After playing a few games with the new Wave 7 ships I'm noticing that our games are becomming significantly shorter. Games used to be 2 hours or more, depending on list, sometimes 3 hours for really high activation lists...

But every Wave 7 game I've played so far has been over in about 60 - 75 minutes. This is most likely due to several things:

• Large Ships - When 1/3rd of your points are on a single ship you save a bunch of time.
• Hyperspacing in - With Raddus and Profundity, the rebels can spend some turns with their ships not in play, saving activations and time.
• Thrawn - Having those special command dials means less time trying to decide EXACTLY what you'll need, since you are more flexible.

It's nice. It feels like we are getting right into the fighting quicker. I also feel like this might be the perfect time to talk again, about increasing the point limit to 500.

Once Wave 7 goes public, and everyone gets lots of games in, if this trend of quicker games continues... I'd like to think a point increase could truly become a thing!

My concern with increasing point totals remains squadrons and the competitive scene.

I look forward to getting games done in 30 minutes If that is the trend ?

agreed. with no pass mechanic, the gap between high and low activation fleets could potentially widen a lot at 500 points. We don't want to invite the increased abuse of one of the games most unfortunate weaknesses.

30 minutes is actually possible if you do the Ambush objective. Start shooting round 1 - get those accuracies and go!

Just now, Space_Cowboy17 said:

agreed. with no pass mechanic, the gap between high and low activation fleets could potentially widen a lot at 500 points. We don't want to invite the increased abuse of one of the games most unfortunate weaknesses.

Have you not seen the Wave 7 stuff? The Adviser gives you the ability to pass, and cards like Pryce also help fix that whole thing.

I have, and they will help, but they only apply to one, telegraphed turn. Strategic Adviser basically halves the activation opportunity cost of a large ship, 2 flotillas (burn them all) is still less than half most larges.

I am happy that FFG is taking steps to fix activations but am not convinced that they will be enough. Interrupting the activation order is good on the turn you use it, assuming it does not force you into activating in a bad order, but having more ships will remain a huge benefit EVERY TURN.

I sit on the side of keeping fleets at 400 points, particularly for Organized Play. I think that if expansions are produced to be viable in a 400 point game will help keep things better balanced.

When an upgrade is released, I imagine its cost is weighed against how much you have to sacrifice to include it in your fleet. I think you will see a skew in cost/benefit if later cards are produced to work with 500 point fleets. I fear this will lead to issues like power creep. [Fear leads to anger... anger leads to hate... hate leads to house rules...]

That said, for casual play, I'm all for it. I have invested a lot into my collection, so the more of these ships I can get on the table, the better!

I will probably quit this game if it goes to 500 standard. The cards are not balanced for 500 and the extra points allow for even more activation abuse.

I already have an issue where large games in Armada are closer to just number crunching and mass fire tactics. Our last CC allowed all wave 7 cards to be used as soon as they were revealed. ISDs have gotten some good buffs with new cards and variants. Quite possibly too much buffing. At 500, you can run 3 loaded with everything with spare points and blitz your opponent. Bombers almost can’t put out enough damage to kill more than one before they’ve smoked all the carriers. As it is, I now see no reason myself to forcibly inflict that imbalance on the entire player base.

Now, for fun and casual games: to for it and you do your thing. Have a blast playing this game however it entertains you most and we can all embrace that.

I think it is a tad bit to early to say wave 7 is the cause of bigger point matches. Speed of the game has many factors and once people get used to wave 7, they might shift back to old ways of MSU still.

I'd like to see more games finished inside of the time limit, rather than see the point limit raised, if games are indeed shorter post-release of Wave 7.

16 minutes ago, Church14 said:

I will probably quit this game if it goes to 500 standard. The cards are not balanced for 500 and the extra points allow for even more activation abuse.

Is this all talk or did FFG mention bumping standard games to 500? I feel like I missed something.

Speculation.

You could chop off 30 mins per game from the max allowed time and get an extra round in when needed or it would make the long 5 game per day tournaments a little less exhausting

500 might be a bit much.

450 maybe? That could be enough for a few extra toys, and an even 150 in squads, without too much bloat?

18 minutes ago, ricefrisbeetreats said:

Is this all talk or did FFG mention bumping standard games to 500? I feel like I missed something.

All talk. FFG has never uttered a word about 500 AFAIK.

And my comment was a bit extreme. I wouldn’t quit Armada. I’d quit competitive play

It's funny.... everyone saying how at 500pts activation spam gets worse....

