6 minutes ago, falveryn said:

We fixed all the ships (except imperials!). Soontir needs bullseye, lambda and tie fighter dials confirmed to be one of the handful of unchanged ones (just having the lambda have a rear arc does not magically make it better, with the old firespray as the best example), x-wings get a massive powercreep, firesprays get a massive powercreep (but are no longer imperial)... even in the FFG demos the imperial squad looked the weakest.

The app and all that allows changes, but will their attitude towards imperials change? I doubt it. Galactic Empire mostly relied on their aces, with ships specifically designed to ps arc dodge (like the new interceptor), but they have confirmed higher ps will have a far higher cost than in 1.0. Just look at the new Krennic. It is really bad, will not buy a Reaper because of it.

You have no idea which ships are good and which aren't, because everything hinges on relative point costs. All the people trying to say with any degree of certainty or authority which ships are good and which ships are bad are talking out of their airlocks .

Also, stating that Lambda isn't good even though it has a rear arc because the Imperial Firespray wasn't good is also an argument that doesn't take into account the disparity in the cost of those two ships, which seems to be a theme. Point cost is everything.

On 5/1/2018 at 1:54 PM, PhantomFO said:

They're tweaking dials. The preview for the Advanced shows that it's gaining both Tallon Rolls and a 1-straight, making it a much less terrible ship. Y-Wings gain green 1-banks. The Firespray dial is crazy, trading the 3-turns for 1-turns and tacking on some Tallon Rolls. There's a Rebel dial with a REVERSE, which has to be the new HWK-290.

And those other overhauls look great. The Firespray gets Boost and trades Evade for Reinforce. Lambdas finally get a rear firing arc. Everyone has side-arcs and rear-arcs displayed, so there's potential for flanking and tailing enemies to have mechanical effects.

And yes, HORTON HAS AN EPT.

The more I study this, the more hyped I become for it.

They are doing everything right for 2nd edition

• 1st Edition models are still valid.
• They have tools set up to maintain meta balance
• They have officially supported apps for customers
• The set up is there so that they don't have to change any of the printed compneants

This is everything I wanted in 2.0 minus the Huge ships but that is what 1st edition for (I am now calling it Epic Edition).

Now if only my current work/school/economics allows for me to attend league night again.

This looks super good. I was on the edge of quitting. I figured right after GenCon it would be time to mive on. Complete 180 degree change for me. Keeping me in the game and excited about new stuff!

EVERYTHING looks good to me.

53 minutes ago, Marinealver said:

They are doing everything right for 2nd edition

• 1st Edition models are still valid.
• They have tools set up to maintain meta balance
• They have officially supported apps for customers
• The set up is there so that they don't have to change any of the printed compneants

This is everything I wanted in 2.0 minus the Huge ships but that is what 1st edition for (I am now calling it Epic Edition).

Now if only my current work/school/economics allows for me to attend league night again.

And that Huge Ship rework is still coming from the sound of things, allowing the devs to take advantage of the same lessons learned from first edition. I'd love to see huge ship action economy reworked, and a cleaned up energy system that can take advantage of the new Charge mechanic for other consumables.

While they're at it, they could also update the overlap system so players are discouraged from using their destroyed Fore as a battering ram against other Huge ships without penalty.

19 minutes ago, PhantomFO said:

I'd love to see huge ship action economy reworked, and a cleaned up energy system

Redoing the dials so that huge ship movement COSTS an amount of energy would be really nice. As it currently is, if you are going to loose all your energy to ion tokens or some such, a ship goes really fast because they aren't going to get any energy anyway.

1 hour ago, CBMarkham said:

You have no idea which ships are good and which aren't, because everything hinges on relative point costs. All the people trying to say with any degree of certainty or authority which ships are good and which ships are bad are talking out of their airlocks .

Also, stating that Lambda isn't good even though it has a rear arc because the Imperial Firespray wasn't good is also an argument that doesn't take into account the disparity in the cost of those two ships, which seems to be a theme. Point cost is everything.

