2 hours ago, westiebestie said:

That's the purpose of variable costing. It's why they introduced it. It's a great, great idea to balance these types of things which are not near equally useful on everything.

Read my next post again please. It's this exact thing variable costing would solve. Currently we ONLY see it on high I ships and it's not viable on a lower tier ship. That's what I would like them to adress.

Maybe I need to exemplity.

E.g. they could make Juke cost

2pt for I1-2

3pts for I3-4

4pts for I5-6

+2pts if the ship you fit it to can generate passive Evade tokens by ship/pilot ability, e.g. Defender, Phantom, IG-88C (+ other IGs who share title).

That would mean it cost 6pts (4+2) on Rexler with that costing ruleset, but 5 (3+2)on IG-88C and 2 (2+0) on a Cartel spacer. Adjust numbers as needed to achieve desired target balance.

At first I was going to disagree with you on this, but Juke is a pretty great example. As much as it pains me to say because Juke is my favorite EPT it probably should be variable costed because it's so much better on higher initiative ships.

I'd never pay 4 points to put it on a Baron of the Empire but it's on a lot of stuff at higher intiative.

3 hours ago, westiebestie said:

That's the purpose of variable costing. It's why they introduced it. It's a great, great idea to balance these types of things which are not near equally useful on everything.

Read my next post again please. It's this exact thing variable costing would solve. Currently we ONLY see it on high I ships and it's not viable on a lower tier ship. That's what I would like them to adress.

Maybe I need to exemplity.

E.g. they could make Juke cost

2pt for I1-2

3pts for I3-4

4pts for I5-6

+2pts if the ship you fit it to can generate passive Evade tokens by ship/pilot ability, e.g. Defender, Phantom, IG-88C (+ other IGs who share title).

That would mean it cost 6pts (4+2) on Rexler with that costing ruleset, but 5 (3+2)on IG-88C and 2 (2+0) on a Cartel spacer. Adjust numbers as needed to achieve desired target balance.

You could argue this point about nearly every Talent in the game currently.

Fearless is rubbish at Int 1, but workable at 5-6.
Any of the bullseye requirement talent - Crack Shot, predator, Marksmenship.
Outmanoeuvre is good at high Int, rubbish at low Int.

You see where I am going with this? You implement it for one, they will have to do it for all, which they wont do. Nobody wants math wing, consulting if tables to see how much your Talent finally comes in at.

7 hours ago, westiebestie said:

And I'm not saying nerf it, I'm saying change to variable costing. The end cost may well end up the same for those two if FFG decide to model it that way, but cheaper for I1-2, I3-4 pilots and ships without passive Evades. You have to agree the value of Juke varies with these factors, no?

I see what you're saying now, and I apologize for misunderstanding you. I feel that Juke's very nature prevents most low-initiative pilots from taking it (aside from TIE swarms, maybe? Can they use EPTs?) simply because it could end up being a dead talent in many chases.

Juke's power has less to do with initiative, more with the fact that the evade action is Garbage

You only see them on phantoms/defenders because they don't have to waste time performing a subpar action

Yeah if you make juke variable cost it still ain't gonna see real use on low init stuff cause its effect sucks on low init. Make it 1 pt? I'd still rather take trick, or crack over it every single time. Cause those might actually get used.

20 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

Juke's power has less to do with initiative, more with the fact that the evade action is Garbage

You only see them on phantoms/defenders because they don't have to waste time performing a subpar action

This.

50 minutes ago, Archangelspiv said:

Nobody wants math wing, consulting if tables to see how much your Talent finally comes in at.

Well, most don't want that. Some of us enjoy math, though...

33 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

Juke's power has less to do with initiative, more with the fact that the evade action is Garbage

You only see them on phantoms/defenders because they don't have to waste time performing a subpar action

So true. That action only makes sense for Agressors (because they can link into it) and the aforementioned ships that do the action automatic.

FFG nerfed the **** out of EVADE.

