3 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

I just don't buy that Harpoons were them trying to nerf Wookiees. Harpoons would have been at print before Wookiees were even released. Maybe it was to nerf Biggs and FSR? I dunno. It's possible, but it's a stupid way to do it.

Imagine this missile instead: ATT 4, R 2-3, keep TL. If this missile hits, the attacker may perform a BR* on any ship at Range 1 of the defending ship. 4 points.

That's how you combat formation flying. You want to combat Wookiees? Phased Particle Torpedo: "If this attack hits, remove a Reinforce token from each ship at Range 1 of the defending ship."

Harpoon Missiles are only slightly better than they should be, but they're horribly stupid and complicated in design.

I'm convinced that whatever Dev shepherded these was just way too in love with his own Frankenstein.

Tractor Beam Missiles?

Nice. That would actually be kinda hilarious.

If I hit Lowhrick with 3 of them could I barrel roll him 3 spots away from Miranda??

Just now, Boom Owl said:

Tractor Beam Missiles?

Well, just one-half on one of the effects of Tractor Beam. I was thinking more Concussion Missiles, but that name was already taken.

2 hours ago, Sekac said:

There is literally NOBODY on these forums more obsessed with nerfing and nerf culture than you, you do realize that right?

I get that you're doing ironically, but wherever you go, the nerf conversation is sure to follow.

You can blame FFG if you want, but if you want the nerf culture to go away, would recommend not being the #1 (by a long, long, looong shot) perpetuator of the conversation.

The conversation can't and won't die as long as you guarantee its continuance.

It is a cancer, back in Wave 4 it wasn't so bad because FFG wouldn't cave in to the demands of the forum crying about TIE Phantoms and C-3PO (you do remember that, if not then you have no room to speak). Now it has malignantly spread to podcasts.

So the latest FFG dev team have caved in and now the game is trashed because of it. So feel good, Nerf Herders control the development of the game. I enjoy the formats that the so-called competitive players say it is too unbalanced like Epic. Also been called a Jumpmaster noob even though I only got one and haven't used it more than a couple of times. So whatever, call me what you want. I know who I am and the opinions of some random person over the internet never changes that.

4 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

Well, just one-half on one of the effects of Tractor Beam. I was thinking more Concussion Missiles, but that name was already taken.

This feels just ridiculous and interesting enough to be our next ordinance now.

What if all our ships were space tug tractor arrays?

2 hours ago, Tvboy said:

Copy/paste from my earlier post. Yes, they are strictly better than Concussion Missiles, Homing Missiles and Assault Missiles. So what? Those cards have been bad since they came out in Wave 2. They were never a part of high level play because you were always spending points to trade your action for an extra die, which is basically the same as using Expose. FFG clearly wanted to make arcs matter in high level play again, and if they just made another missile at the same power level as those garbage cards, then nobody would use them and we'd see turrets and 4-ship Rebel fortresses and wookiees continue to dominate the game.

Again, knowing that all of the Wave 2 missiles are and always have been garbage upgrade cards that good players wouldn't touch, why do we feel that new cards must be held to that same level? Nobody complained Tactician was too good because it was so much better than Saboteur...

Except those cards are not garbage, since with Guidance Chips and Long Range Scanners they have been more than viable on the right platforms, as have Homing Missiles and later Cruise Missiles. Harpoons, however, render *all* of those redundant, not just the Wave 2 ones, by being strictly better than *all* of them for the cost. How do you not understand the poor design implicit in that? Why would you ever take Cruise Missiles now, when for a single point more you have *far* less required setup and predictability for the same or potentially *more* damage than even the highest possible output of Cruise Missiles? Why would you ever take Homing Missiles when for a point *fewer* you get a better secondary effect (condition VS no evades)?
If there are other factors in the game that you feel somehow neccesitate Harpoons, then that is far more an indicator that there are serious problems with the game than any kind of justification for Harpoons.

2 hours ago, Jeff Wilder said:

I mean, it really seems like 95% of your posts are whining. Which, you know, would be okay in a lot of contexts, but seems both ironic and futile in this one.

Maybe only 95% of the posts I make that you have read. But then again that is like saying 90% of all statistics are wrong.

