On 10/22/2018 at 9:44 AM, Quarrel said:

How are people welcoming our new Initiative 5-6 15-pt bid overlords?

Really? Aces were never that easy to kill. Where is your problem?

34 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

Then we could introduce more control ordnance like a new flechette torps (four dice; use ole Flechette cannon effect),

Guaranteed stress on a hit? I really don't see that coming back with how they cut down on the number of ways to give out stress.

9 hours ago, Bad Idea Comics said:

Um, you do realize how incredibly false your statement about dogfighting is, right? They added a gun to the Phantom because it turned out they needed it. I don't mind opinions on our little make believe game, but reality has actual facts.

yes, reality has facts. one cool fact is that while pilots still train for dog fights, they havent happened much since the vietnam era.

the last actual dogfight happened in 2000, 18 years ago, but the last dogfight on record using cannons or guns was in 1971

most aerial engagements since the 80s involve Air to ground exchanges or aggressive posturing (think top guns no shots fired dogfight)

the few dogfights that have happened since 1971, such as in Kosovo or Eritrea, involved guided missiles. so its factually been 47 years since a non missile dogfight

Facts are definitely really cool.

We also haven’t had a major military engagement between two equally significant air forces. If the USA/Russia/China got in to some combination of military conflict, there would be cannons fired.

Additionally, how different would those aggressive posturing incidents been if the one of the planes didn’t have cannons? The threat of some capability is often enough to change someone’s course of action.

Anyway, this is getting off topic I suppose. I’ve had success killing aces using a handful of A-wings and Luke.

5 hours ago, Hiemfire said:

Guaranteed stress on a hit? I really don't see that coming back with how they cut down on the number of ways to give out stress.

*Stress on hit if not already stressed

Seems like it'd be fine to me. Only time stress control becomes a problem is when it stacks to unmanageable levels

Just now, ficklegreendice said:

*Stress on hit if not already stressed

Seems like it's be fine to me. Only time stress control becomes a problem is when it stacks to unmanageable levels

Scyk Swarm test it. This + 1 Tractor beam and 1 Ion Cannon. See how many turns till your opponent rage quits from the lockdown.

22 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:

Scyk Swarm test it. This + 1 Tractor beam and 1 Ion Cannon. See how many turns till your opponent rage quits from the lockdown.

Probably more turns than itd take to wipe out a low damage swarm ?

4 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

Probably more turns than itd take to wipe out a low damage swarm ?

sad truth, scyks dont hit. and with the ion cannon nerfs its non starter. even the rare shot that gets through is probably only dealing the ion token, and you wont have a swarm long

12 hours ago, Vontoothskie said:

sad truth, scyks dont hit. and with the ion cannon nerfs its non starter. even the rare shot that gets through is probably only dealing the ion token, and you wont have a swarm long

you realize they deal damage first, right?

12 hours ago, Vontoothskie said:

sad truth, scyks dont hit. and with the ion cannon nerfs its non starter. even the rare shot that gets through is probably only dealing the ion token, and you wont have a swarm long

4 minutes ago, Do I need a Username said:

you realize they deal damage first, right?

Played a game a couple nights ago with 2x Ion Cannon Turret Y-wings, only dealt 1 Ion token the entire game but plenty of single-damage shots. It's harder to push through those Ion tokens than you would think

3 hours ago, NeonWolf said:

Played a game a couple nights ago with 2x Ion Cannon Turret Y-wings, only dealt 1 Ion token the entire game but plenty of single-damage shots. It's harder to push through those Ion tokens than you would think

yup. as it should be.

On 10/23/2018 at 12:31 PM, ficklegreendice said:

In fact, I thought that one of the FIRST things ffg would do with the spot would be to scale ordnance costs according to intiative. because it's blantantly obvious how much better TL ordnance is when you move after the opponent (and then TL his ***)

I had hoped they would address this in the new edition, but sadly they did not.

I thought it would be better if every ship was able to lock onto any object on the map. Then, at the start of the Engagement Phase, there is a step where you assess each ship with a lock. If the ship the lock belongs to is beyond range 3, you discard the lock. This would allow lower-initiative ships to lock onto higher ones on approach... as long as the ship they locked ends its movement within firing range. There's still skill involved, and higher-initiatives ships still have the advantage of shooting first (and knowing that a ship they lock will be in range when it is time to fire), but the little guys are still able to actually get a lock if they predict their opponents well enough.