On 10/11/2018 at 7:35 AM, westiebestie said:

That's the purpose of variable costing. It's why they introduced it. It's a great, great idea to balance these types of things which are not near equally useful on everything.

I think it's part of the potential of Variable pricing, but so far it hasn't been shown to be the purpose .

Variables so far in this game have keyed into two things. One is base size for movement upgrades (Expert Handling, Engine Upgrade) because the strength of boosts and barrel rolls are clearly linked to base size. Before 2e was announced, I kept saying to friends "Engine Upgrade should be 3 points on a small base, and 5 or 6 on a large base." It was too weak on a small, and too potent on a large. The other use of Variable pricing is for agility on Hull Upgrade, Shield Upgrade, and Stealth Device. Again, this makes a lot of sense. Extra hit points last longer and are more impactful when the ship has higher agility, that's why high agility ships tend to be lower hit points than their counterparts. The Aggressor has fewer hit points than the Jumpmaster or YT-2400, which have fewer hit points than the YT-1300s of the game. These two main things clearly baked into the base pricing of ship designs, the reasons why X-Wings cost one value, and ARC-170 cost another.

With Juke, that's not exactly the same. Is it better on high initiative? Sure. But so are Predator and Crack Shot, or heavy laser cannon. Or any Torpedo, for that matter. See where I'm going?

The issue with Juke is Defenders and Phantoms getting Evade actions for just doing what they do. Rather than increase the cost of Juke, it'd make more sense to increase the cost of all Defenders and Phantoms with Talent slots. Consider: Juke on TIE Fighter is really fair. A miniswarm of Howlrunner and 3 Juke TIEs is pretty close to the cost of Howlrunner and 4 non-Juke TIEs, and they'll do about the same damage. A full swarm of Howl+5 Juke TIEs compared to a full swarm of Howl+6 non-Juke will likewise do fairly close amounts of damage.

If I'm lead designer for a day, I might start to create a few ship/upgrade pairs which have an extra charge. Trick Shot on scum Han Solo really adds up fast, for a lot of dice far too cheap. Juke on Phantoms and Defenders. Maybe go the other way, decrease the baseline cost of C-3PO, but keep his current cost on Leebo, because 8 points for him is probably fair if you don't have nigh unlimited calculate tokens. It can all just be done in the app, with a hopefully not-too-long list of variable prices. However . Any such list is going to add complexity. It's easy enough to remember the two variable charts. 2/4/6 and 3/6/9 for Engine Upgrade is SO easy. Hull and Shield are a little more involved... well.... 2/3/5/7 for Hull is Prime Numbers, so maybe not that hard. Remembering that Leebo pays more for C-3PO, or that Phantoms pay more for Juke wouldn't be as easy.

My local TO has expressed some trepidation about the fact that points aren't on cards. In 1e, it wasn't too hard to add up your opponent's list at the table, make sure they're not sneaking an extra Torpedo in anywhere, or lying about their bid. Oh, now the list gets submitted to the TO via the App, but an individual player isn't always going to have access to that, won't have time to rebuild the list in their own squad builder, and so forth. With significantly more variable pricing, it'll become pretty much impossible to do the mental math to make sure an opponent is on the level. We know some folks cheat. Bumps ships and bend templates. Folks have been caught changing dials on stream. I saw another 1e stream where a Nym player with Long Range Scanners illegally grabbed a Range 2 TL and killed the enemy Whisper with a Harpoon Missile.

That doesn't mean that more detailed variable pricing wouldn't be a benefit to the game. However, it's worth noting that there are disadvantages as well.

5 minutes ago, beardxofxdeath said:

FFG nerfed the **** out of EVADE.

Is Evade really so much worse this edition? If so, I think that says more about it being ludicrous in 1E than it does about it being useless in 2E. Yes, they've had a small nerf, but it seems to me that more of the effect comes from changes to actions and free tokens, meaning you're less likely to have a massive stack of them, and that you'll actually need to choose between Evade or other actions.

