That's surprising. I woulda expected more support for 500 but I guess that's not a thing.

First, squadrons would be even more powerful, at 167? Imagine putting two more Bwings in a Yavaris list. for 11-12 squadrons.... I believe at that point, mathematically, you literally one shot EVERY small ship in one turn, including the mc30 which survives with like 2 hull vs 134 squads. I think it also starts opening up to one shooting mediums, you can kill AFs and possibly Victories in one turn with 167 bombers.

The time issue was the main reason I made Taskforce 200. It made it so much easier to play a short game in 45 minutes of Armada, get the full feeling of the game, and not have to literally plan out 3.5 hours of my time to play a 2 hour game, set up for 1 hour (it always ended up being that way) and tear down in a hurry.
It also made it easier to teach new players the game at its full complexity, but at a much smaller scale.

I really think even the current 2 hours is too long. Wish it was 1.5 hours, but I know realistically it takes some matches 2 hours to play.

18 minutes ago, xanderf said:

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.

Yeah, I try and explain that to people all the time. You'll always want more options and tools, but the point is that you don't have access to everything you want. That would be a boring game of pure efficiency.

9 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

Yeah, I try and explain that to people all the time. You'll always want more options and tools, but the point is that you don't have access to everything you want. That would be a boring game of pure efficiency.

IMO, bringing the points down to 300 would just work in favor to small ships lists. Again, I think 450 is a good middle ground. That's a bump from 134 to 150 in terms of squadron. That's 2 TIE fighters if you want to min-max. Or a single X-Wing.

I'm all for 500 points as an extra option, for those who want. As for me, I want 700 or higher...

13 minutes ago, Sybreed said:

IMO, bringing the points down to 300 would just work in favor to small ships lists. Again, I think 450 is a good middle ground. That's a bump from 134 to 150 in terms of squadron. That's 2 TIE fighters if you want to min-max. Or a single X-Wing.

Not sure I see that - what do you see as the mechanism that would cause that?

Certainly, it means the commander becomes a much percentage of the list, which would seem to negatively impact lists that try to maximize value of the commander with greater number of units...and that tends to be most of the commanders (not Rieekan, of course, who would get a slight bump in value from having fewer ships to worry about). So this would seem to hurt small-ship-lists more than anything.

Of course, the reduction of total number of fleet points on the table also considerably improves the importance of the points available from objectives - but I don't really see that as a 'small ship vs large ship' kind of thing. Just an overall net-positive.

Fewer squadrons (at 300 pts, you have a 100 pt cap) results in ships better able to fully activate everything on the table - improving the quality of squadron activation and decreasing the importance of the 'Rogue' keyword. I've certainly seen a number of MSU lists running heavy on Rogues, but I'm not sure this really works to a net plus or minus on small-ship lists?

4 minutes ago, Sybreed said:

IMO, bringing the points down to 300 would just work in favor to small ships lists. Again, I think 450 is a good middle ground. That's a bump from 134 to 150 in terms of squadron. That's 2 TIE fighters if you want to min-max. Or a single X-Wing.

Typically, due to force multiplying and how you can spread out points it might not really be another Xwing, it can be upgrading to more powerful aces in a higher number.

Remember also that you used 14/17 points, and that your single Xwing, gets rererolls from both Toryn AND BCC. AND squadrons are really strong vs squadrons, which makes the max fighter player win vs a small screen EVEN HARDER. Possibly killing the screen outright in a single turn of combat.

--

This is my new tenet that I've been waiting to discuss with the forums: The Triangle is broken: A small screen has no multipliers that allow it to effectively combat a max fighter list, especially taking into account the complete loss in points of the screen AND the points gained in objectives. A max squad fleet now kills no fighter lists and small screen lists (6 squads, under 90 points). It will have a difficult time with a full AA style screen above 100 points, or other max multirole fleets., however, you're generally talking something like 1ISD +4 , max Firesprays or Sloane screen 134 nowadays, and at that point, its really two max squads fighting each other, that's not a counter. A counter is not itself!

There is no balance in the force. That's why you see max fighters so prevalently now in tournaments and winning said tournaments.

FFG has started to reign it in by creating anti-squad focused ship upgrades. Note in Wave 7 that there are like 7 different anti-squad usable upgrades, and nearly 0 that buff squadron use.