After playing in 4 CC's and countless high point total casual games I feel it's just the opposite. Having multiple large ships really starts get unbelievably strong at high point totals as the board becomes more crowded and MSU's struggle more and more to concentrate fire, and multiple big ships guarding each others flanks create a huge threat bubble that the smalls can't hit and escape through. And each time you destroy one of those small craft, the activations go down, and the firepower diminishes. It's entirely possible to fight 10 TRC90's with 3 ISD's and some flotillas without losing anything at all while fighting 6 TRC90's with 1 ISD is really really tough.

Activation advantage doesn't become OP at larger point totals, activation quality does.

23 minutes ago, BrobaFett said:

It's entirely possible to fight 10 TRC90's with 3 ISD's

Is that when the Adidas formation becomes a thing?

4 minutes ago, Mikael Hasselstein said:

Is that when the Adidas Nike Swoosh TM formation becomes a thing?

Where is your loyalty to Nike!

2 hours ago, Crabbok said:

30 minutes is actually possible if you do the Ambush objective. Start shooting round 1 - get those accuracies and go!

I just played fleet ambush Monday and the game was over by turn four.... Also a liberty can one shot Demo at medium range.

2 hours ago, Church14 said:

All talk. FFG has never uttered a word about 500 AFAIK.

And my comment was a bit extreme. I wouldn’t quit Armada. I’d quit competitive play

Nah, you're good. I wasn't picking on you.

The bump to 500 points keeps getting brought up and it sounded more definitive this time. I thought maybe I missed something.

As for 500 creating more spam lists, I dunno...I think I'd just run 3 kitted ISDs with squad support. It works well in CC.

3 hours ago, Crabbok said:

After playing a few games with the new Wave 7 ships I'm noticing that our games are becomming significantly shorter. Games used to be 2 hours or more, depending on list, sometimes 3 hours for really high activation lists...

But every Wave 7 game I've played so far has been over in about 60 - 75 minutes. This is most likely due to several things:

• Large Ships - When 1/3rd of your points are on a single ship you save a bunch of time.
• Hyperspacing in - With Raddus and Profundity, the rebels can spend some turns with their ships not in play, saving activations and time.
• Thrawn - Having those special command dials means less time trying to decide EXACTLY what you'll need, since you are more flexible.

It's nice. It feels like we are getting right into the fighting quicker. I also feel like this might be the perfect time to talk again, about increasing the point limit to 500.

Once Wave 7 goes public, and everyone gets lots of games in, if this trend of quicker games continues... I'd like to think a point increase could truly become a thing!

I keep saying that asking for an increase in points at 500 is too much. Start at 450 then we'll see. No need to be greedy! Just that alone IMO would shake the game enough.

I'm always in favor of more rounds over bigger lists. 3 in a day is tough, but 4 rounds if you could squeeze it in the same time would help prevent one blowout win/loss determining your fate.

3 hours ago, Crabbok said:

After playing a few games with the new Wave 7 ships I'm noticing that our games are becomming significantly shorter. Games used to be 2 hours or more, depending on list, sometimes 3 hours for really high activation lists...

But every Wave 7 game I've played so far has been over in about 60 - 75 minutes. This is most likely due to several things:

• Large Ships - When 1/3rd of your points are on a single ship you save a bunch of time.
• Hyperspacing in - With Raddus and Profundity, the rebels can spend some turns with their ships not in play, saving activations and time.
• Thrawn - Having those special command dials means less time trying to decide EXACTLY what you'll need, since you are more flexible.

It's nice. It feels like we are getting right into the fighting quicker. I also feel like this might be the perfect time to talk again, about increasing the point limit to 500.

Once Wave 7 goes public, and everyone gets lots of games in, if this trend of quicker games continues... I'd like to think a point increase could truly become a thing!

Is it a consequence of playing with a lot of big ships? Because if I'm bringing a 6 ship Leia list with squadrons, well......

3 hours ago, Church14 said:

I will probably quit this game if it goes to 500 standard. The cards are not balanced for 500 and the extra points allow for even more activation abuse.

I already have an issue where large games in Armada are closer to just number crunching and mass fire tactics. Our last CC allowed all wave 7 cards to be used as soon as they were revealed. ISDs have gotten some good buffs with new cards and variants. Quite possibly too much buffing. At 500, you can run 3 loaded with everything with spare points and blitz your opponent. Bombers almost can’t put out enough damage to kill more than one before they’ve smoked all the carriers. As it is, I now see no reason myself to forcibly inflict that imbalance on the entire player base.

Indeed. For my money, I'd rather see the game dropped to 300 pts over increasing to 500.

Sure, it then gets harder to "get everything you want into a list".

That's

the

point

The difficulty of having to do too much, with too little, or finding ways to use things to solve problems they weren't meant to solve because it's the only tool you have on-hand...that's, like, the day to day life of military planning. Making it EASIER to bring a tool to solve any problem just reduces the challenge of the game.