29 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

Is Evade really so much worse this edition? If so, I think that says more about it being ludicrous in 1E than it does about it being useless in 2E. Yes, they've had a small nerf, but it seems to me that more of the effect comes from changes to actions and free tokens, meaning you're less likely to have a massive stack of them, and that you'll actually need to choose between Evade or other actions.

It's pretty bad as far as choices for actions to perform go, well well well below a focus action. Now that the Phantom doesn't recloak until the end phase, whisper is agi 2 against ALL initiative levels, meaning that any shot that lands 3+ hits is pushing damage through, even against a whisper w/ evade evade focus. It's considerably more useful on the defender w/ its 3 native agility dice, and the defender not needing to retain it at the end of the round to generate an effect, but you'd have to give the defender 4 free actions to ever see one being spent on an evade token, and the defender platform pricing reflects that advantage.

edit - Some people aren't aware for some reason, but evade tokens no longer add an evade result, it just lets you change one die to an evade result (blank or focus). That's terrible compared to 1e evade.

On ‎10‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 11:47 AM, MasterShake2 said:

So, this is definitely not super conclusive or anything crazy, but my best success so far has involved 2x Gray Squadron Bombers with Protons and R4's.

One thing that I've noticed, both in game and observed elsewhere is that players are quick to look for list building solutions to a problem over simply trying to set up a good engagement that mitigates or lessens powerful abilities. Good flying is definitely a perishable skill.

I think this is very much a 1.0 relic where some of the combinations were simply too effective to be solved with canny flying. We've definitely had a number of locals running Fett with highly variable levels of skill attached, but I haven't had serious problems with him yet and his performances for his cost have been quite underwhelming.

Yeah, I agree with this. Also I submit that most people having trouble with Fett probably aren't running as much ordinance in their lists as they should be. I've had very few problems with him. Yes hes a strong ship though.

While in the absence of metawing we don't have access to any statistical analysis, I'm guessing Boba isn't nearly as powerful as some people seem to believe. Yes, on the face of it he's got access to multiple re-rolls, he can shoot from the rear even better than in front and he can always get his double focus, even if he bumps. That said, Boba is half your list - basically the same price point as Vader - and he's way less slippery. His Achilles' heel is that he constantly stresses himself, which means you can guess his likely movement most of the time. Also, any additional source of stress shuts him down completely. An unlucky panicked pilot can lose the entire game for Boba. Sloane is also a nightmare for him.

Also, since he's worth so many points, it gets difficult to find sufficient backup for him. Most people's pick seems to be Guri. Unfortunately, as awesome as Guri can be, taking her means running a 2 ship list. And 2 ship lists - no matter how powerful - have it rough these days. The most successful lists right now are typically either 3 ship aces or swarms of 4 ships or more. Unlike Boba, Guri can't stack tokens and a bad roll or two can spell death for her. That means you need to be very careful with her and much of the time Boba fights solo. No matter how many rerolls or tokens he gets, he won't defend more than 2 damage from each attack (range 3 / obstructed shots notwithstanding). If he gets shot by the entire opponent's list - and with his predictability it's quite likely - he'll start taking more damage than he can dish out.

I forgot this topic was about Boba

Lots of really great points made though. I think one that stuck in my mind was that complexity needs to be considered. Variable points are good for balancing but only to a point. You could put variables on so many things and get some super tight balancing... But then I'd need a PC to run the game for me....

That some things aren't particularly useful on certain ships/pilots is fine, you just take something that is. Surely?