As I said, the app allows points costs to change, which makes any initial cost irrelevant. What is more important is that they have the power to make anything they want more or less viable by changing its cost. The general attitude towards imperials has been to not allow them to be strong. While the tools exists, and the chance for bad stuff to be cheaper is there, we don't know if their attitude will change, which is the worst offender. If they don't want imperials to be competitive, they could just refuse to reduce the cost to a competitive level (or increase the cost of viable stuff). It has been an issue since game release until now, so what makes you think it will be different? Its the same people making balance decisions.

If all they want to give imperials is a few strong stuff, like Vader or Palpatine, expect the cost to be a hot topic. Not even Soontir or Krennic have survived their biased attitude. Now, they could change their attitude and make everything balanced, but it has not been the norm and would be a surprise, but I hope, as much as you, that it happens and the game is left in a very balanced state where every ship has its use, with weaker ships being cheaper and stronger costlier.

21 hours ago, CBMarkham said:

Old FFG Model: We fixed the Scyk. Kind of. I mean, you still won't play them...because we kind of created a bomb meta situation that we can't easily fix, but they Scyk IS way better. The fix comes with the C-ROC for just $69.95. Not bad, yeah? Oh, also, do you want to buy a Starviper fix?

New FFG Model: We fixed all the ships, and improved upon all the game mechanics across the board. Also, we made it so that we can keep making future fixes with only an app update, at no expense to you, the players. Your entire favorite faction gets the full overhaul for $49.95....I mean, not really though. Who pays MSRP? We good?

Ingrates: Ugh, money grab!! Outrage! *torches and pitchforks*

I get the sentiment, but for your $69.95 you also get an awesome Huge ship, and a single conversion kit is nowhere near enough to upgrade my entire faction.

5 minutes ago, falveryn said:

As I said, the app allows points costs to change, which makes any initial cost irrelevant. What is more important is that they have the power to make anything they want more or less viable by changing its cost. The general attitude towards imperials has been to not allow them to be strong. While the tools exists, and the chance for bad stuff to be cheaper is there, we don't know if their attitude will change, which is the worst offender. If they don't want imperials to be competitive, they could just refuse to reduce the cost to a competitive level (or increase the cost of viable stuff). It has been an issue since game release until now, so what makes you think it will be different? Its the same people making balance decisions.

If all they want to give imperials is a few strong stuff, like Vader or Palpatine, expect the cost to be a hot topic. Not even Soontir or Krennic have survived their biased attitude. Now, they could change their attitude and make everything balanced, but it has not been the norm and would be a surprise, but I hope, as much as you, that it happens and the game is left in a very balanced state where every ship has its use, with weaker ships being cheaper and stronger costlier.

You're talking about the current meta as if it's evidence of a long standing trend of Imperials getting the shaft.

There have been huge swaths of time where Imperials were king of the mountain. First TIE swarms ruled the land, later came Soontir's reign, then Inquisitor+OmegaLeader+Wampa+Palp Shuttle was major for a long time, Imperial Aces for awhile, then Defenders trashing up the place; just because Imperials aren't at the top of the heap now doesn't mean there's a long standing anti-Imperial bias.

Again, large chunks of X-Wing history where Rebel lists were a laughing stock compared to Imperials, and Scum was still only just barely playable. I know it's not what's happening right now, but no one faction can always be on top, and one of them has to be #3 at any given point.

It's not evidence of biased design though, and that's kind of a silly notion.

2 hours ago, CBMarkham said:

You're talking about the current meta as if it's evidence of a long standing trend of Imperials getting the shaft.

There have been huge swaths of time where Imperials were king of the mountain. First TIE swarms ruled the land, later came Soontir's reign, then Inquisitor+OmegaLeader+Wampa+Palp Shuttle was major for a long time, Imperial Aces for awhile, then Defenders trashing up the place; just because Imperials aren't at the top of the heap now doesn't mean there's a long standing anti-Imperial bias.

Again, large chunks of X-Wing history where Rebel lists were a laughing stock compared to Imperials, and Scum was still only just barely playable. I know it's not what's happening right now, but no one faction can always be on top, and one of them has to be #3 at any given point.

It's not evidence of biased design though, and that's kind of a silly notion.

