34 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

Yeah, sure, real warfare went this way. Carriers completely outclassed any other ship, but did it make for more interesting gameplay, more interesting combat stories? Nope. Just over the horizon missiles.

Pfft, whatever . "Hunt for Red October" => best naval action/combat movie, hands down. (Arguable) runner up => "Top Gun". Carriers and over-the-horizon-missiles rock.

17 minutes ago, geek19 said:

Vader Double ISD. Zero squadrons, 1-3 flotillas. Kills other flotilla spam lists, and if you build it well you can handle any opposing squadron lists.

Thanks for the rec. but that doesn’t really respond to what I’m saying. It also doesn’t have much to do with the data showing a higher than 3 number for average used flotillas.

Its important to note that I’m not saying there’s no way to play without running 4 flotillas. And even that’s kinda crazy. That we even assume that having 2-3 flotillas is a must for a competitive fleet no? Even you must see that.

Hey guys I have photos of all the lists from Southern California regionals here.

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=12Ocgb83NuCoFfJWgT_yRW3nsdgxtWTKY

There may need to be some sorting and renaming done, but this should be every list and the overall finishing order through Swiss. Connor Palacio won the top cut elimination match.

I can assist in transcribing stuff, but I've got a very busy day ahead. If anyone wants to start with the top 4-8, I'll try to work on the rest later tonight.

48 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

At this point, I think we need to literally start tracking the win rates of lists with 4 and 5 flotillas. We are at that stage now.

Have you got any data to prove we are at that stage?

3 hours ago, Tokra said:

@Baltanok has the numbers for the regionals from this season that got reported.
I can only make a guess from the numbers from him.

Currently i see out of 16 regionals and 323 lists (did i get this numbers right?)

I see 94 Lists with 1 Flotilla, 96 with 2 Flotilla and 65 with 3+ Flotilla.
79% of all fleets had at least one Flotilla. This leaves 68 fleets without any Flotilla.

Sadly this number change in the Top4.
95% of all fleets in the Top 4 had at least one Flotilla. That is 61 out of 64 lists.
And even 28 out of the 64 had 3+ Flotillas.

For the winner lists it is really over the top.
16 Fleets, 11 had 3+ Flotilla. 3 had 2 Flotilla, 1 had one Flotilla and 1 had no Flotilla.

close - 16 tournaments entered so far, 323 participants, but only 300 lists, since some tournaments don't have full lists. Even excluding YGH lists, 3 flotilla lists are a fair bit more likely to end up in the top 4:

I'm not willing to extend the argument beyond 3 flots, largely due to small sample size. (YGH+3Flot lists are 7/5/71% for comparison's sake)

1 minute ago, Ginkapo said:

Have you got any data to prove we are at that stage?

I saw several 4 flotilla fleets at socal. haven't checked how many made it to the top 8 aside from mine, but they are clearly having a massive impact on the game if they are present in nearly every meta.

2 minutes ago, thecactusman17 said:

I saw several 4 flotilla fleets at socal. haven't checked how many made it to the top 8 aside from mine, but they are clearly having a massive impact on the game if they are present in nearly every meta.

Given @Church14 just declared Pryce Avenger OP, its fair to say that its not all metas. Its certainly not mine which currently has an ISD issue.

Indeed if actually look at the winners of these regionals, outside of Germany the winning fleets are extremely varied. Some have one ISD, others have two! So diverse!

Maybe that data will show a large usage of flotillas in the past.

Going forward I feel that wont be the case. With large ships getting a pass imperials will through ISD's on the table more.

To fight a good ISD or two by a decent opponent people wont be able to have 5 or 6 flotillas. You will need combat ships.

By encouraging large ships that are tough padding becomes harder to justify.

Lets give this a chance and see where we end up.

1 hour ago, Blail Blerg said:

At this point, I think we need to literally start tracking the win rates of lists with 4 and 5 flotillas. We are at that stage now.

Ackbar fish farm is 4 or 5.

ISD 1+4 is 4, not 3 flotillas.

I've seen some lists with ISD, MC75, Mc80 and 5 flotillas now.

---

I want to say this now. I don't want to have to buy a 4th flotilla to remain competitive in this game, or to even try out the winningest lists. Getting the 3rd was already something I grit my teeth on. I wish I had only ever needed 2.

The same is true for squadrons. I don't want to have to buy 2-3 packs of squadrons to be competitive, in a game where literally 75% of the winning lists are 121-134 its of squads. (That's literally the percentage as of last night).

Same that I don't want to buy 4 Mc30s. But man, no combat ship other than the MC30 has ever been close to the amount of competitive/winning spam we see with flotillas and squadrons.

Yeah, sure, real warfare went this way. Carriers completely outclassed any other ship, but did it make for more interesting gameplay, more interesting combat stories? Nope. Just over the horizon missiles.

