Our Emergency Twitch Cast regarding the FFG Games center decision to not allow the Trajectory Simulator/Genius interaction. Apologies for the early portion where we messed with tech, that will be edited out when we release the podcast on Podbean.

The Dev Team is the biggest problem with this game. I don't hold players who play these OP lists, but I DO blame the dev team for A.) Developing cards that are easily abusable. B.) Developing Ship Chassis that are too versatile/OP/Undercosted and C.) Not releasing FAQs more quickly. They should be releasing monthly FAQs to clean up wording/nerfing super OP stuff. FFG is the biggest downside for X-Wing, the dev team is always behind the 8-ball, behind schedule, and completely unprepared to react to super OP stuff hitting the meta. They honestly need a full time person JUST for balance/FAQs (I suggest @MajorJuggler).

Honestly, I want Brooks and Davy OUT and new, more enthusiastic devs on board.

12 minutes ago, Favoritism Flight Games said:

The Dev Team is the biggest problem with this game. I don't hold players who play these OP lists, but I DO blame the dev team for A.) Developing cards that are easily abusable. B.) Developing Ship Chassis that are too versatile/OP/Undercosted and C.) Not releasing FAQs more quickly. They should be releasing monthly FAQs to clean up wording/nerfing super OP stuff. FFG is the biggest downside for X-Wing, the dev team is always behind the 8-ball, behind schedule, and completely unprepared to react to super OP stuff hitting the meta. They honestly need a full time person JUST for balance/FAQs (I suggest @MajorJuggler).

Honestly, I want Brooks and Davy OUT and new, more enthusiastic devs on board.

I have no doubt that the Dev team is passionate from talking to them. I think a lot of the reaction time is more to FFG or LFL issues.

Nail on the head with the lack of timely FAQ’s. I’ll just leave my response from the Mynock FB page here:

“The problem, I think, is the chassis. The Scurgg and K-wing need the Jumpmaster treatment (the EPT on the Scurggs and the System from Havoc are especially egregious, along with the crew slot on the K-wing given the lack of one on the Resistance Bomber AND having a turret + 360 arc) and a nerf to Miranda's regen ability (something that, imho, flies in the face of damage over time as a normal game mechanic and is demonstrably OP).”

13 hours ago, Favoritism Flight Games said:

The Dev Team is the biggest problem with this game. I don't hold players who play these OP lists, but I DO blame the dev team for A.) Developing cards that are easily abusable. B.) Developing Ship Chassis that are too versatile/OP/Undercosted and C.) Not releasing FAQs more quickly. They should be releasing monthly FAQs to clean up wording/nerfing super OP stuff. FFG is the biggest downside for X-Wing, the dev team is always behind the 8-ball, behind schedule, and completely unprepared to react to super OP stuff hitting the meta. They honestly need a full time person JUST for balance/FAQs (I suggest @MajorJuggler).

Honestly, I want Brooks and Davy OUT and new, more enthusiastic devs on board.

Read the paper included with the latest ex pac. Frank and Alex are listed as with. The lead dev is Brooke with Frank and Alex. So all the bad can't be blamed on Alex and Frank. Then you have all the playtesters. Where was their input?

Making a game and keeping it going and interesting is very difficult. Keeping it balanced is even harder. Throw in release deadlines and production schedules and you have the perfect situation for a Charlie Foxtrot. I'm not even touching on the Disney requirements.

We have the benefit of being Monday Morning Quarterbacks. The Devs don't

I'm also really dissapointed with the Dev's in that they keep designing chassis that have EVERYTHING. Ks, Scurrg, JM5K- ships with huge upgrade bars, great dials, great stats, too much HP to be alpha'd effectively are ALWAYS going to be the heart of OP combos as new upgrade cards hit the game. Nym is prime offender #1, he just has EVERY advantage in the game. Same with Miranda. These ships are just too versatile, too good, too combo-tastic to exist in this game.

Nym/Scurrg should NEVER have had an EPT, period. Devs, you messed up on that, BAD. Nym should have been PS7. Period.

Miranda's pilot ability should only apply to her primary, and honestly, the K should never have had both a PWT and a turret slot (one or the other). Probably shouldn't have a crew slot either. OR Sabine should have been nerfed a YEAR AGO (in the palp nerf). The fact that this card has been unchecked through all of 2017 and into 2018 is just ridiculous.

2 minutes ago, Stoneface said:

Read the paper included with the latest ex pac. Frank and Alex are listed as with. The lead dev is Brooke with Frank and Alex. So all the bad can't be blamed on Alex and Frank. Then you have all the playtesters. Where was their impute?