Speaking from 2012 to 2018.

Tie swarms were strong in start, but even then rebels were better.

Then Fat Han. Phantoms dominated for a bit until nerfed.

Palp has never been an issue. Strong, but balanced. The only problem was when combined with prenerf /x7 defenders, which hastily got the shaft. And even during that time, scum eclipsed both palp defenders and triple defenders.

Historically, imperials have never won a single world championship. It has been mostly rebels and a bit of scum.

And I do not attribute this phenomenon exclusively to biased design. It could be any combination of devs and/or playtesters. It could be accidental that playtesters are very strong using imperials and suck at rebels and skew the ratios. The end result, however, is very biased, whether intentional or accidental, without regard to who could have an intentional or accidental hand in it.

First Order stuff is strong, but not Galactic Empire stuff.

Imperials are getting Krennic, but it is only a consolation token with 0 impact, since there will be no worlds using that card in its 1.0 incarnation. In 2.0? It is horrible, just like your 'strong' Soontir. Now, in 2.0 Vader and Palp are strong, but everything else is looking weak. Tie Fighters get no revamp but cost the same. Lambda gets a rear arc, but it is still a whale.

Edit: I don't think that rebels being so powerful in the current meta is intentional, but more likely a mistake from the designer's part. If you just keep printing strong supports after another, it just goes past beyond faction identity and creates many dangerously strong synergies. And what are they doing in 2.0? Not learning from that mistake (Biggs, Selflessness).

I really don't think you can dismiss how much built in chained actions it looks like the Interceptors will be getting. This is a new world, where PTL is not common.

10 hours ago, PhantomFO said:

And that Huge Ship rework is still coming from the sound of things, allowing the devs to take advantage of the same lessons learned from first edition. I'd love to see huge ship action economy reworked, and a cleaned up energy system that can take advantage of the new Charge mechanic for other consumables.

While they're at it, they could also update the overlap system so players are discouraged from using their destroyed Fore as a battering ram against other Huge ships without penalty.

I can see an edit to the overlaping rules so that huge ship overlapings are not instant death. But I am confident that Epic will make its way into 2.0 eventually.

9 hours ago, Forgottenlore said:

Redoing the dials so that huge ship movement COSTS an amount of energy would be really nice. As it currently is, if you are going to loose all your energy to ion tokens or some such, a ship goes really fast because they aren't going to get any energy anyway.

That was always the issue I had with Ion tokens. 1 Ion speed 2, 2 Ion speed 1, 3+ Ion speed 4

I always wanted a house rule if you had more ion tokens than energy pips your maneuver drops to a 1 straight and discard all ion tokens. Also they could open up the Huge ship maneuver dial some more with some suggestions for new huge ship maneuvers out of the huge ship maneuver tool here. (just like how making different maneuvers out of the maneuver templates they came up with the S-loop.

It can be fixed pretty easily if they just reversed it and huge ships gain an amount of energy equal to their rating at the start of the turn and then the more extreme the maneuver the more energy it costs. If somehow you don’t have enough energy, 1-straight.

9 hours ago, falveryn said:

Speaking from 2012 to 2018.

Tie swarms were strong in start, but even then rebels were better.

Then Fat Han. Phantoms dominated for a bit until nerfed.

Palp has never been an issue. Strong, but balanced. The only problem was when combined with prenerf /x7 defenders, which hastily got the shaft. And even during that time, scum eclipsed both palp defenders and triple defenders.

Historically, imperials have never won a single world championship. It has been mostly rebels and a bit of scum.

And I do not attribute this phenomenon exclusively to biased design. It could be any combination of devs and/or playtesters. It could be accidental that playtesters are very strong using imperials and suck at rebels and skew the ratios. The end result, however, is very biased, whether intentional or accidental, without regard to who could have an intentional or accidental hand in it.

First Order stuff is strong, but not Galactic Empire stuff.

Imperials are getting Krennic, but it is only a consolation token with 0 impact, since there will be no worlds using that card in its 1.0 incarnation. In 2.0? It is horrible, just like your 'strong' Soontir. Now, in 2.0 Vader and Palp are strong, but everything else is looking weak. Tie Fighters get no revamp but cost the same. Lambda gets a rear arc, but it is still a whale.