I'm glad that aces have more of a premium price than in 1.0, but it seems like they might need even more of a price difference as it sounds like a lot of players are still sticking with one or more aces in their lists.

I feel like this game has the potential to have a very wide meta, or even possibly no meta at all (pipe dream). But for now at least it seems like competitive players are still drawn to aces for the most part.

Being able to move last and shoot first is such a huge advantage. Even moreso in 2.0 in a way because of almost every ship having barrel and/or boost now.

I wish for 2.0 they had done something to change up moving and shooting order. Maybe high init ships would have better odds of moving last and shooting first, but it wouldn't be guaranteed to have some element of chance/luck.

4 hours ago, markcsoul said:

I'm glad that aces have more of a premium price than in 1.0, but it seems like they might need even more of a price difference as it sounds like a lot of players are still sticking with one or more aces in their lists.

I feel like this game has the potential to have a very wide meta, or even possibly no meta at all (pipe dream). But for now at least it seems like competitive players are still drawn to aces for the most part.

Being able to move last and shoot first is such a huge advantage. Even moreso in 2.0 in a way because of almost every ship having barrel and/or boost now.

I wish for 2.0 they had done something to change up moving and shooting order. Maybe high init ships would have better odds of moving last and shooting first, but it wouldn't be guaranteed to have some element of chance/luck.

It might not necessarily be cost, though. Repositioning aces are easier to play than generics, since you have more information and get to shoot first. Their higher cost also means you'll have fewer of them. Some people also enjoy piling on upgrades, and you can't reasonably to that on an I2 pilot and expect it to do all that much.

As for order, what I think they should have done, was have a seperate action phase, activating in rising initiative order. If that I1 Interceptor know where your Y-Wing has moved, it's much more likely to be able to, well, intercept, even if the I2 Y-Wing gets to barrel roll after. This would have slowed the game down, though, which might be the reason they didn't do it.

I had thought about a separate "action phase" too and I like the idea very much. It probably would have increased game length but not by THAT much. In fact, it's possible that it would have reduced many instances of analysis paralysis because players would usually have more information when deciding what action to take. I especially like it because ships that have bump would BOTH be denied their action, which I do feel is more realistic (as that is possible to be in a game about flying spaceships, of course). Of course it would dramatically increase the power of repositions in some ways (you have perfect information) and reduce it slightly in others (you can't move and then reposition into a place that will block somebody).

If it were done this way, I would probably have the activation (now called Movement) phase be in order from highest to lowest initiative (so Aces are less frequently out of position during a bump). Then Action Phase from lowest to highest. Then Engagement from highest to lowest.

8 hours ago, markcsoul said:

I'm glad that aces have more of a premium price than in 1.0, but it seems like they might need even more of a price difference as it sounds like a lot of players are still sticking with one or more aces in their lists.

I feel like this game has the potential to have a very wide meta, or even possibly no meta at all (pipe dream). But for now at least it seems like competitive players are still drawn to aces for the most part.

Being able to move last and shoot first is such a huge advantage. Even moreso in 2.0 in a way because of almost every ship having barrel and/or boost now.

I wish for 2.0 they had done something to change up moving and shooting order. Maybe high init ships would have better odds of moving last and shooting first, but it wouldn't be guaranteed to have some element of chance/luck.

No, no, NO! The Aces are now priced and tuned very well in general right now. Soontir, Fenn, Wedge, Vader - there is really nothing wrong about them. They are definitely harder to play well now, since they cannot hide behind token stack + autothrusters + Palp nonsense. If you shoot at them, they WILL be taking damage.

And most lists which I have seen play only maximum of 1 Ace. That sounds like the ideal spot for them.

Increasing their price across the board would ruin the fine balance of majority of these Aces and would cause 0 Aces to be played, which is definitely NOT good for the game.

But I do agree that there are definitely SOME Aces which would deserve a price bump - like Whisper or Redline. I expect them to be included in the January price updates.

