As a modest proposal for how to "fix" game balance without errata, FAQ, or new ships/pilots (which I have no idea why this keeps getting kicked around, as adding more stuff can hardly be considered 'fixing what is already there')

The problems that seem to get focused on are:

• 80-degree-arc-locked ships are devalued from where they should be. Harpoon missiles are generally held to have helped with this...except they gets their own hate, and only help ordnance-carriers, anyway
• List-building (rather than flying) is frequently the biggest deciding factor on matches. With even balanced and strong lists, there are well known "bad matchups" or "good matchups" where you're expected to lose or win barring some miracle happening in gameplay.
• Alpha-strikes are too powerful, and lists that cannot deliver a good alpha - even if otherwise well designed around maneuver - don't have a good way of avoiding being wiped out by alpha-focused lists (this was MOST prevalent in the jumpmaster meta - and although it's not quite as extreme now, it's still a big part of the game)
• EDIT to add: TLTs. TLTs are not well balanced in effect with other weapons in the game, and have an oversized impact paired with some pilots (Miranda most famously)

FWIW, I think many or most of these things can be fixed by re-emphasizing maneuver. And how is this done? MORE TERRAIN! I'd do this in two parts:

1. General increase in terrain. Each player brings 4 pieces, instead of 3... for 8 total terrain pieces on the board rather than 6.
2. New terrain type. Suggesting, here, something that operates a bit outside the usual order of operations and also shaped quite a bit differently to provide cover better - the dust clouds from your copy of 'Star Wars Armada: The Corellian Conflict'. If you haven't seen these, they are longer and thinner than existing terrain:
   
   
   How I'd propose those work in X-Wing would be as 'gas clouds'. Tibanna gas, maybe? Something. Anyway:
   - During the 'Planning Phase', if your ship base is on a gas cloud, you may only choose from your green dial options (FAQ: 'green dial options' are maneuvers that are specifically green on your dial not white or red maneuvers that are 'treated as green' during the activation phase)
   - During the 'Combat Phase', if performing an attack where the edge of the range ruler overlaps a gas cloud, you must suffer 1 damage during the 'roll attack dice' step

How are you proposing to put these into the rules without errata or new ships, exactly?

1 minute ago, thespaceinvader said:

How are you proposing to put these into the rules without errata or new ships, exactly?

Campaign pack, like armada

No. The problem is that the fat turret ships are WAYYY more effective and wayyy more maneuver AND wayyyy more options than small arc locked ships.

I'm in favor for 4 obstacles.

But the last time they aded new rocks (debris), it was COMPLETELY FAVORED for large ships. And Dash. It was the stupidest thing I've seen.

We need rocks that heavily penalize large and fat turrets.

We need actual cards that counter, even remotely large and fat turrets.

Here are just a FEW of the cards that hard counter aces: All the bombs, ABT, BMST, feedback array

Here are the cards that even remotely hurt large ships more: *crickets*. That's right. I'll wait. Try and name any that are 25% to 50% effective against aces like the hard counters listed above.

Don't bother saying ions. They work, but they rarely do enough for them to be useful when considered in the general meta.

10 minutes ago, GrimmyV said:

Campaign pack, like armada

That'd be the one way. Another core set would be another possibility, although remote (unless FFG jumps into the Clone Wars era, which feels unlikely).

But really it's only the new terrain tokens that would need to be in a product at all - the tournament rules already define what obstacles are brought into a match in the 'Squad Building' section, and those aren't updated via FAQ or release, they just get updated as new products come out. Currently, for example, the rules read:

Quote

Each player must include exactly three unique obstacle tokens of their choice
in their squad. Players must select these obstacles from the twelve asteroids
included in the two core sets and the six debris clouds included in the YT-
2400 and VT-49 Decimator expansion packs. A player may not select
two of the same asteroid or debris cloud.

...but that's obviously changed over time. And note that I didn't say no new release, just no new pilots/ships/errata/or FAQ.

2 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

No. The problem is that the fat turret ships are WAYYY more effective and wayyy more maneuver AND wayyyy more options than small arc locked ships.

I'm in favor for 4 obstacles.

But the last time they aded new rocks (debris), it was COMPLETELY FAVORED for large ships. And Dash. It was the stupidest thing I've seen.

We need rocks that heavily penalize large and fat turrets.

You'll see a lot of folks disagreeing with this position, although not me, so I didn't want to call out 'screw turrets' specifically in the proposal. Although maybe it's clear I was taking a pretty big dig at Dash, given neither Dash crew nor pilot can totally avoid the effect of the gas clouds...

The dust clouds from Armada are a very large obstacle type (comparatively) which should do wonders for helping small-base ships hide from large-base turrets. Not to mention ending up on one of the gas clouds being a huge penalty for the next turn's movement - again, more likely with larger bases than smaller bases.

The intention of the gas cloud proposal was to achieve the goals I outlined in the OP - but also in that I agree large bases are a bit OP at the moment, provide a subtle nerf to them as well.

@xanderf, I like your intentions. I like creativity.

But large turrets are SO much above and beyond everything else. Its not about bringing everything else up to their level. They're just utterly ridiculous synergy, mobility, fire-arcs, options like bombing, innate dice mods like Ezra Maul, innate defense like Ghost evade and Fenn. Ps11 Coordinate. Its utter BS.

The core of this game is wonderful and great. And the last few releases have basically crapped all over power creep and balance.

Turrets, especially small base turrets, have a far easier time navigating obstacle clutter than arclocked ships

When you add turrets and bombs AND obstacles...yeah that's a Miranda nym wet dream. have fun with that

Not to mention Dash, Rey (Kanan), and the ghost (maul Ezra) really don't give a rat's *** about debris relatively speaking

2 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

@xanderf, I like your intentions. I like creativity.

