13 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

True. But there's also the issue of why; the 'unique fighter of character XYZ and some generic versions' (like the Havoc) is one thing, but by the time you've got A,B,E,K,U, X,Y & Z plus assorted non-alphabet-soup ships, it's kind of hard to figure out a 'niche' to justify the ship's existence.

"Niches" can be {re}arranged just by changing what is allowed with the app. Ship permissibility can change from year to year in the Hyperspace Format, giving ships with the same niche a time to shine at different moments.

3 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

"Niches" can be {re}arranged just by changing what is allowed with the app. Ship permissibility can change from year to year in the Hyperspace Format, giving ships with the same niche a time to shine at different moments.

So what is hyperspace now? I thought it was going to be expanded with 2.0 rereleases, until it is the same thing as extended. This at least would make some sense, in order to include new players.

Or is it now a of rotational MTG style standard format? Where they arbitrarily decide what you can fly and what not. Because THAT would be nothing but a lame excuse to not balance the game properly on a larger scale.

4 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

"Niches" can be {re}arranged just by changing what is allowed with the app. Ship permissibility can change from year to year in the Hyperspace Format, giving ships with the same niche a time to shine at different moments.

Agreed - by swinging the points up and down and adding or removing slots you can fundamentally change what a ship is without touching the printed cardboard.

That doesn't change the issue that you should really know what you want it to be.

There has been a (lengthy!) N-1 thread, and If I remember rigt the general consensus was that it should be a lightweight "torpedo & barrel roll*" equivalent to the "missiles and boost" A-wing. The fact that torpedoes and missiles have become very different animals (missiles generally having weaker attacks, lower cost and more charge to make them more like a substitute primary weapon than a situational big attack like torpedoes), would I guess help draw some distinction between the two.

* It is, after all, a good trick.

4 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Agreed - by swinging the points up and down and adding or removing slots you can fundamentally change what a ship is without touching the printed cardboard

Not really. You can not change core mechanics like Dial, Stats, Firing zones, Pilot abilities and initiative.

You can make a ship more efficient at what it does and you can give it some equipment options. That doesn’t qualify for me what a ship is fundamentally.

you can’t make an Interceptor out of a Bomber Dial and statline, and you can’t make a decent arc-dodger at low Initiative for example...

Yes and no. I broadly agree (see the posts above) but some slots can meaningfully move a ship's role.

Turning a bomber into an interceptor is all but impossible. Turning it from an alpha-strike carrier to an extended slugger more akin to an X-wing or Khiraxz is doable - that second missile slot (enabling Barrage Rockets) is key.

It would be a bit silly, but - for the sake of a daft argument - granting a ship a force talent would allow it to equip and use Sense at short range, even with a force rating of zero, which does allow a certain latitude as an arc-dodger, and an astromech slot - allowing the R4 astromech (which is not faction-restricted) - would give it green hard turns, allowing it to use barrel roll/linked/lock.

I'm not seriously suggesting doing this, by the way. The TIE/sa has no business having either slot. I'm just trying to throw out a strawman as to how dramatically adding 'just' slots can change a ship.

7 hours ago, ForceM said:

So what is hyperspace now? I thought it was going to be expanded with 2.0 rereleases, until it is the same thing as extended. This at least would make some sense, in order to include new players.

Or is it now a of rotational MTG style standard format? Where they arbitrarily decide what you can fly and what not. Because THAT would be nothing but a lame excuse to not balance the game properly on a larger scale.

I am going to guess that it will take soooooo long to rerelease everything in 2.0 that I am going to see Epic before you see Hyperspace = Extended.

I am suggesting that it could be rotational as a way for FFG to continue to release new designs.

Either this game is dead when FO, Resistance, CiS, and Republic get filled out, or somebody had better start getting creative. There really is nothing that Empire or Rebels need, IMHO, and tournaments will really only ever want to work with the 4 to 7 best chassis.

So, power creep comes back, or rotation keeps things fresh.

If FFG drags their feet long enough, thing like the TIE Aggressor will have essentially rotated out of Hyperspace anyways. It might be better if FFG just tried to get it right with the TIE Heavy.

IMHO, 2.0 chewed up a lot of player goodwill; the idea that it lasts thru a 3.0 conversion to refresh seems daft.

And trying to keep every single thing produced to date "viable" is slowly strangling the game.

13 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

I am going to guess that it will take soooooo long to rerelease everything in 2.0 that I am going to see Epic before you see Hyperspace = Extended.