But yeah it is futile, people say the game is ruined by the last waves so need a nerf. Then when everything gets nerfed the game is still ruined. The problem is the game is popular enough to be competitive. Now that is nothing wrong but when developing a game solely for competitive play it alienates more players and generally put out an unwelcoming environment. Remeber the Esports craze (that is still going on), or even hark back to 40k tournaments. Tell me some of the things that went on over there is not happening with X-wing. We even got cheaters caught on camera.

So yeah irony and futility all in full effect.

I think the problem with disrupting the board state as a "counter" to formation flying is that it'll never be as efficient as also just hurting people. Yes, both theoretically mean your opponent can look at your list and go "okay I don't want to fly in formation" but the ability to go "neener-neener I can move your ships out of formation" is not as big a deterrent, or as useful to the player as going "I will hurt you if you fly in formation". Or more accurately, "I will hurt you when you fly in formation anyway because that's how your list works" rather than "I will waste an attack to put you out of formation so maybe I can have somebody else try and hurt you but then you'll just regroup and I'll have nothing to show for it".

I think it would be interesting to see these upgrades anyway, but it's silly to think anything other than damage in situations is a more efficient "counter" to an enemy type. Even in an objective focused situation, being able to go "I can kill you and thus remove you from play if you do this" will always be better. Like, Scrambler Missiles are a thing, and Jam Tokens are very versatile, but they don't seem to be a very meta-defining upgrade. Because you can just try and damage people instead. X-Wing wasn't built for the granularity otherwise.

This goes back to what I said earlier about the devs actually seeing how people play the game, what the use and don't use and trying to improve it. People want to do damage, while wanting to avoid taking damage, and dealing more damage faster is a way to take less damage. There are good ways these elements can work and bad ways, but players will seek that way because it means more efficient play. You can accomplish your goal quicker by removing the enemy from play faster.

3 possible changes to Harpoons that would benefit everyone without really Nerfing them:

A. Make the condition limited (only one condition card per ship hit)

B. Make the condition wait until the next round before it can trigger, gives the player the ability to fly out of formation or discard the condition.

C. Spend the TL (simple, but then Harpoons aren't likely to hit high agility ships)

5 minutes ago, UnitOmega said:

I think the problem with disrupting the board state as a "counter" to formation flying is that it'll never be as efficient as also just hurting people.

Well, first, it's not disrupting the board state. It's a form of control. Second, there are plenty of effective forms of control that don't rely on directly damaging a ship. Third, I agree: it's not as "efficient." That's by design, since Harpoons are undercosted. (They're just not OP undercosted.)

FFG has two major problems in their design fixes: one, they tend to target small targets with nuclear bombs, or large targets with pea-shooters (Miranda/AdvSLAM and JM5K, respectively); two, they tend to miss their targets. A lot. Harpoons are another example of a third problem they are rapidly developing: absolutely nightmarish mechanics bloat.

Burn it all down: X-Wing 2.0!

1 hour ago, Managarmr said:

Harpoons give a free dead man's switch to the opponent. Good opponents ram home their mortally wounded ship into the enemy. Now there is a tough choice....

So harpoons have disadvantages, and are not the sole missile availabke.

Then why aren't folks using other missiles? Let's check Meta-wing.

Miranda and Nym don't have any other missiles in the top 15 upgrades. Folks try some weird stuff on Vynder, but Rho? Not one non-Harpoon missile or torpedo. Nu? One used XX-23 S-Thread Tracers, one used Proton Rockets. Karsabi? One person used Cruise. Dalan Oberos has 4 times as many Harpoons as Concussion/Cruise combined. Torani Kulda is almost all Harpoons, but one Cruise. There were some Quickdraw with Cruise, less than half as often as Harpoon.

Darth Vader is as likely to use Cruise as Harpoon (but Harpoons perform better). Talonbane Cobra is Cruise less often than Harpoon, but here Cruise has a slightly higher performance percentile. Inquisitor is a roughly even split between Harpoon/PRocket/Cruise, and a few folks with more oddball choices.

OK. So three ships in the entire game where Harpoons are not the runaway choice. That's sure is a lot of available options for missiles, eh?

You wanna argue that Harpoons are not a problem? Whatever, I disagree, but there's something to discuss. But be honest with the fact that Harpoon Missiles are overwhelmingly used.