Edit: I don't think that rebels being so powerful in the current meta is intentional, but more likely a mistake from the designer's part. If you just keep printing strong supports after another, it just goes past beyond faction identity and creates many dangerously strong synergies. And what are they doing in 2.0? Not learning from that mistake (Biggs, Selflessness).

That’s like, your opinion, man.

9 hours ago, falveryn said:

Speaking from 2012 to 2018.

Tie swarms were strong in start, but even then rebels were better.

Then Fat Han. Phantoms dominated for a bit until nerfed.

Palp has never been an issue. Strong, but balanced. The only problem was when combined with prenerf /x7 defenders, which hastily got the shaft. And even during that time, scum eclipsed both palp defenders and triple defenders.

Historically, imperials have never won a single world championship. It has been mostly rebels and a bit of scum.

And I do not attribute this phenomenon exclusively to biased design. It could be any combination of devs and/or playtesters. It could be accidental that playtesters are very strong using imperials and suck at rebels and skew the ratios. The end result, however, is very biased, whether intentional or accidental, without regard to who could have an intentional or accidental hand in it.

First Order stuff is strong, but not Galactic Empire stuff.

Imperials are getting Krennic, but it is only a consolation token with 0 impact, since there will be no worlds using that card in its 1.0 incarnation. In 2.0? It is horrible, just like your 'strong' Soontir. Now, in 2.0 Vader and Palp are strong, but everything else is looking weak. Tie Fighters get no revamp but cost the same. Lambda gets a rear arc, but it is still a whale.

Edit: I don't think that rebels being so powerful in the current meta is intentional, but more likely a mistake from the designer's part. If you just keep printing strong supports after another, it just goes past beyond faction identity and creates many dangerously strong synergies. And what are they doing in 2.0? Not learning from that mistake (Biggs, Selflessness).

Are you serious about TIE Swarms? They were de facto the best list. X-Wings were bad, Y-Wings were bad, TIE Advanced were bad, only TIEs could be considered a ship that is both maneuverable and efficient. Wave 2 didn't change much there, either, though it should have with Han using EU, that build wasn't wide-spread, though, even in then popular HSF lists. TIE Swarms were also harder to play, though, that is what tanked their winrate. First worlds was won by a TIE swarm, though it featured Vader and the game obviously still very new. 2013 a TIE swarm made the final (which is basicaly the same as winning statisticaly speaking). Thanks to B-Wings with Biggs rebels were able to compete by then, with no side having an advantage.

Fat Han and Phantoms also were matched pretty closely and 2014 again an imperial list made the finals.

2015 Imperials weren't quite on top, but if you delude yourself that Palpatines hyper-defense was not an issue and a (the) major aspect of why 2 dice ships were obliterated from the meta you are wrong. Palp played a big role in eliminating huge parts of the field.

And then we had the whole Commonwealth-debacle...but after that yes, imperials took a step back.

Any predictions for 2.0 are moot without point costs and based on the demo games, especially talking about Krennic based on a game where his ability was never set up and he was carried by a ship with basically the most awful build imaginable for it, which nevertheless performed quite well!

12 minutes ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

2013 a TIE swarm made the final (which is basicaly the same as winning statisticaly speaking).

Let me guess, a little bit of early morning mental gymnastics? ?

3 minutes ago, Jehan Menasis said:

Let me guess, a little bit of early morning mental gymnastics? ?

Anything that happens in a cut is highly vulnerable to randomness being swingy. Swiss results are a lot more applicable (and even then not for a single tournament). Being so fixated on worlds when it comes to faction balance is just wrong and requires so many faulty assumption, like 'the players at worlds are the best in the world' - no they are not! They are the ones that have the ability to travel to a US city (that isn't even exactly easy to get to for US citizens) and be able to take the time off. Sure, a lot of them are very dedicated and good, but a whole lot of potentially better players would never be able to go.

14 hours ago, CBMarkham said:

Point cost is everything.