I am suggesting that it could be rotational as a way for FFG to continue to release new designs.

Either this game is dead when FO, Resistance, CiS, and Republic get filled out, or somebody had better start getting creative. There really is nothing that Empire or Rebels need, IMHO, and tournaments will really only ever want to work with the 4 to 7 best chassis.

So, power creep comes back, or rotation keeps things fresh.

Liked for this part.

Expect Hyperspace to remain a "Limited" class with ships rotated in and out. How they manage it, with how many ships, I don't know, but this is my expectation, and really, my hope as well.

I'd much rather see a rotation that limits which ships I can use in a tournament than power creep that would invalidate my personal favourite ships in all formats.

(Of course, this assumes that power creep doesn't happen anyway....)

I'd assume Rebels and Empire (other than the Tie Brute) will be restricted to re-releases only, up until the new TV shows introduce new ships (and you can bet they will. Disney wouldn't miss a chance to sell more toys).

Tbh, I'm fine with that. I could use a break from spending a fortune in plastic ships (I'm also refraining from getting prequel stuff).

Edit: forgot to add: a viable alternative to bring in new stuff for OT factions would be a co-op campaign. I'd buy that in a heartbeat.

1 hour ago, Darth Meanie said:

Either this game is dead when FO, Resistance, CiS, and Republic get filled out, or somebody had better start getting creative. There really is nothing that Empire or Rebels need, IMHO, and tournaments will really only ever want to work with the 4 to 7 best chassis.

So, power creep comes back, or rotation keeps things fresh.

First, they will have stuff to release for years, sticking only to what we don’t yet have now, and only looking at the canon stuff. Then, there are still new Star wars Comics, TV shows and so on coming out, which often bring new content too.

And concerning balancing, that is exactly what variable prices and slots are for. Not because they completely should change the role of a chassis, but in order to make it better or worse IN its role as needed.

Hyperspace should not be a lame excuse to just balance the hyperspace part of the game. But i am afraid that this is exactly what its going to be.

Also in case you are correct and not much more from Resistance and FO comes out, what would their rotation look like?!? There could be none...

7 hours ago, ForceM said:

And concerning balancing, that is exactly what variable prices and slots are for. Not because they completely should change the role of a chassis, but in order to make it better or worse IN its role as needed.

IMHO, this is a terrible idea, and exactly what I was afraid 2.0 would involve.

First of all, it creates a bloody mess out of the identity of the chassis. Want proton torpedoes on your X-Wing? Sorry, that was 2018, now it uses missiles. Want to use S-Foils? Nah, those got locked open again in 2020. Want to use Luke at 62 points? That was so 2021. He's 68 now. It's the ultimate in over-FAQing, to the point where new players will have no idea what any ship can do at any given moment, just to keep the ship "fresh."

Second, it will lead to lazy design. Instead of getting a new chassis that might be a little x-wing-like, causing the x-wing to rotate out of Hyperspace for a season, we'll just see an unending stream of x-wing pseudo-variants that will become boring to look at, tedious to keep track of, and will kill the game since no one will ever need to buy an expac again (or will quit because it's the 10th time the x-wing got a tweekpack}.

I would rather see a ship like the X-Wing take the stage for a season, then have the X-Wing show up again. Or, have Red Squadron be Hyperspace legal for 2018, then Blue Squadron take it's place for 2019, Saw's Partisans fly in 2020, and Wraith Squadron see some action for 2021. Same X-Wing; 4 experiences.

If similar ships traded places in Hyperspace, FFG still makes money on models, Extended gets bigger and bigger, and players can finally see a favorite ship enter the game. For example: TIE Interceptors in 2018, Chiss Clawcraft in 2019, and TIE Hunters in 2020. Probably too close in style for them to all coexist in a big everything's-legit-all-the-time, but if they rotated in and out of play (and production}, the game could stay fresh without over-manipulating the TIE Interceptor.

7 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

IMHO, this is a terrible idea, and exactly what I was afraid 2.0 would involve.

First of all, it creates a bloody mess out of the identity of the chassis. Want proton torpedoes on your X-Wing? Sorry, that was 2018, now it uses missiles. Want to use S-Foils? Nah, those got locked open again in 2020. Want to use Luke at 62 points? That was so 2021. He's 68 now. It's the ultimate in over-FAQing, to the point where new players will have no idea what any ship can do at any given moment, just to keep the ship "fresh."

