2 hours ago, thespaceinvader said:

Poe and anything, Vader, QD and whatever, primarily.

Err... no? Poe usually flies with either Dash or with Lowrisk and Ezra. Both lists have little or no bid. QD flies either with triple Nus or with RAC. Neither list has any bid at all. Vader is rare these days. I've only seen him with triple harpoon lists and again, no bid. It's possible a PS11 list with a bid will show up here and there but they're definitely not common which is precisely why not filling last 3 points in these lists makes little sense and isn't seen much.

VI & Adapt available to generics only. Done.

PS8 (PS6 + VI) generic silencers suddenly get pretty **** interesting. As far as "bid wars". Go for it. You want to race for the bottom, have fun. That's your choice. You may end up missing some of those upgrades.

2 minutes ago, viedit said:

VI & Adapt available to generics only. Done.

PS8 (PS6 + VI) generic silencers suddenly get pretty **** interesting. As far as "bid wars". Go for it. You want to race for the bottom, have fun. That's your choice. You may end up missing some of those upgrades.

Glaives, too. Triple VI Glaives becomes pretty attractive.

Bid wars can be lessened if a rotating initiative system is implemented. Bid wars are so important now because it determines initiative for the entirety of the match. One player will have total advantage and the other will be totally screwed.

"At the end of the end phase, you may pass the initiative token to your rival" . As easy as that. And you may even keep the initiative if you think it will useful to you next round.

7 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

Glaives, too. Triple VI Glaives becomes pretty attractive. 

Silencers have access to Autothrusters making them a lot more durable against Nym (who would be stuck at PS8), Miranda, Rey and Dash.

4 hours ago, Dasharr said:

The PS11 "bidding war" is mild as far as I can see, because PS11 isn't all that common. Stuff a whole wide range of pilots into the PS9 bucket together - and at the same time incentivise PS7 and PS8 to go VI/adapt to get top PS with them - and it'll be ugly in there.

At 1st I kind of liked the PS 9 cap idea but this point here completely sways me the other way.

Personally, as a casual player, I only really VI or Adapt to level out PS's in my squad (bringing 3 different ships to PS 7 for eg). Generic only sort of suits that, but pulls the rug out from under lower PS uniques, which I'm not so keen on.

I would happily accept VI/Adapt being PS 6 and under only.

Rotating initiative is a very interesting idea too.

1 minute ago, viedit said:

Silencers have access to Autothrusters making them a lot more durable against Nym (who would be stuck at PS8), Miranda, Rey and Dash.

Glaives are cheaper and have a free evade action which makes them more durable against non-turrets though. And that lovely white K turn.

Some combination of both id probably optimal though.

3 minutes ago, Jehan Menasis said:

Bid wars can be lessened if a rotating initiative system is implemented. Bid wars are so important now because it determines initiative for the entirety of the match. One player will have total advantage and the other will be totally screwed.

"At the end of the end phase, you may pass the initiative token to your rival" . As easy as that. And you may even keep the initiative if you think it will useful to you next round.

Ehhhhh, I'd prefer just to see it swap every round automatically, like Runewars.

It might be a little confusing at first, but it would basically kill bid wars stone dead so great!

2 minutes ago, Jehan Menasis said:

One player will have total advantage and the other will be totally screwed.

See, I don't buy this at all. Differing PS values are a thing. Low PS pilots are a thing. Personally, I rarely fly high PS pilots.

If you're going all out to move last and shoot first, and end up getting outbid, then you've shot yourself in the foot. If you're incapable of playing the game in the reversed role - move first, shoot last - then you've screwed yourself.

8 minutes ago, FTS Gecko said:

See, I don't buy this at all. Differing PS values are a thing. Low PS pilots are a thing. Personally, I rarely fly high PS pilots.

If you're going all out to move last and shoot first, and end up getting outbid, then you've shot yourself in the foot. If you're incapable of playing the game in the reversed role - move first, shoot last - then you've screwed yourself.

Initiative doesn't matter in differing PS values. But if higher PS is not better than lower PS... Why Veteran Instincts is the most used EPT?

And likewise, if moving first, shooting last, is something that can be overcome by expertise... Why the Bid wars?

Because "PS wars" and "Bid Wars" are the realization that the one with the higher PS and the one who moves last, has a definitive advantage over its rival.

