Oops. I thought this was a thread for people to show off their conversions. My bad this has just devolved into a "my interpretation of FFG Rules" thread. As usual.

I bet the originator of this thread was hoping for inspiration to customize his/her minatures and or terrain, instead it has devolved into something else.

3 hours ago, Chucknuckle said:

I'd  prefer       FFG to keep their nose entirely OUT of the tournament   scene. Let the players develop their own like they do with other wargame   s         .          Or at the very least, don't specify a limit for games. Build a game that can be balanced from say 400 points to 1,600 po   ints and let the TO set the size of the games  .   

So you want FFG to somehow balance their game across all point levels? That's an impossible task. You can't possibly adequately playtest everything in that scenario.

The reason other wargame creators aren't involved in their tournament scenes and rely on the community to house rule everything is because they don't make an effort to balance their games at any level.

Your both asking for FFG to do the impossible while also abdicating responsibility to balance anything at any level.

Just now, ScottieATF said:

So you want FFG to somehow balance their game across all point levels?

Yes. It's not hard, they've already done it for 800 and 1600 point games, unless you imagine the grand army games will be less balanced than 'regular' games?

8 minutes ago, Chucknuckle said:

Yes. It's not hard, they've already done it for 800 and 1600 point games, unless you imagine the grand army games will be less balanced than 'regular' games?

100% in the same way the alternative/epic play variants are less balanced for every single one of their games.

From AGOT Melee to X-wing Epic that is the case.

Look at it realistically. You have a finite amount of resources and time to allocate to development and playtesting. Less then is required to even adequately balance one format in most instances, let alone others, let alone all others. The amount of playtesting they do for alternative formats is minimal.

They know that most players will stick to the standard game (there's a cost factor there) and they also know the smaller playerbase for those alternative formats will self police themselves and be less likely to really stress the format. Thus the cracks that are inherent are less likely to be seen.

The reason FFG stresses their standard format is because that's what they design and test for.

7 hours ago, DerBaer said:

The difference between GW and FFG is, GW gave a crap on the tournament scene for years and years. I remember tournament rule sets written by the TOs, rebalancing whole armies and inherently changing the game. Because the GW games where so unbalanced, that competitive play was impossible without doing so. GW makes the best tabletop soldiers ... FFG is more into rules. And being a tournament player I like FFG's approach.

What I do not understand is strictly casual gamers playing only at home and still sticking to tournament regulations they don't like. But I think, that's a problem caused by those players and not by FFG.

You're kind of missing the point. Of course anyone can play anything they like in their own home, that's not the issue. The issue is that a portion of the playerbase will attempt to impose FFG's tournament regulations across all levels and styles of play and all discussions about the game so you end up with a community that presents to new players as "tournament-style or sod off" and over time the very idea of not playing exclusively based on the tournament standard becomes alien and unthinkable. A subset of tournament gamers can claim the whole public sphere for their style of play simply by kicking up such drama whenever anyone tries to argue the point that most folk don't want to bother. Even making models that don't adhere to that standard becomes taboo - again, wander over to the Facebook groups and already you find multiple people indignantly remarking about conversions, or smugly reeling off tournament guidelines on bases.

The problem isn't that FFG have tournament standards per se, it's that not enough is done to A; ensure people understand they're exactly that, tournament regulations, not the "correct" way to play the game everywhere and at all times, and B; support other styles of play with events of their own.

Now, they seem to be kind of trying a bit on the latter with the X-Wing 2.0 app features for setting custom listbuilding restrictions, but it's still being presented fairly halfheartedly. GW might take things too far in the other direction by abdicating responsibility for their rules entirely, and by no means am I a fan of the "We Happy Few"-style attitude of relentless and unthinking positivity that permeates some of the more "narrative" focused groups for their games, but at least they give pretty much equal billing to all styles of play in their official material, marketing, and events. FFG still seem pretty set on "organised play" meaning "play-for-keeps tournaments", while more relaxed tournament-style affairs or narrative campaign events will be left to stores.