But large turrets are SO much above and beyond everything else. Its not about bringing everything else up to their level. They're just utterly ridiculous synergy, mobility, fire-arcs, options like bombing, innate dice mods like Ezra Maul, innate defense like Ghost evade and Fenn. Ps11 Coordinate. Its utter BS.

The core of this game is wonderful and great. And the last few releases have basically crapped all over power creep and balance.

They are, by and large, paying for that strength, though. Both in higher cost (probably not enough higher), and more challenge in maneuvering.

At least...theoretically.

As a matter of practicality, they really don't, as...well, first off, their maneuver dials tend to be ridiculous, but then there just aren't enough obstacles on the board to matter for them. Can't really do much about the first thing without re-printing their dials, but the second should be a lot easier to fix.

3 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

Turrets, especially small base turrets, have a far easier time navigating obstacle clutter than arclocked ships

When you add turrets and bombs AND obstacles...yeah that's a Miranda nym wet dream. have fun with that

I really don't think that Miranda is going to be firing at anyone behind a gas cloud. Nor, indeed, any of the popular TLT options (Nym would take 2 damage from doing so, and the Ghost? LOL...). Non-Miranda/Nym/Ghost turrets haven't really shaken the game up since Han and Dash.

Additionally, I don't really see the gas clouds as being a big synergy issue with bombs vs arc-locked small bases - there is, after all, no penalty for flying through them...just starting your turn on one, or shooting through it. Either easy enough to avoid for an arc-locked ship. (Although maybe the issue is that a single gas cloud like this wouldn't be enough to shake anything up, and no TLT player will voluntarily bring one - so possibly just stick to the 'both players pick 3 obstacles' and 2 gas clouds are automatically added for the total of 8 obstacles...)

2 minutes ago, xanderf said:

They are, by and large, paying for that strength, though. Both in higher cost (probably not enough higher), and more challenge in maneuvering.

At least...theoretically.

As a matter of practicality, they really don't, as...well, first off, their maneuver dials tend to be ridiculous, but then there just aren't enough obstacles on the board to matter for them. Can't really do much about the first thing without re-printing their dials, but the second should be a lot easier to fix.

I really don't think that Miranda is going to be firing at anyone behind a gas cloud. Nor, indeed, any of the popular TLT options (Nym would take 2 damage from doing so, and the Ghost? LOL...). Non-Miranda/Nym/Ghost turrets haven't really shaken the game up since Han and Dash.

Additionally, I don't really see the gas clouds as being a big synergy issue with bombs vs arc-locked small bases - there is, after all, no penalty for flying through them...just starting your turn on one, or shooting through it. Either easy enough to avoid for an arc-locked ship. (Although maybe the issue is that a single gas cloud like this wouldn't be enough to shake anything up, and no TLT player will voluntarily bring one - so possibly just stick to the 'both players pick 3 obstacles' and 2 gas clouds are automatically added for the total of 8 obstacles...)

I'm really lost.

Whatever it is, I don't know why its so hard for people to agree that recent fat turrets are stupidly power creep.

Large turrets have better time maneuvering by far through obstacles, turreted ships generally have the best dial in the game Especially after making things worse with dropping bombs.

Don't believe me? People thought it was ridiculous to imagine that the Silencer would have every move green except reds. ... GUESS WHAT DASH HAS with kanan.

Your choice of damage firing through them is really weird.

Ion cloud (obstacle)

when a ship overlaps an ion cloud or its maneuver temples overlaps an ion cloud, that ship cannot target ships outside its firing arc.

Also something about an ion token... I guess

8 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

Your choice of damage firing through them is really weird.

It's Tibanna gas. When you fire through it, parts of it detonate and feedback through your weapon's plasma wake all the way back to your ship. :-D

24 minutes ago, xanderf said:

It's Tibanna gas. When you fire through it, parts of it detonate and feedback through your weapon's plasma wake all the way back to your ship. :-D

lol thats difficult.

57 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

@xanderf, I like your intentions. I like creativity.

But large turrets are SO much above and beyond everything else. Its not about bringing everything else up to their level. They're just utterly ridiculous synergy, mobility, fire-arcs, options like bombing, innate dice mods like Ezra Maul, innate defense like Ghost evade and Fenn. Ps11 Coordinate. Its utter BS.

The core of this game is wonderful and great. And the last few releases have basically crapped all over power creep and balance.

So, then, what about some sort of gas cloud that completely blocks attacks and LOS thru it. Would something like this help ships sneak up on fat turrets??

11 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

So, then, what about some sort of gas cloud that completely blocks attacks and LOS thru it. Would something like this help ships sneak up on fat turrets??

That is, FWIW, how the dust fields work in 'Armada'. No impact on maneuver at all, but attacks cannot be executed through it. Or, more specifically, attacks by 'ships' cannot occur through it - 'squadrons' can attack through it, but the attack is obstructed.

I didn't go with that implementation for two reasons:

• Blocking an attack outright doesn't really hurt the Miranda/Nym/Ghost builds as much as allowing an attack that causes damage back to the attacker.
• No impact on maneuver at all somewhat runs against the intended goal of emphasizing positioning and maneuver. Unfortunately, there isn't much you can do in the activation phase that Dash (pilot) isn't going to just ignore, and we already know he can (IE., will be) be a monster if the current Rebels displacing him end up being reduced in effectiveness. So that leaves either the combat phase again (boring, as we're already proposing one effect there), planning phase, or end phase. Given the increasing pile of mechanics already appearing in the 'end phase', it seemed most interesting to introduce something that could impact maneuver as an option during the planning phase.

90 point, or 110 point squads.

16 hours ago, Hawkstrike said:

90 point, or 110 point squads.

While it's true that this would technically change things...I rather don't see how it would help any of the things that people complain about current balance around...