You can argue as much as you want, but higher PS and moving last, will always give you advantage over your rival.

49 minutes ago, Jehan Menasis said:

Initiative doesn't matter in differing PS values. But if higher PS is not better than lower PS... Why Veteran Instincts is the most used EPT?

And likewise, if moving first, shooting last, is something that can be overcome by expertise... Why the Bid wars?

Because "PS wars" and "Bid Wars" are the realization that the one with the higher PS and the one who moves last, has a definitive advantage over its rival.

You can argue as much as you want, but higher PS and moving last, will always give you advantage over your rival.

Also depends by the squad resilience and more importantly. .. FIREPOWER.

Moving last and shooting first doing little to no damage doesn't sound that good to me.

Bloody double post.

Just make a universal rule: any PS10 ship on the board cost 2 additional points, any PS11 ship costs an additional 4.

7 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

in order to close the ps bridge you'd need to a.) charge more for higher ps, b.) stop giving the highest PS the best goddang abilities

also c.) make more stuff that rewards activating first (like int agent + bump mods, ACTION bombs, snapshot) or even activation neutral stuff (beginning of combat triggers etc.)

and mostly importantly d.), stop making high PS turrets that can trivially avoid all the tech that gives low ps advantage over high ps

For some reason, FFG has seen fit to make the most cost efficient pilots ALSO be the highest pilot skill. This is actually 80% of the driving force behind why high pilot skill lists are the tier 1/ tier S lists, in my (quantified) opinion. Without fail, the best lists in the entire history of this game have always been the most cost efficient ones. Even the "good turret" lists have very high cost efficiency, that when coupled with their higher duty cycle firing rate, results in >100% efficiency relative to stock standard jousters.

So if you fix the cost issues then you actually get yourself most of the way there.

6 hours ago, Dr Zoidberg said:

And many of us keep pointing out that if you want to take a double digit initiative bid, then you're welcome to it. That'll be a double digits worth of upgrades you're not taking whilst I am; and I'll bludgeon you that way instead. What are you going to drop? EU? FCS? Adv. Sensors? PTL?

For instance; take some variance of a traditional Palp Aces list. Remove 10 points worth of upgrades and get back to us if you think winning the imitative bid will be worth it when facing the same list with the upgrades you dropped. Sure, move last. You're still coming at me with ships not equipped to their full potential.

Personally, I am of the opinion that:

1. pilot costs should be better balanced across the board so low and mid PS pilots are also viable
2. pilots that want to use upgrades to get to "high pilot skill" (8+ or 9+) should be forced to spend more points on it so that high pilot skill remains "special".

Right now we have the double-whammy of both problems. Pick any of the current high PS meta hotness (i.e. right now Fenn Rau, Quickdraw) and you will see that both have incredible jousting efficiency, and pay next to nothing to get to 11. It's the same with any of the previous high PS meta kings at any point in time.

5 minutes ago, MajorJuggler said:

1. pilot costs should be better balanced across the board so low and mid PS pilots are also viable

Well, the whole point system should have a "tournament rework" from the top down, not just pilots.

The trouble is, even if they started including pilots with worse abilities at top PSes (as with the Defender), that wouldn't make the current ones with amazing abilities at high PSes go away.

It would need to be designed in from the ground up to make PS not correlate with good abilities.

Personally, I'd rather do a radical redesign on VI. Make it a card you discard at the start of the activation phase to gain PS 8 for a round as a generic, or PS 12 as a round for a unique pilot. Or maybe just PS 12 for anyhow. IDK. One round of high PS if you feel you really want it. Likewise, I'd change Adaptability to be -1 or +0. Can't ding VI without getting Adaptability, too.

Such a VI vs Deadeye would become an interesting choice for Alpha Strike lists: move last and get the TL and shoot first, but only ever once. Deadeye can be used more than once, so better with reload or Extra Munitions. VI also also prone to being used wrong. Maybe you guessed the moves wrong, and you've wasted it.

But then again...

Maybe a VI ban is right, and call the new card "Flash of Insight" or such.

10 minutes ago, Jadotch said:

Well, the whole point system should have a "tournament rework" from the top down, not just pilots.

Yup, and this is my idea with [ shameless plug ] X-wing Community Mod ! (It will eventually get a squad builder and take off for those that are interested, I promise!)