1 hour ago, Marinealver said:

It is a cancer, back in Wave 4 it wasn't so bad because FFG wouldn't cave in to the demands of the forum crying about TIE Phantoms and C-3PO (you do remember that, if not then you have no room to speak). Now it has malignantly spread to podcasts.

So the latest FFG dev team have caved in and now the game is trashed because of it. So feel good, Nerf Herders control the development of the game. I enjoy the formats that the so-called competitive players say it is too unbalanced like Epic. Also been called a Jumpmaster noob even though I only got one and haven't used it more than a couple of times. So whatever, call me what you want. I know who I am and the opinions of some random person over the internet never changes that.

I'm glad you like epic, I've only played a couple games.

I'm sorry people called you names, but you'll notice I'm not one of them. I'm not calling you anything, it just seems to me your goals and actions are at odds.

You've made it abundantly clear that you don't like nerfs and don't want them, which is a totally fine point of view.

Your goal (as I understand it): No Nerfs!

Your action: Speak incessantly of nerfs.

I don't understand how those fit together. Complete this sentence: "If I speak ironically of nerfs long enough, then [X] will happen."

It seems to me all you're doing is making sure the question of whether to nerf or not is always at the top of everyone's mind and that seems counter-productive to your goals. Can you help me understand?

I was thinking about it as "physically rearranging how things are on the board", I'd argue that's disruptive. What we call "control" in X-Wing are often inherently disruptive mechanics, some are more chaotic than others. Ion is very specific "control" because it for sure says what maneuver an ioned ship will do next round. Very strong control, possibly strong disruption. I guess it depends, are you thinking about it more in reference to you, or the other guy? Stress can be very "disruptive" to what the other player is planning, but is not always very "controlling" depending on the ship stressed the opposing player may have quite a variety of options left to pick from even if they aren't the one he wants. In other cases depending on inherent qualities and builds may severely limit the opposing player to a choice you desire.

Control can be effective without damaging a ship, I think this is just a case where players' play style has influenced the developers. They seem to pick up stuff which does more damage as part of their counters because there's nothing more limiting to the other guy than taking a ship off the board. You could say "control and specific counters can never inflict more damage" but the X-Wing zeitgeist seems to want to do damage. Maybe some of that is just the competitive style of tourney play, but I do think it is just a symptom of the game design. It was originally intended you win by clearing the board, so players are trained to clear the board.

Nerfing and errata is a tricky business. I think FFG really does prefer to release cards not just for purpose of selling more product (because if they don't sell product X-Wing goes away), but also because it's better at growing the game space. A nerf is usually reductive. It's purpose is to take something out of the game, or make it not do so much in the game. This can open up the "meta-game" more but that's not quite the point, the point is that rules or interactions aren't working as intended and make the cards unhealthy or unbalanced so they need to be changed because they can't just be addressed with new gameplay. What FFG has to do to things depends on what they're actually trying to rebalance. ASLAM probably wasn't aimed at Miranda. It kind of set off her game a little, but what it killed was generic K-Wings using it to bomb. People may not like Miranda, but FFG doesn't like to make their ships worthless, because then they have to fix them. So it's entirely possible she's considered working as intended as the one decent K-Wing and will remain so until we get "K-Wing Aces" (or upgrades on other ships which also suit the K-Wing).

"Mechanics bloat" though is super subjective. X-Wing's about a million years from being too bloated or complex for me to keep track of. While a refined edition could help the game in some areas, it almost assuredly wouldn't do away with stuff like conditions or whatever else people think is "bloat", it would just build their ability to do that stuff in more directly. It's like Legion. There's so many more keywords and discrete effects in Legion than in X-Wing, and the terminology is close to how the RPGs are written, and it's not even out yet, so who knows what it'll look like to differentiate all the stuff they know they want to sell and the players will want to buy. But it's also not really bloated. Most of the cards have enough space on them to tell you what each keyword means, if it's intrinsic to a unit or added by an upgrade. A neo-XWM would probably be similar. Harpoons would exist either from the start or eventually, just the game would be intended for it and cards like it to just get you all the same mechanics faster.

EDIT: So I should say, I think "bloat" is the wrong word for X-Wing's problem with mechanics - I think some mechanisms can be clunky, but this is a result of the game being insufficiently future-proofed. A new edition should not necessarily have any less "mechanics" or mechanical interactions, but would probably be designed to present this interaction in a more direct and collected format than the current one forced by outgrowing limitations which didn't account for the fact the game was going to get so much content without folding.