8 hours ago, ScottieATF said:

100% in the same way the alternative/epic play variants are less balanced for every single one of their games.

I don't know about game of thrones, but Epic X Wing is no more or less balanced than regular X Wing. I'm not actually sure why you'd suggest it is.

Balance isn't hard to achieve. It just shifts sometimes when you make the games bigger or smaller. Soontir Fell was a beast in early stages of X Wing, but never took off in Epic play because his ability to dodge arcs of fire was lessened when more of those arcs were on the table. This doesn't make the game less balanced. It just means you need to approach the different games differently, which is precisely the variety that I'm talking about. Balanced doesn't mean that everything is always good under all circumstances, it means that everything (well, most things. An acceptable number of things. There will always be a couple of accidental duds) has a place, and that will always be true no matter the point size in a well balanced game. GW games don't suck because they utilise a range of points values, they suck because the design team either has no ability or no desire to create a balanced set of rules.

2 minutes ago, Chucknuckle said:

I don't know about game of thrones, but Epic X Wing is no more or less balanced than regular X Wing. I'm not actually sure why you'd suggest it is.

Balance isn't hard to achieve. It just shifts sometimes when you make the games bigger or smaller. Soontir Fell was a beast in early stages of X Wing, but never took off in Epic play because his ability to dodge arcs of fire was lessened when more of those arcs were on the table. This doesn't make the game less balanced. It just means you need to approach the different games differently, which is precisely the variety that I'm talking about. Balanced doesn't mean that everything is always good under all circumstances, it means that everything (well, most things. An acceptable number of things. There will always be a couple of accidental duds) has a place, and that will always be true no matter the point size in a well balanced game. GW games don't suck because they utilise a range of points values, they suck because the design team either has no ability or no desire to create a balanced set of rules.

Balance is absurdly hard to achieve, look at every errata ot fix that FFG has had to release in search of it. If it were as easy as you claim they wouldn't be chasing their own tail trying to achieve it. And this is a company that is better at it then most other miniature game producers. They have trouble balancing one format and yet you think it's trivially easy for them to balance them on. That statement doesn't make any sense.

Your mistaking not played enough in a serious manner for balanced. Like I said earlier the more casual nature of the format combined with less of it being played allows its flaws to be more easily hidden. If players were to approach epic the way they do standard there's no way epic would stand up. It's probably better balanced then GW because FFG thought about it for more then 6 seconds. But you don't accidentally get a balanced product you have to test it and gaurenteed FFG puts significantly more time into their standard format then they do epic.

29 minutes ago, ScottieATF said:

Balance is absurdly hard to achieve, look at every errata ot fix that FFG has had to release in search of it. If it were as easy as you claim they wouldn't be chasing their own tail trying to achieve it. And this is a company that is better at it then most other miniature game producers. They have trouble balancing one format and yet you think it's trivially easy for them to balance them on. That statement doesn't make any sense.

Your mistaking not played enough in a serious manner for balanced. Like I said earlier the more casual nature of the format combined with less of it being played allows its flaws to be more easily hidden. If players were to approach epic the way they do standard there's no way epic would stand up. It's probably better balanced then GW because FFG thought about it for more then 6 seconds. But you don't accidentally get a balanced product you have to test it and gaurenteed FFG puts significantly more time into their standard format then they do epic.

Balance isn't hard to achieve, what's hard is patching things, especially in a miniatures game. There's multiple easy ways to address game balance, the problem is rolling those patches out which is why X Wing 2.0 doesn't feature upgrade slots on ship cards and has no printed points costs. These two things alone should make balance very easy to attain.