I've long been a supporter of the "flotillas don't count for tabling" option, and after this weekend's tournament I'm an even stronger advocate for that. Plus, I can now be added to the list of players who vehemently dislikes Relay in its current form.

Honestly, I'm glad Regionals season is over. Since I'm not planning on heading to Worlds, I hope I can put competitive Armada behind me for a spell and play around with some nonsense. My faith in the current competitive meta is a bit shaken up right now, if I'm being honest. My plan is to get away from that mindset for a while and just enjoy the game I love.

22 minutes ago, Radaeon said:

Maybe that data will show a large usage of flotillas in the past.

Going forward I feel that wont be the case. With large ships getting a pass imperials will through ISD's on the table more.

To fight a good ISD or two by a decent opponent people wont be able to have 5 or 6 flotillas. You will need combat ships.

By encouraging large ships that are tough padding becomes harder to justify.

Lets give this a chance and see where we end up.

The issue is that those large ships need activation padding to move into position, and also want backup support to cover issues like action economy and squad support.

I agree in the past that has been an issue (ie moving big ships into position).

I feel we might be heading for a corner and about to turn it. As such I would like to see how the new toys pan out.

ugh, sad i couldn't make either the NE or FL ones, I absolutely should have gone.

12 hours ago, IronNerd said:

I've long been a supporter of the "flotillas don't count for tabling" option, and after this weekend's tournament I'm an even stronger advocate for that. Plus, I can now be added to the list of players who vehemently dislikes Relay in its current form.

Honestly, I'm glad Regionals season is over. Since I'm not planning on heading to Worlds, I hope I can put competitive Armada behind me for a spell and play around with some nonsense. My faith in the current competitive meta is a bit shaken up right now, if I'm being honest. My plan is to get away from that mindset for a while and just enjoy the game I love.

It is not the Flotilla that cause the problems. It this the ability to do last/first that lead to this inflation on activations.
All they have to do is to remove the chance for the last/first activation, and you will notice that the number of activations will go back to a healthy number.

But this is not the first time this is said. This discussion exist for so long now.

Yeah, I wish 2nd player had a way of guaranteeing last activation every round, barring some special effect (Pryce). That would even the playing field dramatically.

17 hours ago, Space_Cowboy17 said:

We should start counting how many flotillas are in the winning fleets. Pretty sure the average is between 3 and 4. Not going to back track and run the numbers on my lunch break but it is pretty high I am sure...

I'm no fan of the flotilla spam, the gozanti is the only expansion to the game I've got more than one of (and only two to be exact), and I've been running my own little rebellion against the whole activation race.

I took the Utrecht (Netherlands) Regionals in January with only a single flotilla and only three activations in total (pre-Wave, so none of the new activation sheenanigans to help compensate for my lack of ships).

On 2/18/2018 at 12:14 PM, thecactusman17 said:

Now THAT is an unusual list! Massive bid, no combat ships, all squadron activations. Rapid Launch Bays! Pelta with Engine Techs! No Fighter coordination teams!

I'm not sure if we'd eat it alive or if it would give Bail Berg an aneurysm!

Dude... the Pelta comes in hot when built like that. It’s basically the rebel equivalent of demolisher.

Though I do agree that it is an unusual variation. No Adar. Massive bid. 4 flotillas. No Jan!?! It’s probably in response to the fish farm, to ensure second player. Though the ships and squadrons are mighty squishy without Jan.

Doggone it, I could not make the Melbourne one. Any data on that one? Would love to see what I missed playing against.

3 hours ago, Tokra said:

It is not the Flotilla that cause the problems. It this the ability to do last/first that lead to this inflation on activations.
All they have to do is to remove the chance for the last/first activation, and you will notice that the number of activations will go back to a healthy number.

But this is not the first time this is said. This discussion exist for so long now.

So, would you argue that cards that add to it continue the problem, since they can give a player a similar effect for a much lower cost, or do you think that people are less likely to be concerned about it because it's rolled into the cost (both points and opportunity cost) of a capital ship?

6 minutes ago, AlexW said:

So, would you argue that cards that add to it continue the problem, since they can give a player a similar effect for a much lower cost, or do you think that people are less likely to be concerned about it because it's rolled into the cost (both points and opportunity cost) of a capital ship?

Sorry, but i really dont understand the question. What in particular do you mean.

If you refer to Strategic Adiser, i can only say it might make it worse. The Liberty one ship list (one MC80 + 5 Transports) will become even more deadly with this. And it could even remove a transport for more upgrades and still has the 6 activations. And even the ISD+4 list profit from the SA. Not because they can make a list with less ships, these lists can catch up to the 6 ship MSU lists without any problems, or even worse, have 6 activations and start a last first. Something that was not possible so often with 5 ships.

