

I'd hate to see ya leave mate, you and I agree on a lot of issues.