The next key thing, is to learn how to make cards that are force multipliers, but of a smaller force. Things that allow a smaller force to fend off a larger force. A la military strategy. Atm, its just a pure clusterfk. Whoever has more squadrons, wins by a large margin. Not 300 vs 10000. Not david vs Goliath.

How do you make cards, designs, squadrons that effectively have more power when fighting against larger groups+their heavy multipliers???

Re problems at increased points... I think this is what's been killing the vsd's utility. More points means higher/deadlier attack quality, and the vsd was only designed for 300 games.

I say let's revisit this question when games are noticably shorter at the time the wave after next is announced. It's much too soon to be thinking about these adjustments.

4 hours ago, BrobaFett said:

Where is your loyalty to Nike!

That's the maneuver I like when flying Ozzel ISDs at speed 3, and then cranking it down to 1, with a yaw-2 turn, saying "Hi!"

2 hours ago, Darth Lupine said:

I'm all for 500 points as an extra option, for those who want. As for me, I want 700 or higher...

Dude, FFG already released the rules for 500pt games, and 1000+pt games. It’s called Corellian Conflict! And it’s good fun too.

To the OP’s point - if Making Big Ships Great Again reduces round time, that’s cool by me. But Armada isn’t broken, so let’s not try to fix it!! 400pts is the sweet spot that forces you to not quite take everything you want. Which is awesome. Keeps more lists viable.

1 hour ago, Mundo said:

Dude, FFG already released the rules for 500pt games, and 1000+pt games. It’s called Corellian Conflict! And it’s good fun too.

To the OP’s point - if Making Big Ships Great Again reduces round time, that’s cool by me. But Armada isn’t broken, so let’s not try to fix it!! 400pts is the sweet spot that forces you to not quite take everything you want. Which is awesome. Keeps more lists viable.

I know, and me and @Destraa already played a1500 pointer using the all out assault rules and it was awesome.

I agree that hard choices are definitely a part of list crafting. But I feel a higher point limit should be an option. Just my opinion, lol.

15 minutes ago, Darth Lupine said:

I know, and me and @Destraa already played a1500 pointer using the all out assault rules and it was awesome.

I agree that hard choices are definitely a part of list crafting. But I feel a higher point limit should be an option. Just my opinion, lol.

I'm trying to drum up some interest in a 500-point event here in the Seattle area. Having too much fun with my CC fleet, and coming up with all the other options when I was list-building for it, and now I want to try some of them out!

I'm all for shorter games. It would make our game nights more fun as we would be able tonplay more fleets.

On the other hand I do not like 500pts lists, not for competitve play anyway. As it was mentioned before me, the point of point limitation is exatly to prevent you from bringing everything you want and to amke compromises. That's what makes Armada so good on a competitve level. Because there are no perfect lists. You may bring a list that trashes most of the competition but there may be a list that plays exactly the way you couldn't prepare for because you didn't have the points.

Even though 500 points, 700 points, heck 1000 point games are always an option for casual games... I kind of have a hard time trying to take those games serious when they aren't an official format - because I usually like to have a meaningful takeaway from my games. My 400 point games usually teach me something that I can use towards the next tournament, for example.

Now if higher point games became something a bit more official - like how X-Wing has Epic play, (and occasional Epic Tournaments) then I think that would fit the bill. If Armada had maybe official 700 point tournaments or something... (2 rounds max), you might see a happier Crabbok.

12 minutes ago, Crabbok said:

Even though 500 points, 700 points, heck 1000 point games are always an option for casual games... I kind of have a hard time trying to take those games serious when they aren't an official format - because I usually like to have a meaningful takeaway from my games. My 400 point games usually teach me something that I can use towards the next tournament, for example.

Now if higher point games became something a bit more official - like how X-Wing has Epic play, (and occasional Epic Tournaments) then I think that would fit the bill. If Armada had maybe official 700 point tournaments or something... (2 rounds max), you might see a happier Crabbok.

CC is an official format for games between 500 and 1500 pts. They can teach you things that 400pt games cannot. I feel my experience with these large scale games has made me a better Armada player at a smaller point level.

Shorter games means more games that I can play in an evening.

The points feel pretty spot on right now as it really does force you to make some tough decisions. Another thing to think about is at 500+ points do you start to lose some of that ability to maneuver and get to the flanks.