10 hours ago, JasonCole said:

It's pretty bad as far as choices for actions to perform go, well well well below a focus action. Now that the Phantom doesn't recloak until the end phase, whisper is agi 2 against ALL initiative levels, meaning that any shot that lands 3+ hits is pushing damage through, even against a whisper w/ evade evade focus. It's considerably more useful on the defender w/ its 3 native agility dice, and the defender not needing to retain it at the end of the round to generate an effect, but you'd have to give the defender 4 free actions to ever see one being spent on an evade token, and the defender platform pricing reflects that advantage.

edit - Some people aren't aware for some reason, but evade tokens no longer add an evade result, it just lets you change one die to an evade result (blank or focus). That's terrible compared to 1e evade.

Yeah, I don´t understand why the only real defensive action is that weak. When attackers have a lucky roll (what is more likely - because of better dice -more hits and a crit- and more dice are rolled usually) they do spike damage and often can keep their target lock for the next run. A defender rolls lucky (lets say 3 evade) and can´t even use evade to escape that 4 hits. He just gets damaged.

So it even moves the advantage of attack dice more to the random part of the game. In 2nd Edition one lucky roll on the attackers side can mess the whole game up for ships with 3 or 4 hull only.

14 hours ago, JasonCole said:

It's pretty bad as far as choices for actions to perform go, well well well below a focus action. Now that the Phantom doesn't recloak until the end phase, whisper is agi 2 against ALL initiative levels, meaning that any shot that lands 3+ hits is pushing damage through, even against a whisper w/ evade evade focus. It's considerably more useful on the defender w/ its 3 native agility dice, and the defender not needing to retain it at the end of the round to generate an effect, but you'd have to give the defender 4 free actions to ever see one being spent on an evade token, and the defender platform pricing reflects that advantage.

edit - Some people aren't aware for some reason, but evade tokens no longer add an evade result, it just lets you change one die to an evade result (blank or focus). That's terrible compared to 1e evade.

3 hours ago, beardxofxdeath said:

Yeah, I don´t understand why the only real defensive action is that weak. When attackers have a lucky roll (what is more likely - because of better dice -more hits and a crit- and more dice are rolled usually) they do spike damage and often can keep their target lock for the next run. A defender rolls lucky (lets say 3 evade) and can´t even use evade to escape that 4 hits. He just gets damaged.

So it even moves the advantage of attack dice more to the random part of the game. In 2nd Edition one lucky roll on the attackers side can mess the whole game up for ships with 3 or 4 hull only.

No, no, a thousand times no! I am finding it hard to articulate my incredulity that anyone would want evade to be as good as it was in 1st edition. This nerf is one of the key re-balancing actions to make 2nd ed work.

Or do you really want to go back to when 3-dice attacks were obsolete and useless? You needed at least 4 and preferably 5 red dice to be sure of hitting some ships and the power creep was horrible! (If you want to complain about being hit, complain about Fenn Rau and others still being able to get 5 dice attacks.)

Do you remember trying to scratch the ghost? Zero agility, yet could ignore a 3 dice attack? Or Fat Han? Or Soontir F Fel? Or trying to hit x7 Defenders with anything? Next you'll be wanting 1st ed Autothrusters back!

(Phantoms being fragile is now reflected in their price and role - they're comparable to manoevrable X-Wings, not glass cannons that never got shot at except by turrets.)

Actually I find Evade action useful on Boba

Usually I play Boba with Debris Gambit/Han Solo with a company of Escape craft and an Ace (Fenn or Guri or Teroch)

So initial approach against let say 3x Proton Torpedo X-wings (if I cannot bump them) is to Reinforce from coordinate, then 3 straight to clear stress, then evade, then double focus from Han Solo/Perceptive Copilot and re-rolls from Boba ability.

This evade is usually worth of 1 dmg point, so I find it worth to take, especially if there not too much other actions to take (as boost is situational, and TL is often pointless as you got rerolls from ability).

Besides, 2.0 evade in terms of defensive capacity is on ships with 2/3 agility almost as good as in 1.0 (seen numbers somewhere). Problem is that focus is almost as good defensively and much more flexible and there not too much ways to stack both evade and focus (majority of 1.0 evade users were able to take focus along with evade, or had some other offensive mods like Maul/Ezra shenanigans for Ghost)

The nerf to evade really plays into the importance of positioning, which is obviously one of the things people lile most about 2.0. It's still a useful action but you have to leverage it in some way.