On 10/22/2018 at 11:02 AM, PhantomFO said:

It does feel like the early meta is giving an edge to the IN5+ pilots. I think IN5 in general is probably a little underpriced right now considering how valuable it is, and IN4 and lower pilots are probably a bit overpriced. There should be almost no increase in price to more from IN1 to IN3, a very small price to go from 3 to 4, and a much larger price for moving from 4 to 5 or 5 to 6.

This is what's troubling me most about 2E: FFG does not seem to have learned nearly enough about the game in 1E. I've gone from a cheerleader -- saying things like, "I think FFG has learned a lot, and we'll see that in 2E" -- to the above statement in just a few weeks.

They're still massively undervaluing moving last and reacting with perfect knowledge, they're still giving the strongest abilities to the highest Init pilots, they're still overloading and under-costing ships (Punisher), they're still giving us stuff like the Kihraxz at 40 points, and now it seems that they're going to take a good long while to adjust the things that 2E allows them to adjust ... when I thought the whole point was that they wouldn't have to wait months and months. It doesn't help that in my area -- as in most, I'm sure -- there's a small contingent that simply doesn't care if something is out-of-whack, or how badly ... they'll always fly it, at every casual meet-up or tiny tournament.

It's pretty disheartening.

26 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

...as in most, I'm sure -- there's a small contingent that simply doesn't care if something is out-of-whack, or how badly ... they'll always fly it, at every casual meet-up or tiny tournament. It's pretty disheartening.

There are always these "whatever's OP-ish I'm in" kinda blokes yes; countering my weird control Lambda with a pair of Mid-level squints build. But hey, those are the weak minded who are afraid to simply "play" a game and seemingly have their entire ego and life's worth riding on the outcome.

But there are some having fun out there, just gotta look.

Cheers!

Some ships will always be the strongest, and people will play them because most people like to fly good ships and win. That's life.

But it's pretty pitiful that some of you feel entitled to **** on these players just because you brought some junk and they brought good stuff.

I'm not sure if you realize how poorly it reflects on you..

Oh, brother, not another casual-vs.-competitive argument. These go nowhere. Different people want different things; talk to your opponent.

LOL - where has this thread gone? We all play games to win, whether you're casual or competitive. And you CAN win with a huge number of combinations in this game. There are plenty of ways to catch arc-dodgers, which is what this is really about. They're the same ways that have always existed, but actually work now, now that token stacking madness is (mostly) a thing of the past.

You really wanna cut down Soontir Fel or Vader? Shoot at them! A lot! They'll die if you shoot at them enough. That means you have to make certain you can shoot at them and that's maneuver warfare. There's no easy answer to that, but it's a learnable skill. There's no easy button here - the aces are the "easy" ones to fly, but they've become harder because a mistake with 2.0 aces is far less forgiving. I have a list with Wedge and 3 Red Squadron Vets and everyone has Swarm Tactics and Wedge has R5D8 to get health back. It's a gunline that shoots at In6. I still have to fly well to use this list, but it's a jousting list designed to kill everything (including high initiative aces), as long as I can control my range. Range control versus dodgers is key. You have to limit their maneuvering options as well - that's where turn 0 comes in - place rocks where you know it will hamper their movement during the game. This is all planning and understanding your goals for your individual ships. Which ships will block? Which ships will token up or flank or be bait (I do this a lot with Soontir Fel - everyone wants to kill him right away so I let them get pot shots while the rest of my list kills everything).

I have several lists named "Hammer and Anvil". These all have a strong base of ships that are typically jousters - the anvil. You have to deal with these ships or they'll chew you up, but they approach slowly. They're designed to catch arc-dodgers in their wide arcs at range 2-3. The hammer is made up of my own ard-dodgers or fast jousters. They chase down the enemy, cutting off maneuver options and forcing the enemy to go where I want them. This is done in conjunction with my rock placement - I plane where I want these guys to go before I place anything on the board.

Beating aces is totally doable, but it's really just a part of playing this game in general. Use all the tools available. Or just GIT GUD. ?

5 hours ago, baranidlo said:

And most lists which I have seen play only maximum of 1 Ace.

Not here. Rebels do Luke + Wedge a lot, and Imperials do varying mixes of Vader, Soontir, Rexler Brath and Whisper with a support craft.