8 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

The trouble is, even if they started including pilots with worse abilities at top PSes (as with the Defender), that wouldn't make the current ones with amazing abilities at high PSes go away.

It would need to be designed in from the ground up to make PS not correlate with good abilities.

Absolutely. In a game with squad point limits, cost is the great equalizer though! So you can make the "best" pilot abilities be reserved for the highest pilot skill pilots, and just price them accordingly.

[edit:] The just price them accordingly is the tricky part in practice though... getting this balance right is almost impossible without the right skillsets and tools. Most armchair forum designers gloss over how hard it actually is to get it right on the first pass.

Take away initiative bids altogether - every turn, at the end of the planning phase (ie after dials are set), the player with the initiative token rolls a red die and on a hit or crit result passes the token to to the other player.

(on top of restricting PS changes to non-unique pilots only)

5 minutes ago, ABXY said:

Take away initiative bids altogether - every turn, at the end of the planning phase (ie after dials are set), the player with the initiative token rolls a red die and on a hit result passes the token to to the other player.

(on top of restricting PS changes to non-unique pilots only)

Why not just make it alternate?

1 minute ago, thespaceinvader said:

Why not just make it alternate?

Because a player can still count on knowing they'll have it or not for a given turn - I'd prefer the vaguery of having to plan whilst not knowing, then having to adapt based on the outcome (and having somewhat committed your resources to particular moves) - a more 'fog of war' style approach.

11 hours ago, Kaptin Krunch said:

this solves basically none of the problems. If you are not in danger of getting PS killed, you actually want to shoot last so that you have more perfect knowledge as to what tokens you can or cannot spend on offense. It lets you play more defensively/conservatively more easily, and in the current game style of MoV bunkering, that's the dominant/correct strategy. People take PS for more perfect information when they move.

I totally get what you are saying, but by slitting it up it does make it less powerful. Say I have Predator Vader and you have VI Vader. You can move last into a position where you can then PS Kill me. By splitting the card up as I did, you would still move last but I would at least have a chance to get a shot off at something before dying since we would both still be PS 9 in the combat phase. So while its not the perfect solution, it does make a difference.

2 minutes ago, ABXY said:

Because a player can still count on knowing they'll have it or not for a given turn - I'd prefer the vaguery of having to plan whilst not knowing, then having to adapt based on the outcome (and having somewhat committed your resources to particular moves) - a more 'fog of war' style approach.

At the very least, make the roll happen at the end of the previous round. Getting screwed by dice is frustrating, and this game is predicated on planning with the information available on the table.

4 minutes ago, pickirk01 said:

I totally get what you are saying, but by slitting it up it does make it less powerful. Say I have Predator Vader and you have VI Vader. You can move last into a position where you can then PS Kill me. By splitting the card up as I did, you would still move last but I would at least have a chance to get a shot off at something before dying since we would both still be PS 9 in the combat phase. So while its not the perfect solution, it does make a difference.

The problem is that by them moving last, they get the opportunity to take away your opportunity to shoot at all.

It doesn't matter if you get the chance to shoot, if they can take your shot away entirely.

Shooting first isn't that big a benefit compared to moving last. There's a reason Decoy and Swarm Tactics mostly stink.

Personally, I think Veteran Instincts should be generics only.

I happen to think Adaptability should automatically flip at the end phase.

3 hours ago, Jehan Menasis said:

You can argue as much as you want, but higher PS and moving last, will always give you advantage over your rival.

Nope. Lower PS ships can block higher PS pilots, denying their actuions and setting up killboxes. This is especially true about those ships flying Veteran Instincts instead of, say, Expertise, Predator, A Score to Settle etc, as if they're even more susceptible to losing modifiers.

Say,for instance, you decide to take two high PS pilots, both with Veteran Instincts and a 12 point bid. I'm flying 5 Rookies with FAA, Integrated and Servomotors. I'm going to laugh at your Veteran Instincts, and I'm going to laugh at your bid, because two copies of Expertise, or a filler ship like an Academy TIE or Z-95 would have helped your list much more.

Note: I'm not saying Pilot Skill is irrelevant, of course not. But it's hardly the be-all-and-end-all you're trying to make it out to be. In fact, there are far more instances in this game where VI and a bid is a completely dead investment, instead of being a bonus.