Sadly they CANNOT really remove the last/first problem anymore. Because they just added two cards that are especially made for this combination (Pryce and Bail Organa). With this two cards they gave small number ships the ability to do the trick. So there is no way anymore to remove it.
Before wave 7 it would have been possible to fix it. Now it is not possible anymore.

I am not saying that it will happen this way. But it can. This is one of my fear what these cards might add.

11 minutes ago, Tokra said:

Sorry, but i really dont understand the question. What in particular do you mean.

If you refer to Strategic Adiser, i can only say it might make it worse. The Liberty one ship list (one MC80 + 5 Transports) will become even more deadly with this. And it could even remove a transport for more upgrades and still has the 6 activations. And even the ISD+4 list profit from the SA. Not because they can make a list with less ships, these lists can catch up to the 6 ship MSU lists without any problems, or even worse, have 6 activations and start a last first. Something that was not possible so often with 5 ships.

Sadly they CANNOT really remove the last/first problem anymore. Because they just added two cards that are especially made for this combination (Pryce and Bail Organa). With this two cards they gave small number ships the ability to do the trick. So there is no way anymore to remove it.
Before wave 7 it would have been possible to fix it. Now it is not possible anymore.

I am not saying that it will happen this way. But it can. This is one of my fear what these cards might add.

Yeah, you mostly answered my basic question as to whether those cards would be looked at as problematic rather than an evening out of things. I also wonder if people would feel differently about them since they are forced to go on capital ships and, therefore, have to be part of the fight (whereas ~20 points can run away if needed and not be worth chasing).

For the good and health of the game we could all just agree to never take more flotillas than ships.

If FFG made a rule like this the community at large would overwhelmingly welcome it. Why wait?

We are adults and we all see that flotilla activations are out of control and an easy button.

Adults fix things, not wait on mommy and a daddy (FFG) to deem the obvious problem, a problem.

We can and should take ownership of our game, not just set back and continue to abuse the obvious rules issue.

8 minutes ago, Space_Cowboy17 said:

For the good and health of the game we could all just agree to never take more flotillas than ships.

If FFG made a rule like this the community at large would overwhelmingly welcome it. Why wait?

We are adults and we all see that flotilla activations are out of control and an easy button.

Adults fix things, not wait on mommy and a daddy (FFG) to deem the obvious problem, a problem.

We can and should take ownership of our game, not just set back and continue to abuse the obvious rules issue.

Because as soon as one person disagrees with the idea it falls apart? We know FFG is working on something, and I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

35 minutes ago, Space_Cowboy17 said:

For the good and health of the game we could all just agree to never take more flotillas than ships.

If FFG made a rule like this the community at large would overwhelmingly welcome it. Why wait?

We are adults and we all see that flotilla activations are out of control and an easy button.

Adults fix things, not wait on mommy and a daddy (FFG) to deem the obvious problem, a problem.

We can and should take ownership of our game, not just set back and continue to abuse the obvious rules issue.

Why? Your “fix” creates a game that you more personally may enjoy but does not take into my consideration that I believe three or four flotillas flying around a large ship to be believable in Star Wars. Those are the supply ships ferrying in supplies and equipment. Your beef is with activation advantage and until that is addressed this argument will go on. Rules restricting what ships I can bring are damaging to the game.

18 hours ago, IronNerd said:

I've long been a supporter of the "flotillas don't count for tabling" option, and after this weekend's tournament I'm an even stronger advocate for that. Plus, I can now be added to the list of players who vehemently dislikes Relay in its current form.

Honestly, I'm glad Regionals season is over. Since I'm not planning on heading to Worlds, I hope I can put competitive Armada behind me for a spell and play around with some nonsense. My faith in the current competitive meta is a bit shaken up right now, if I'm being honest. My plan is to get away from that mindset for a while and just enjoy the game I love.

Dude......

This....

Like plus about 50 hundred.

19 hours ago, IronNerd said:

I've long been a supporter of the "flotillas don't count for tabling" option, and after this weekend's tournament I'm an even stronger advocate for that. Plus, I can now be added to the list of players who vehemently dislikes Relay in its current form.

Honestly, I'm glad Regionals season is over. Since I'm not planning on heading to Worlds, I hope I can put competitive Armada behind me for a spell and play around with some nonsense. My faith in the current competitive meta is a bit shaken up right now, if I'm being honest. My plan is to get away from that mindset for a while and just enjoy the game I love.

I’m with you. I think FFG should implement that ruling on Flotes and then see if that helps mitigate some of th distaste toward flote spamming and complaints against relay before taking the axe to relay and others aspects of the game.

If the competitive scene has got you down then you should check out vassal... so many crazies on there. It’s great. Really have no idea what you’ll face. Dual VSDs with max tie fighters and no flotes or relay... who does that?