@LegionOfBOOM and I once again smashed out 4 games in under 6 hours... And there were interruptions due to toddler care involved in that time too...

500 Points lets me do Blount with 21 Z95 or Jan and 11 X Wings + Flight Controllers that would be awesome

On ‎25‎/‎01‎/‎2018 at 1:49 AM, 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.

well that the real trick isn't it. Maybe we will finally get the pass rule at 500pts

the other reason why games get shorter is you and the people you play with get better.

Just as a basic point/question. Isn't a point based system inherently balanced period regardless of list value? The only real detractor I see is time. If we state that certain cards are less or more effective at different point values, dose that not mean we should just change our calculus in respect to fleet builds?

I am neither for not against changing the competitive play fleet value seeing as I don't do that. But it's a serious question, even if you love or hate the idea.

19 minutes ago, Noosh said:

Just as a basic point/question. Isn't a point based system inherently balanced period regardless of list value? The only real detractor I see is time. If we state that certain cards are less or more effective at different point values, dose that not mean we should just change our calculus in respect to fleet builds?

I am neither for not against changing the competitive play fleet value seeing as I don't do that. But it's a serious question, even if you love or hate the idea.

Mostly it’s the Admiral Cards, as they are balanced Global Effects to effect a certain amount of ships, basically... but even then, the argument can be made they all scale up or down the same ratio.

Just now, Drasnighta said:

Mostly it’s the Admiral Cards, as they are balanced Global Effects to effect a certain amount of ships, basically... but even then, the argument can be made they all scale up or down the same ratio.

Yes Akbar and the like becomes a better buy with more ships. Is it that some are worried that the admirals that don't will get left behind? Would not the likes of garm see more action? Dunno seem like 500 provides a different experience, that the community would have to adapt to, no different than new ships and cards.

3 minutes ago, Noosh said:

Yes Akbar and the like becomes a better buy with more ships. Is it that some are worried that the admirals that don't will get left behind? Would not the likes of garm see more action? Dunno seem like 500 provides a different experience, that the community would have to adapt to, no different than new ships and cards.

When everyone gets better, you stick with the best anyway.

3 hours ago, Noosh said:

Just as a basic point/question. Isn't a point based system inherently balanced period regardless of list value? The only real detractor I see is time. If we state that certain cards are less or more effective at different point values, dose that not mean we should just change our calculus in respect to fleet builds?

I am neither for not against changing the competitive play fleet value seeing as I don't do that. But it's a serious question, even if you love or hate the idea.

One off effects become significantly weaker. Uniques that buff single ships become weaker. Area buffs become stronger. Mass fire tactics become more effective.

Examples:

Raddus vs Ackbar: Ackbar continues to add more dice as points increase. So as fleet scale to 500 or larger, Ackbar steps up. Raddus is a one off effect that is more powerful at smaller point values.

Defiance vs Home One: Defiance adds 1-2 dice. At low points or at the normal 400, this is a good chunk of extra damage. Home One needs other combat ships to shine (like AFmk2 or TR90) and that isn’t usually there at 400. At 500+, two extra dice isn’t much, but 6-8 extra accuracy results is. At 1000 points Home One would probably be the best title in the game.

I think a point increase to 450 or 500 would be fine for the most part, as long as squads stayed the same or at 150. I think at slightly higher point values we would see more medium ships since I think they're in a weird point value slot as it stands (especially Imperials). We also could see commanders like Sato and Tarkin make a real resurgence. I think it would still make some hard choices but it would also make several ships more viable.

Some of the posts here give me the impression that 500pts would allow/strengthen the concept of a Line and peripheral escort ships. So you could have your rock solid core of ISD's/MC's who stay in support range of each other and thus are relatively immobile and try to put as much pressure as possible at the enemy line whilst you would play the outmaneuvering game with your smaller ships on the flanks. With those you would try to hit and run or get into the enemy weakspot along with preventing the enemy from doing that to you.

Also I don't really understand the need for a master discipline in the competitive area be it in gaming or sports. Even in games which have multiple variants there is always a dominant one. Why not having multiple equally ranked/played variants in tournaments(maybe even different ones in a single event). This would definitely encourage flexibility. In Armada this would of course apply to point values with an equal amount of events for 5, 4 and 3 hundred points.

I could get 5 more transports into my list with an increase to 500 points!