Making a game and keeping it going and interesting is very difficult. Keeping it balanced is even harder. Throw in release deadlines and production schedules and you have the perfect situation for a Charlie Foxtrot. I'm not even touching on the Disney requirements.

We have the benefit of being Monday Morning Quarterbacks. The Devs don't

I'm OK with them making mistakes, but I'm not ok with it taking 6 months to a year to fix them- or aiming nerfs at combo cards rather than OP chassis. It's they're approach to FAQs that are ruining this game. Also, they effectively cut off the playtesters after the reddit leak, so I don't think they're getting good feedback from there. They're in a bubble.

19 minutes ago, impspy said:

Nail on the head with the lack of timely FAQ’s. I’ll just leave my response from the Mynock FB page here:

“The problem, I think, is the chassis. The Scurgg and K-wing need the Jumpmaster treatment (the EPT on the Scurggs and the System from Havoc are especially egregious, along with the crew slot on the K-wing given the lack of one on the Resistance Bomber AND having a turret + 360 arc) and a nerf to Miranda's regen ability (something that, imho, flies in the face of damage over time as a normal game mechanic and is demonstrably OP).”

Strong take sir. Take an internet point.

20 minutes ago, Favoritism Flight Games said:

Also, they effectively cut off the playtesters after the reddit leak, so I don't think they're getting good feedback from there. They're in a bubble.

If this is true, then a lot of my support for the devs is about to get flushed. I'd try and identify the leak and plug it ASAP! Never again would they work as a playtesters.

Haven’t listened yet. Still giving my bit.

I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again.

I don’t think the devs are incompetent as much as they go over the top reaching for interesting interactions, and there isn’t enough of them for anyone to say “wait, maybe we shouldn’t”. While there decisions are well intended, they instead just give players room to make things busted. If the jumpmaster taught us anything, it’s that the moment you put a host of good upgrade slots on a cheap chassis, you should expect it to be broken, and work your way back from there.

One of the issues is they don’t seem to have a set power level they are determined to keep the game at. In my opinion, that level should have been, at the thinnest level of interpretation-

1. 2 die attacks will always be worth firing

2. Maneuvers and arcs will always matter

3. Agility will always matter

But we have blown so far past that Im not sure there is even a possibility to get back where those things would be true. The power creep is undeniable at this point when you consider at one point, those things WERE true.

Based on that, I feel we do not need more FAQs as much as we need the ones we do get to be harder HITTING. No interaction that players are frustrated with currently contains entirely new components or components that were considered poor that have suddenly become amazing. Think about it. What are the issue pilots? The two pilots who got “soft” nerfs this last FAQ? Hmm... Where have we seen that before?

R4 agromech...deadeye....Manaroo ability.....Zuckuss......

what do these all have in common?

They weren’t the jumpmaster nerf.

Just like the genius and advanced Slam nerf werent the Miranda or Nym nerf.

Killing Nym's EPT slot would be a good start, as it would make him much more vulnerable to aces. Suddenly, PS9+ pilots can arc-dodge him without needing to race to VI, and he can't make Trajectory runs with nearly perfect knowledge.

I also like the idea of removing the Crew slot on Miranda. I'm not sure it's needed for all K-Wings, but it would definitely rein in some of her worst excesses with Sabine and 3P0.

29 minutes ago, Stoneface said:

If this is true, then a lot of my support for the devs is about to get flushed. I'd try and identify the leak and plug it ASAP! Never again would they work as a playtesters.

Rumor I heard (mind you I have no direct connection to any playtester) is that Wave 12 only received minimal playtesting with a few close to FFG playtesters (not the full group). Thus interactions like Trajectory Simulator were missed. Not sure how G4H was playtested, but I know there was a lot of squawking about how much better Harpoons were than every other missile well before it's release- yet they still went live as-is. Even if they are playtesting, they're not listening to the feedback.

Miranda power creeped over time; I don’t think she was just bad design. She was decent when she cane out, but by no means absurd. With Sabine out, her action bombing became effective enough to mitigate her major weakness—higher PS. And now there’s Harpoons too, which are a bit too good on her. But I don’t think she was just an instant failure, a terrible piece of game design; it’s just that all those upgrades have since gone from being useless to being veeery strong.

Scurrg needs an EPT, but Nym shouldn’t be 10. The low PS ones would be DOA without the EPT. Native PS 7 on Nym would’ve been nice, though.

2 hours ago, Ailowynn said:

Miranda power creeped over time; I don’t think she was just bad design. She was decent when she cane out, but by no means absurd. With Sabine out, her action bombing became effective enough to mitigate her major weakness—higher PS. And now there’s Harpoons too, which are a bit too good on her. But I don’t think she was just an instant failure, a terrible piece of game design; it’s just that all those upgrades have since gone from being useless to being veeery strong.