I'm still not sure why you'd suggest that Epic is less balanced than normal play. There's absolutely nothing to suggest this is the case, theory wise or evidence wise, and no reason to think that a Grand Army game of Legion would be less balanced than a 'normal' game. Certain units will increase or decrease in value depending on the size of the game, but these changes are unilateral across the board and affect both factions equally, and the result of some units being better at smaller or larger game sizes is a desirable result. Ideally you WANT units that only really shine at higher or lower points values, because when you de-standardise the game, people will play within those ranges and all those units will get used. It's a natural thing that requires no specific balancing: Soontir Fel in 100/6 X Wing is great (well, he was in his heyday) but the increased volume of firing arcs on the board in Epic make him less attractive. This is how things should be.

Usually in arguments about balance I find it illuminating to have folks explicitly define what balance means to them.

What are the end properties of an balanced game or an unbalanced one? Often times folks are talking about totally different, yet mutually valid, things.

To me, balance is when both factions have a roughly equal chance of winning, using a relatively large portion of their available units, at any size of game.

To me balance is the ability to use all units and upgrades in various combinations to produce a list that is balanced with other lists that took a dissimilar set of combinations of units and upgrades. Then regardless of the content of the lists achieve a balanced game between two players where each player has as good a chance of winning based on the merit of their skill, luck and adaptability.

On 3/24/2018 at 5:04 PM, LordUrban said:

Has anyone tried their hand at converting their minis yet? Right now I’m staring at three identical Rebel squad leaders and I just can’t get used to the idea.

If this topic is still about conversions, here is my veers:

(i am confused, because people write more than shwo there conversions)

Yup.

On 6/12/2018 at 7:47 PM, Chucknuckle said:

Balance isn't hard to achieve, what's hard is patching things, especially in a miniatures game. There's multiple easy ways to address game balance, the problem is rolling those patches out which is why X Wing 2.0 doesn't feature upgrade slots on ship cards and has no printed points costs. These two things alone should make balance very easy to attain.

I'm still not sure why you'd suggest that Epic is less balanced than normal play. There's absolutely nothing to suggest this is the case, theory wise or evidence wise, and no reason to think that a Grand Army game of Legion would be less balanced than a 'normal' game. Certain units will increase or decrease in value depending on the size of the game, but these changes are unilateral across the board and affect both factions equally, and the result of some units being better at smaller or larger game sizes is a desirable result. Ideally you WANT units that only really shine at higher or lower points values, because when you de-standardise the game, people will play within those ranges and all those units will get used. It's a natural thing that requires no specific balancing: Soontir Fel in 100/6 X Wing is great (well, he was in his heyday) but the increased volume of firing arcs on the board in Epic make him less attractive. This is how things should be.

So balance is easy, patching is hard? Yet whats the reason they are patching, and patching, and patching, and patching, and new edition with better built in patching. Why are they patching? The answer is because the game is unbalanced. They aren't doing it for their health. They are doing it because some things are way too good and hurt the game and some things are so bad they may as well not exist, or simply put they can't balance the game. If balancing a game were easy they wouldn't be expending so many extra resources trying to get it done, they'd just do it in the first place. So why if it's so easy are they constantly having to rebalance with patches?

You keep bringing up Soontir Fel in epic play. Absolutely he immediately loses most of his luster when you up the amount of arcs and shots he has to deal with. His survivability tanks so he can't justify his higher point cost especially not with upgrades. But you're missing that decrease in survivability hits ever single named pilot and/or arc dodging ship. Nothing can stand up to the extra firepower and you can't out maneuver the extra arcs. That's a quintessential issue with just cranking the point level up. Everything can die so quickly you can't take expensive options.

Just now, ScottieATF said:

So balance is easy, patching is hard? Yet whats the reason they are patching, and patching, and patching, and patching, and new edition with better built in patching. Why are they patching? The answer is because the game is unbalanced. They aren't doing it for their health. They are doing it because some things are way too good and hurt the game and some things are so bad they may as well not exist, or simply put they can't balance the game. If balancing a game were easy they wouldn't be expending so many extra resources trying to get it done, they'd just do it in the first place. So why if it's so easy are they constantly having to rebalance with patches?