Second, it will lead to lazy design. Instead of getting a new chassis that might be a little x-wing-like, causing the x-wing to rotate out of Hyperspace for a season, we'll just see an unending stream of x-wing pseudo-variants that will become boring to look at, tedious to keep track of, and will kill the game since no one will ever need to buy an expac again (or will quit because it's the 10th time the x-wing got a tweekpack}.

I would rather see a ship like the X-Wing take the stage for a season, then have the X-Wing show up again. Or, have Red Squadron be Hyperspace legal for 2018, then Blue Squadron take it's place for 2019, Saw's Partisans fly in 2020, and Wraith Squadron see some action for 2021. Same X-Wing; 4 experiences.

If similar ships traded places in Hyperspace, FFG still makes money on models, Extended gets bigger and bigger, and players can finally see a favorite ship enter the game. For example: TIE Interceptors in 2018, Chiss Clawcraft in 2019, and TIE Hunters in 2020. Probably too close in style for them to all coexist in a big everything's-legit-all-the-time, but if they rotated in and out of play (and production}, the game could stay fresh without over-manipulating the TIE Interceptor.

Mark my words: Hyperspace is a terrible idea if used as a rotational "standard" format.

It will split up a community that is in many areas not big enough to support such a twofold scene.

It’s also extremely boring to have the same ships and upgrades to play for months. People say that this doesn’t change the number of top picks for pilots and upgrades, just the picks themselves might be different (allowed) ones, but that just ain’t true. Sorry but if there are more options, the meta will get more diverse. Only by so much, but still...

The third and quite big problem is: how do you want to balance 2 separate formats which will have different metas??? Just an example: i look at Resistance. They look VERY strong in Hyperspace format, where they can use everything they have, because they are balanced with Extended in mind. So they might very well overperform in Hyperspace, but we already start seeing that they are NOT overperforming in extended, because the opposition is stronger. So, will they nerf them now, making them useless in Extended?

This is just a horribad idea. X-Wing is not MtG where you can have more separate metas. It’s so bad as an idea that it might kill off the game in certain areas. In my playgroup, this discussion is going on right now. And some (1/3 of our playerbase) are saying that if they are going to start balancing with hyperspace meta in mind, they are going to just stop playing, end if story.

This is happening in more parts of the world i assume.

Hyperspace should be the way to gradually introduce all ships into the game on rerelease. Nothing more!

If they want to keep the game fresh, why not start and introduce balanced scenarios for tournament play, where more diverse squads could excel, instead of bland 200/200 Deathmatch?!? THAT would be a solution, not this joke format.

5 minutes ago, ForceM said:

If they want to keep the game fresh, why not start and introduce balanced scenarios for tournament play instead of bland 200/200 Deathmatch?!? THAT would be a solution, not this joke format.

I'll admit to being a touch bugged that the starter set didn't come with a set of scenarios.

Cinematic Play is one of my favourite bits - and whilst the old scenarios are mostly useable in a straight read-across (doubling points where appropriate) the new mechanics of the game - charges on upgrades, the ability to lock obstacles, jamming being a standard thing, coloured actions, etc, would add a lot of options for new 'gimmicks' in missions.

I have to say, my favourite games pre-X-wing, 40k, A Call To Arms, and Battlefleet Gothic all excelled precisely because they didn't just do "settle this the old navy way" - adding simple scenarios do dramatically change the nature of the game, and evenings of missions I've played at my LGS have been a learning experience for some very good tournament players who've rocked up with their default tournament squad and had their backsides handed to them by much less "competitive" builds that are either better suited to the mission or flown by someone who paid attention to the victory conditions...

8 hours ago, ForceM said:

It will split up a community that is in many areas not big enough to support such a twofold scene.

I doubt there would be two separate metas. I would strongly suspect that the would only keep tabs on Hyperspace.

Quote

And some (1/3 of our playerbase) are saying that if they are going to start balancing with hyperspace meta in mind, they are going to just stop playing, end if story.

Welcome to my world. I have never cared about the Tournament Meta at all, and yet my XWM experience is constantly affected by it.

Quote

If they want to keep the game fresh, why not start and introduce balanced scenarios for tournament play, where more diverse squads could excel, instead of bland 200/200 Deathmatch?!? THAT would be a solution, not this joke format.

1,001 Likes.

But after 6 years, a 2nd Edition, and the death of Epic