3 hours ago, Sekac said:

I'm glad you like epic, I've only played a couple games.

I'm sorry people called you names, but you'll notice I'm not one of them. I'm not calling you anything, it just seems to me your goals and actions are at odds.

You've made it abundantly clear that you don't like nerfs and don't want them, which is a totally fine point of view.

Your goal (as I understand it): No Nerfs!

Your action: Speak incessantly of nerfs.

I don't understand how those fit together. Complete this sentence: "If I speak ironically of nerfs long enough, then [X] will happen."

It seems to me all you're doing is making sure the question of whether to nerf or not is always at the top of everyone's mind and that seems counter-productive to your goals. Can you help me understand?

No Nerfs is not exactly my goal. Nothing but Nerfs is what I am vehemently against and my goal is to put an end to that attitude. Through the course of balance erratas we have received one quality of life errata and that was the Heavy Scyk title when it was getting a repaint in the C-Roc. So now old stuff won't get a boost unless it is about to be sold again in some fashion, but anything that was good from previously will get downgraded to make room for new stuff. It removes the accessibility the game X-wing once had. Don't buy the ships you see in the movies, those are now bad instead get only from the latest wave. That can't be new player friendly who would want to try their favorite ship they saw from the movie only to see it die to a ship they never even heard of.

I think my real problem is the ruling that things like TLT , Adv. Homing Missiles, Scrambler Missiles, Thread Tracers, etc. (the list goes on) can still trigger the Harpooned! effect. I honestly do not agree with that and find it ridiculous.

EDIT: Oh, I forgot. Deadeye makes Harpoon Missiles much more difficult to deal with, IMO.

I mostly agree with the OP.

Instead of nerfing Harpoons, what should be done is make other ordinance similarly attractive. Make other ordinance have more consistent damage than harpoons and you'll see more diversity in what ordinance gets taken, and thus weaken Harpoons indirectly by making other options attractive.

If fewer/no ordinance spent target locks, or those that did had more inherent dice modification then you'd actually have some meaningful choices.

Lets say that Proton Torpedoes were changed to the following,

Proton Torpedoes: Cost 4. Attack 4. Range 2-3. Attack Target Lock: Discard this card and spend your target lock to perform this attack. You may change one Eyeball result to a Critical result. You may reroll up to 2 dice during this attack.

If a ship had both missile and torpedo slots, this would be a serious, but not overwhelming, competitor for Harpoons.

Lets look at a missile too.

Cluster Missiles: Cost 4. Attack 4. Range 2-3. Attack Target Lock: Discard this card and spend your target lock to perform this attack. You may change one blank result into a Hit result. You may reroll up to 2 dice during this attack.

Again, it would be a serious choice between this and Harpoons. Do I go for more consistent damage with the Concussion missile? Or do I go with a powerful effect+keep my target lock? It is a situation where it is tough to say which is better, and that is good game design.

8 hours ago, Jeff Wilder said:

I just don't buy that Harpoons were them trying to nerf Wookiees. Harpoons would have been at print before Wookiees were even released. Maybe it was to nerf Biggs and FSR? I dunno. It's possible, but it's a stupid way to do it.

Imagine this missile instead: Repulsor Missile: ATT 4, R 2-3, keep TL. If this missile hits, the attacker may perform a BR* on any ship at Range 1 of the defending ship. 4 points.

That's how you combat formation flying. You want to combat Wookiees? Phased Particle Torpedo: "If this attack hits, remove a Reinforce token from each ship at Range 1 of the defending ship."

Harpoon Missiles are only slightly better than they should be, but they're horribly stupid and complicated in design.

I'm convinced that whatever Dev shepherded these was just way too in love with his own Frankenstein.

(*Or whatever you want to call it to keep it from being confused with the BR action.)

Devs are on interview claiming that the idea of Harpoons was conceived before Imperial Veterans came out *).

It helps countering Wookie scrap, but I also doubt that it was to nerf Wookies. But then introducing Reinforce into the 100/6 hypercompetition was a bad idea anyways. Not the least as there probably soon will come something which cancels Reinforce, killing Epic Huges even more. (Not enough that they already suffer immensely from introduction of Cruise Missiles, no defense at all against these, as Huge ships can't maneuvre away from being hit by Cruise).