The better question is why do the patches cost so many resources? It's painfully obvious to most players instantly on release whether a ship in X Wing is OP or DOA. Majorjuggler over on the X Wing forums has reliably and repeatedly predicted the performance of ships and upgrades to within 95%, even before they're released. Just hire the freaking guy (or someone with a similar skillset) and most of the problems disappear overnight. The problem isn't identifying problems, it's addressing them . If patches in 1.0 could realistically be rolled out multiple times in a week, or even multiple times in a day, and if you open up more design space for the purposes of tweaking, the problem practically evaporates. In X Wing 1.0, FFG refused to balance through refinement, and instead opted to balance through design, which led to an evolving game and not in the good way. Now, they've opted to balance through refinement and haven't even bothered to print point costs on the cards since they will be constantly tweaked. If they are prompt with the updates the balance should be a breeze.

Just now, ScottieATF said:

You keep bringing up Soontir Fel in epic play. Absolutely he immediately loses most of his luster when you up the amount of arcs and shots he has to deal with. His survivability tanks so he can't justify his higher point cost especially not with upgrades. But you're missing that decrease in survivability hits ever single named pilot and/or arc dodging ship. Nothing can stand up to the extra firepower and you can't out maneuver the extra arcs. That's a quintessential issue with just cranking the point level up. Everything can die so quickly you can't take expensive options.

Absolutely, but that's only a problem and only translates into imbalance if one faction relies entirely on arc dodgers and high-priced named aces for their competitive games. Imperials might lose their arc dodgers, but off the top of my headthey gain a lot of utility from their TIE swarms, bombers, the Gozanti is a beast that multiplies the value of anything it carries (being able to set dials and disembark/take actions after every other ship has moved is BOSS, but I digress) and of course they get the Raider. It's not less balanced than the 100/6 meta (which has never been balanced ever since the core set, when two TIEs were clearly superior to one X Wing, and what was the last big thing? JM5K's or bust? Nym/Miranda? Bombs for days? I dunno, but the point is that the X Wing meta has always been dominated by two or three list archetypes) Epic it just has it's own meta which is different. The same is true for Legion and it's Grand Army format. Certain units will gain efficacy, certain units will lose it, but so long as each faction can still compete and no one point level completely invalidates huge swathes of the available roster, then the game remains balanced.

FFG seems to be changing tact on the updating and errata cycles of games.

Last year Armada, Destiny and X-Wing got some pretty big ones.

I think FFG being a board games company that has influenced their behaviors a lot, but now they are in the miniatures and collectable spaces they have to change. These games aren't just set and forget you have to look after them. Be that by changing the card text, upping the cost or removing a card from play entirely.

I hope the X-Wing app idea is a great success, and that a similar tool can be implemented in Armada and Legion.

On 6/14/2018 at 2:21 AM, Chucknuckle said:

The better      question is why do the patches cost so many resources? It's painfully obvious to most players instantly on release whether a ship in X Wing is OP or DOA. Majorjuggler over on the X Wing forums has reliably and repeatedly predicted the performance of ships and upgrades to within 95%, even before they  're released. Just hire the freaking guy (or someone with a similar skillset) and most of the problems disappear overnight. The problem isn't identifying problems, it's addressing them . If patches in 1.0 could realistically be rolled out multiple times in a week, or even multiple times in a day, and if you open up more design space for the purposes of tweaking, the problem practically evaporates. In X Wing 1.0, FFG refused to balance through refinement, and instead opted to balance through design, which led to an evolving game and not in the  good way. Now, they've opted to balance through refinement and haven't even bothered to print point costs on the cards  since they will be constantly tweaked. If they are pro  mpt  with the updates the balance should be a breeze.