Well, no. Fun is also a factor. Even if a ship is dirty cheap, if it is not fun to play or hasn't interesting abilities, it's a flop, regardless of its price.

1 hour ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

2013 a TIE swarm made the final (which is basicaly the same as winning statisticaly speaking). Thanks to B-Wings with Biggs rebels were able to compete by then, with no side having an advantage.

Fat Han and Phantoms also were matched pretty closely and 2014 again an imperial list made the finals.

2015 Imperials weren't quite on top, but if you delude yourself that Palpatines hyper-defense was not an issue and a (the) major aspect of why 2 dice ships were obliterated from the meta you are wrong. Palp played a big role in eliminating huge parts of the field.

And then we had the whole Commonwealth-debacle...but after that yes, imperials took a step back.

Any predictions for 2.0 are moot without point costs and based on the demo games, especially talking about Krennic based on a game where his ability was never set up and he was carried by a ship with basically the most awful build imaginable for it, which nevertheless performed quite well!

Ok, from 2013 onwards. Made finals is not the same as winning statistically. Unless a finals was basically won by luck of dice rolls, feel free to point a video of a finals where dice were the main factor. Not being the best squad when flown properly is not enough.

So, palp was a problem because it countered some stuff yet they was not the best list? All the time we have stuff countering other stuff but it doesn't mean it is the best list just because of it. Making low attack ships irrelevant is the same as swarms being irrelevant or not being able to point fortress being irrelevant. Not palp, but Dengaroo and triple scouts dominated. And after the mega nerf, rebels did. So it has basically been 2012 imperials, 2013-2015 rebels, 2016-2017 scum, 2018 rebels. Imperials had phantoms for just a bit, while Scum had Jumpmasters for far longer, besides that they both only have less than a handful of strong stuff. Imperials have Palp (if we don't consider First Order since it is quite strong with Silencer and QD), and Scum has Asajj; and Imperials had /x7 (prenerf palp has never been an issue by itself), and Scum had attanni and party bus. Rebels have had biggs and prenerf trajectory. Yet they have more than a handful of strong stuff: Miranda, Nym, Lowhrick, Liberator, Kashyyyk, Dash, Fenn, Ezra, AP-5, Rex, Kanan, Lothal, Rey, not to mention upgrades. All tier 1-2, excluding resistance.

Basically, imperials were not weak briefly at two points: launch and with prenerf phantoms, and were carried by palp+/x7 later but still not dominating. That was their only opportunity to be at the top of the meta, but it was also the period where jumpmasters existed, so they had to settle for 2nd+ place (actually not even in the finals, but at least not weak).

Two brief periods in all these years is not enough. It is a minuscule representation.

As for Krennic, I do think it is quite possible to formulate an idea. While we don't know costs, it would only not suck if it costed 0-2, and if it was worth taking up a crew slot. It is extremely situational: You need the carrier to have a target lock on the defending ship the prototype attacks for it to even activate. The reward is also situational (even if the die could be cancelled after the defender has rolled and modified defense die, if you need to cancel when you modify attack dice it would be worse), because you need to not have hit in order for that cancel to be mostly effective. If you would have hit, then it would be the same or worse. You would need to not have any way to use that eye result, which means it excludes focused ships, force users and droids at minimum. As you see, the text looks simple, but it hides a lot of hidden constraints. It could have a remote niche use, if there was a ship that was almost unhittable, and you relied on that to keep flipping a nasty crit, but again too situational still.

Should FFG be willing to keep reducing costs of everything that is not used or weak, then I will be happy and not care about past trends. That means if Krennic is costly and ends up being weak, and its cost is then reduced until it is viable, even at 0 cost (note that it still consumes a crew slot) then everything would work as promised, and no need to complain. But the past trends are there, and Krennic is weak, so I complain until I see otherwise.

Why are imperial fanboys always the whiniest people I see in X-wing?

On 5/2/2018 at 12:23 PM, Force Majeure said:

If I were in your shoes, and wanted to get into 2.0 I'd buy one core set and one conversion kit. Unfortunately at launch however, Resistance & First Order ships are not going to be supported until they get their own conversion kit.