Scurrg needs an EPT, but Nym shouldn’t be 10. The low PS ones would be DOA without the EPT. Native PS 7 on Nym would’ve been nice, though.

As long as slot creep is a thing these lists will continue to be good.

Nymranda also is a combo of almost all of the bad things about the game.

3 hours ago, impspy said:

Nail on the head with the lack of timely FAQ’s. I’ll just leave my response from the Mynock FB page here:

“The problem, I think, is the chassis. The Scurgg and K-wing need the Jumpmaster treatment (the EPT on the Scurggs and the System from Havoc are especially egregious, along with the crew slot on the K-wing given the lack of one on the Resistance Bomber AND having a turret + 360 arc) and a nerf to Miranda's regen ability (something that, imho, flies in the face of damage over time as a normal game mechanic and is demonstrably OP).”

If we have more ships given the jumpmaster treatment then that would just show the limitation and eventual failure of the wave system business model. The old stuff will never bee good as the new stuff and the middle stuff will either be mediocre as the 1st release or get nerfed to nothing more than noob-traps (sorry you cannot use half the cards that came with the model in the expansion you just bought as it has been errata).

Honestly X-wing had one of the better balanced metas out there, it is just that it is played so much a small amount above the power curve is more apparent as it is shown over the thousands of games of X-wing instead of a significant amount over the power curve in the dozens of games of Armada or Imperial Assault.

But yes this search for Zen Balance is pushing the business mode of X-wing to the breaking point.

6 minutes ago, Kelvan said:

As long as slot creep is a thing these lists will continue to be good.

Nymranda also is a combo of almost all of the bad things about the game.

Nymranda is every NPE aspect of this game all crammed into one quantum singularity of agency robbing NPE crap. TLTs, check. Harpoons, check. Advanced Sensors PS10 bombs/trajectory, check. Regen, check. Miranda's ability, check. Sabine, check. Infinite bombs, check. It's just everything we hate about the game, all in one place. Honestly, we're officially at needing a 2.0. I wasn't a believer in a new game until this competitive season, now I'm 100% on board. Old X-Wing needs to die, and we need a new rule set. Bleh.

3 hours ago, Favoritism Flight Games said:

I'm OK with them making mistakes, but I'm not ok with it taking 6 months to a year to fix them- or aiming nerfs at combo cards rather than OP chassis. It's they're approach to FAQs that are ruining this game. Also, they effectively cut off the playtesters after the reddit leak, so I don't think they're getting good feedback from there. They're in a bubble.

What do you mean by “cut off the playtesters”

2 hours ago, Favoritism Flight Games said:

Rumor I heard (mind you I have no direct connection to any playtester) is that Wave 12 only received minimal playtesting with a few close to FFG playtesters (not the full group). Thus interactions like Trajectory Simulator were missed. Not sure how G4H was playtested, but I know there was a lot of squawking about how much better Harpoons were than every other missile well before it's release- yet they still went live as-is. Even if they are playtesting, they're not listening to the feedback.

I would not listen to this rumor.

But Paul said bombs were fine.

I don't think Alex has much to do with X-Wing these days.

Ouch. Sounds like someone broke Tyler

21 minutes ago, AlexW said:

Ouch. Sounds like someone broke Tyler

The fact that one of the 2 best RAClo players is asking for one of his best matchups to be nerfed is hilarious...

25 minutes ago, Boba Rick said:

But Paul said bombs were fine.

I don't have enough internet points for you.

28 minutes ago, nikk whyte said:

I would not listen to this rumor.

I for sure take it with a grain of salt. However, I'm inclined to believe it considering how poor the releases have been as of late. It should have taken all of 30 seconds to realize that Genius + Traj. Sim needed to have it's wording more clearly defined. Same with TLTs and Harpoon condition. There's simply no way that these cases wouldn't raise questions if the waves were being properly playtested. Something smells fishy.

52 minutes ago, Favoritism Flight Games said:

Nymranda is every NPE aspect of this game all crammed into one quantum singularity of agency robbing NPE crap. TLTs, check. Harpoons, check. Advanced Sensors PS10 bombs/trajectory, check. Regen, check. Miranda's ability, check. Sabine, check. Infinite bombs, check. It's just everything we hate about the game, all in one place. Honestly, we're officially at needing a 2.0. I wasn't a believer in a new game until this competitive season, now I'm 100% on board. Old X-Wing needs to die, and we need a new rule set. Bleh.

How do Harpoons "rob your agency"? You can still arc dodge them. You still get to roll green dice against them and modify those green dice. Harpoons make primary firing arcs matter again.