@Jeff Wilder"Phased Particle Torpedo: "If this attack hits, remove a Reinforce token from each ship at Range 1 of the defending ship."

Having very specific counters to specific things is not very good game design either. And this one would really hurt Huge Ships as well.

@Jeff Wilder "FFG has two major problems in their design fixes: one, they tend to target small targets with nuclear bombs, or large targets with pea-shooters (Miranda/AdvSLAM and JM5K, respectively); two, they tend to miss their targets. A lot. Harpoons are another example of a third problem they are rapidly developing: absolutely nightmarish mechanics bloat."

Yes. And the problem that those "nuclear bombs" totally destroy fun builds for not so serious games, as many cards are unusable due to some specific problem at hypercompetitive 100/6. WHat I really would like to see is just a list of forbidden fieldings, instead of "atomic bomb style" point and slot changes which change the whole landscape. Surgically remove fielding of the one problematic interaction, leaving the rest alone.

Could also be easily implemented in the hypothetical FFG app people here are so violently wishing for. Without changing cards.

*) which is interesting, because my submission to the custom card league before Imperial Veterans looked like this:

"Remote Warhead", Missile, 4pts
Attack (3dice)
Range 1-3
Discard this card to perform this attack.
If this attack hits successfully the defender suffers 1 damage and is assigned a <b>remote token</b>. Then cancel <b>all</b> dice results.

pic: at http: //i.imgur.com/cUPfsMN.jpg referefence looked like this: [

b]Remote Token[/b] Reference Card
This card explains the rules for a remote token and serves as a reference to remind players of its effect. Some card abilities such as "Remote Warhead" can cause a ship to receive a remote token. A ship with a remote token is subject to the following special rules.
In any subsequent activation phase the original attacker can choose the Action "Trigger Remote" to detonate the token. The defender and any ship at range 1 of the defender suffers 1 damage. Then discard this token.

Why....why these "nerf rage" still continue to exist near to topics that shows peoples winning tournaments with IG control ion, or BobaAsajj MobyDick list, or that no-gunboat first place Imperial list?

I mean, without proves I can understand that...but we have PROVES that it is possibile! What's the problem?

14 hours ago, viedit said:

Reload A-wings with prockets would be a hoot. MakeJakeGreatAgain!

Reload EPT it is then?

I am NOT FINE with harpoons. They need to be nerfed. They are just far too powerful and efficient, they just eclipse everything else.

Against 3 agi with evade, focus, Autothrusters and Palp they do Expected Damage 0.04073604941368103
Meanwhile homings have an an expected Damage of 0.8240751922130585. That 20 times as high for just one point extra! ;-)

I don't really mind the existance and functions of Harpoons, what I do mind is that they make ANY other missile a wrong choice when you have Harpoons available.

Simple solution: Raise its pts cost to 6. The most superior missile should be the most expensive, right?

3 hours ago, Cerve said:

Why....why these "nerf rage" still continue to exist near to topics that shows peoples winning tournaments with IG control ion, or BobaAsajj MobyDick list, or that no-gunboat first place Imperial list?

I mean, without proves I can understand that...but we have PROVES that it is possibile! What's the problem?

Because tournament data only matters when their most hated ship/pilot/upgrade wins.

Forget the fact that Mindlink wasn't at the championship table Nerf It. Forget that TIE-x7 were not in the Top 4 Nerf them.

5 minutes ago, Marinealver said:

Because tournament data only matters when their most hated ship/pilot/upgrade wins.

Exactly! It's because the point is to make a more enjoyable game rather than stop anything from ever winning anything.

8 minutes ago, Marinealver said:

Because tournament data only matters when their most hated ship/pilot/upgrade wins.

Forget the fact that Mindlink wasn't at the championship table Nerf It. Forget that TIE-x7 were not in the Top 4 Nerf them.

We have those datas because people are actually lazy to study any other way to counter those lists.

Why we can't just follow those single players that brings out Boba or IG, and just follow the mass like sheeps?


Less whining, more play!

Just to point out btw: if you're talking about the NW Regional, Control Bots didn't win it, they just came top of Swiss. Dash/Poe won it.