Which ever route you want to take on this the end result is the same. FFG has had trouble balancing even their single standard format. Whether you want to conclude that's because FFG is incompetent/unwilling to do something easy or that it really isn't easy; the result is still that FFG has trouble balancing even one format. The idea that they are going to be able to balance multiple formats let alone create a game that will scale at any point level does not reconcile itself with the fact that.

But just to reiterate how difficult balancing a game is, doing so is a persistent hurdle across all games. It isn't just FFG its other miniature games (FFG is among the better at it here). It's other board games. Its other card games, even ones like MTG and Pokemon which dwarf any FFG line in its resources. It's even video game that beyond mechanic quarks just have straight up valuation problems in stats and abilities. How many multi million dollar video games are constant buff/cycles? You act like hiring a person with an advanced degree in mathematics is both an instant fix and easy to do. Except that such a person would command such a huge salary (again limited resources to accomplish a task) and even in enterprises that can afford such people they still have balance issues.

The idea that balancing a game is easy is farcical and not in keeping with the reality of any gaming industry.

And yet many games across many platforms are balanced. Just as Epic X Wing is just as balanced as normal X Wing.

Because the shift in meta power affects all factions equally, the game remains balanced. No faction suddenly finds itself unable to compete because the points have gone up, and this is true in the overwhelming majority of tabletop games. Suggesting that the game will break if FFG steps away from promoting a single standard way to play, because no other play format will be balanced, is just laughable.

Most games are not balanced, especially not games where they have to constantly introduce new content. Most games struggle to find periods of relative balance and spend a fair bit of time stuck in cycles of buffs and nerfs. Some go majorly off the rails and need huge redressed. It is not an easy task, it's something the vast majority of games outright struggle with.

Game mechanics are based, predominantly, on the single format. That's where the game is designed. That's what stats, point costs, abilities, and game mechanics are scaled for. Things do not scale linearly you can't just dial up and down the points and expect the game to function the same way. You continue to assert that alternative formats are balanced without considering that they do not get anywhere near the scruntity or play the main format gets. You're confusing lack of stress testing with lack of issues.

On 6/13/2018 at 2:14 PM, Polda said:

Yup.

Absolutely stunning.

8 hours ago, ScottieATF said:

Most games are not balanced

When I consider balance, it's a binary assessment. A thing is either balanced enough to play, or it's not. Most games are balanced. Only a very few are unplayable. I've yet to encounter a game that becomes more or less balanced when the scale changes. The meta changes, sure, like we've discussed with Epic X Wing, but the balance does not. All three main factions in X Wing remain balanced against one another because they have a range of options which become more or less viable as the points limit changes. The Resistance and First Order may well be another matter entirely, because of their limited unit choices. This is where the points limit can have an effect on balance: reducing the efficiency of one or two ships when a faction only has access to four or five ships could completely skew the balance.

I'm not confusing the testing/balance issue, I'm just assuming, until proven otherwise, that Epic is just as balanced as Standard X Wing (and the same for Legion and it's Grand Army format) until the evidence indicates otherwise. And so far the evidence has not, so there's no reason to assume that imbalance exists.

The key issue for me is that when the points change it affects all factions equally. Imperial named aces become less viable in larger games, but so do Rebel and Scum ones. If a faction relied extensively on a single gimmick or tied it's identity to a specific unit type then point changes can become an issue, but most game designers are aware of this and avoid making their factions so one dimensional.

There's absolutely no reason to suggest that the game would become less balanced if FFG stopped advocating for one points limit to rule them all.

@Chucknuckle: I think you just have a different definition of balance than me ...

This topic needs a re-balance!

More conversions, less off-topic bickering.

(sigh)

11 minutes ago, ABXY said:

This topic needs a re-balance!

More conversions, less off-topic bickering.

(sigh)

Yeah, but we have a whole forum for that, and discussions around balance are interesting

3 hours ago, Chucknuckle said:

Yeah, but we have a whole forum for that, and discussions around balance are interesting

Yes, but a discussion about balance is very much off topic for this post about conversions.