You currently own these Original Trilogy era ships: Two TIEs and an Imperial Slave 1 (Slave 1 will be Scum only in 2.0), as well as one T-65 X-wing and a Falcon (it doesn't matter if it's the Force Awakens version).
With a new core set and Rebel conversion kit, you'd have Two T-65s, a Falcon and four OT TIEs of which only the 2 from the new Core Set you'll have cardboard for.

I only recommend the Rebel conversion since it will get you the most out of what you have.

You are in a difficult spot, but not terrible as long as you have players in your area that play X-wing and they are going to buy into 2.0 willing to trade, sell or outright donate some of their extra ship tokens, dials etc. from their conversion kits. The biggest obstacle I see is getting your hands on 2.0 upgrade cards of your own unless you get a conversion kit.

On 5/2/2018 at 8:51 AM, Nachtelb said:

I just bought X-Wing last year and I only have one old and new core set, the Falcon and Slave 1 expansion. So the conversion kits are no good solution for me.

If I buy a new core set and the new Falcon and Slave expansion, is there a way so I can at least use the old models as well? What do I need at least to use them?

Bonus to the rebel conversion suggestion: unless Sabine's TIE is getting a different dial from the Imperial TIE, there should be cardboard enough for all of the TIEs.

2 hours ago, Panzeh said:

Why are imperial fanboys always the whiniest people I see in X-wing?

Because we always get the *** end of the deal

You can't judge the strength of each faction based on a very limited view of their ships right now. For one thing, the developers have made it clear that they went into 2.0 with the idea of establishing and maintaining clear faction identities, with the Imperials' identity revolving around working together in formations. See: Howlrunner, Iden Versio as examples.

So, judging what we know of Soontir Fel right now without knowing what other Interceptor pilot abilities will be available? Or even all the EPTs? Seems like jumping the gun. Will Fel be a one-man wrecking crew? Almost certainly not. Will a Fel-led squadron of Interceptors be able to tear up other lists? Possibly. We don't know yet.

Really, with the new idea of Imperial Synergy, and there already being a pilot with the name "Fel's Wrath", I hope that pilot will get an all-new ability that will help boost friendly ships in some way that would be beneficial to Soontir Fel!

I'm happy they seem to be limiting things like Soontir Fel to prevent him being a one man wrecking machine. With the idea that they are going to tone it all down, I like it so far. I love that you won't be able to Boost and Barrel Roll in the same turn. I love that most won't be able to Focus and Evade in the same round. Soontir will be able to, but only if he has someone in bullseye arc. It makes it really skill based.

We also don't know price of basic Tie Fighters compared to X-wings. The cost difference might be a 3 for 1 situation.

I like that elites will cost a lot more than generics.

I love the nerf to Tie Phantoms.

Just now, heychadwick said:

I'm happy they seem to be limiting things like Soontir Fel to prevent him being a one man wrecking machine. With the idea that they are going to tone it all down, I like it so far. I love that you won't be able to Boost and Barrel Roll in the same turn.

Unless you are Soontir Fel, Darth Vader or just an 3 HP generic interceptor with afterburners it seems. Those new autothrusters are looking super nice for those.

On 5/4/2018 at 8:45 AM, Celestial Lizards said:

Because we always get the *** end of the deal

lol "always"

people like to forget good ol soontir cheri, palp aces, palp x7s...

and even now we get badass things like quickdraw and the silencer. Sure, they're not broken, but they're all very solid and incredibly fun

plus now we got some complaints like this

"FFG, rebels op! plz nerf bombs, turrets and regen!"

"Okay, done"

"THEY BUFFED THE X-WING BUT THE TIE FIGHTER REMAINS THE SAME!!!!!"

this persecution complex is really silly

20 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

I love the nerf to Tie Phantoms.

it's actually a buff, apart from the 4-dice downgrade (which was essential, because 4-dice ships without further restrictions are a stupid idea)

now you're not locked to shooting first to be anything more tha a 4-dice z-95. this is a good thing, and makes it actually plausible that we'll see phantoms in greater numbers and varieties