That's a point I seem to keep coming back to. You really do have to make tactical use of things now. Very little is 'always on'. That's a great thing.

Apart from Boba, I guess

Against any ship that relies on defensive modifiers and rolls defense dice, the Quadjumper is the hardest counter imaginable. Boba with amazing rerolls and 2 defense dice shrugs off most attacks. Boba at 1 die, blocked, gets almost nothing, and concentrated fire will bring him down quickly. Add in a cloaking device and Ketsu crew and you're only looking at 38 points for a definitively better version than what 1.0 had to offer.

5 hours ago, Gilarius said:

Do you remember trying to scratch the ghost? Zero agility, yet could ignore a 3 dice attack?

Hyperbole much?

The Ghost had 1 Evade and Sensor Jammer, which means it could ignore up to 2 damage from the first attack and up to 1 from the others (if nobody had a Focus token).

I ran Ghost Fenn extensively and it was certainly not ignoring 3-dice attacks, at least not modded 3 dice attacks. Reducing their effectiveness yes, but not ignoring.

14 minutes ago, LordBlades said:

Hyperbole much?

The Ghost had 1 Evade and Sensor Jammer, which means it could ignore up to 2 damage from the first attack and up to 1 from the others (if nobody had a Focus token).

I ran Ghost Fenn extensively and it was certainly not ignoring 3-dice attacks, at least not modded 3 dice attacks. Reducing their effectiveness yes, but not ignoring.

Not really want to dive into 1.0 swamp yard, but wasn’t the purpose of Fenn/Hotcop in that list to make sure the attacks are mostly unmodded?

5 hours ago, Oldpara said:

Actually I find Evade action useful on Boba

Usually I play Boba with Debris Gambit/Han Solo with a company of Escape craft and an Ace (Fenn or Guri or Teroch)

Debris Gambit almost certainly the best EPT for Boba, especially with Han gunner.

Debris, L3-37, Marauder, Han. Anything on top of that is just showing off.

15 minutes ago, baranidlo said:

Not really want to dive into 1.0 swamp yard, but wasn’t the purpose of Fenn/Hotcop in that list to make sure the attacks are mostly unmodded?

In theory yes, in practice, at least in my experience, you mostly shut down 1 guy with Fenn.

6 hours ago, Gilarius said:

No, no, a thousand times no! I am finding it hard to articulate my incredulity that anyone would want evade to be as good as it was in 1st edition. This nerf is one of the key re-balancing actions to make 2nd ed work.

Or do you really want to go back to when 3-dice attacks were obsolete and useless? You needed at least 4 and preferably 5 red dice to be sure of hitting some ships and the power creep was horrible! (If you want to complain about being hit, complain about Fenn Rau and others still being able to get 5 dice attacks.)

Do you remember trying to scratch the ghost? Zero agility, yet could ignore a 3 dice attack? Or Fat Han? Or Soontir F Fel? Or trying to hit x7 Defenders with anything? Next you'll be wanting 1st ed Autothrusters back!

(Phantoms being fragile is now reflected in their price and role - they're comparable to manoevrable X-Wings, not glass cannons that never got shot at except by turrets.)

Not sure why I'm getting dragged into this, I'm not advocating for the defensive actions to be buffed at all. I'm fine with it. I'm simply illustrating that for anyone other than Phantoms and Defenders, Juke is a pretty sub-par upgrade, and that's why I think the pricing is fine on it.

30 minutes ago, SOTL said:

Debris Gambit almost certainly the best EPT for Boba, especially with Han gunner.

Debris, L3-37, Marauder, Han. Anything on top of that is just showing off.

I use L3-37 ship, so 0-0-0 crew jumps in (I find Perceptive Copilot little bit to pricey).