PS/init compression has definitely contributed to higher bidding. Fewer initiative values means that ships are more likely to overlap, and thus bids are more relevant.

There are two worse offenders than PS/init, compression, though.

1. Points compression: most ships have a smaller gap between generic and top ace than before. This reduces the effect of upgrading to i5/i6, making i5/i6 pilots more common.
2. Pilot abilities: just like 1.0, many of the best pilot abilities are on i5/i6 pilots.

That said, I'm not really sure what is motivating OP here besides "Silly design is silly"

2 hours ago, gadwag said:

"Silly design is silly"

Is exactly the point

Well, its more for the hypothetical point of, in the future, you all and FFG and game designers, make your design sensible, comfortable or show the reason why you choose a particular range for something. Its just not clean design. Its just not good business.

Currently this manifests itself in a question of how much I3 and I4 (and a bit for I5) really are different or matter. Yes, if we had only 1-4, there might still be a question of I2 vs I3, but I think you can safely reason that its likely that at that point, both of those values will REALLY matter.

Actually, if it was 1-4, it might be even more clear/obvious than the suggest 1-5. The reason for choosing this number range is clearly delineating the different possible choices to only four distinct stages. 1 rookie, 2 better than rookie (usually generic), 3 good but not ace (usually limited), 4 ace.

1-5 adds a bit more balancing leeway.

1-6 makes the middle simply arbitrary. Although it gives some balancing leeway, its noted that its still kind of arbitrary.

Another bit of non-future-proof-ed design I think is printing cards with Initiative/PS. While I do not think PS should change lightly (or almost ever), its still a numerical factor that I think would have been good to be able to errata with digital app changes just in case. Heck, actually, I think most of the values like firepower, dodge, hull and shields, arc choices should all have been digitized and likely that we would not need cards, or they would only be place holders for things like charges and shields and damage cards.

This may affect YOU in the future, if FFG thinks it wants to make you buy a 3.0. At which point, I quit buying/converting.

1 hour ago, Blail Blerg said:

Well, its more for  the hypothetical point of, in the future, you all and FFG and game designers, make your design sensible, comfortable or show the reason why you choose a particular range for something. Its just not clean design. Its just not good business.

I'm all for clean design in games, but decreasing the range of initiative values will not make the game design cleaner or better. I understand your argument that "middle initiative values don't matter", but this is a symptom of points compression and pilot ability distribution, not "too many initiative values". Furthermore, compressing the initiative values to a narrower range will have a number of negative effects on game design:

• Higher bids for initiative
• Slower games (due to more ships at same initiative). The game moves from individual ships moving to each player "taking turns" at each initiative level
• First/second player becomes more important, and is valued over skill or list composition

1 hour ago, Blail Blerg said:

Another bit of non-future-proof-ed design I think is printing cards with Initiative/PS. While I do not think PS should change lightly (or almost ever), its still a numerical factor that I think would have been good to be able to errata with digital app changes just in case.

No. Initiative values are directly relevant every single turn, and that's why they are printed on ship bases as well as cards. Gameplay information should stay on the cards where it can easily be seen during play. Ship slots and points are irrelevant once a game begins, so gameplay isn't affected by them having been moved to the app.

The only gameplay data that wasn't printed on cards are bomb effects, and everyone wishes that they were printed on the cards.

Doesnt matter if its 1-3, 1-5, 1-10, or 1-100. Unless the initiative point gap is substantially larger, like 8pts+ between each initiative, then there is always gonna be a problem as moving up initiative is pennies on the dollar in a game about positioning.

Jek Porkins I4 = 46pts

Thane I5 = 48pts

Its a no brainer.

Echo I4 = 50pts

Whisper I5 = 52pts

This should easily be 50pts for Echo and 60pts for Whisper.

A wider gap NEEDs to be created in order to make those mid,low inits worth it. Unless the ability is bonkers good like Jess.Bastian, Jonus,Biggs, etc. then they just wont get used because finding 2pts to go from I4 to I5 is easy. Finding 10pts to go from I4 to I5 not so much.

2 hours ago, gadwag said:

I'm all for clean design in games, but decreasing the range of initiative values will not make the game design cleaner or better. I understand your argument that "middle initiative values don't matter", but this is a symptom of points compression and pilot ability distribution, not "too many initiative values". Furthermore, compressing the initiative values to a narrower range will have a number of negative effects on game design:

• Higher bids for initiative
• Slower games (due to more ships at same initiative). The game moves from individual ships moving to each player "taking turns" at each initiative level
• First/second player becomes more important, and is valued over skill or list composition

No. Initiative values are directly relevant every single turn, and that's why they are printed on ship bases as well as cards. Gameplay information should stay on the cards where it can easily be seen during play. Ship slots and points are irrelevant once a game begins, so gameplay isn't affected by them having been moved to the app.

The only gameplay data that wasn't printed on cards are bomb effects, and everyone wishes that they were printed on the cards.

Considering they removed the stats and I've argued for those to be mutable too... I don't know if your argument about non digital PS holds the same way.

Your first point is definitely possible, but I think we need to see what happens more. At this point, I can't say from my personal experience.

1 hour ago, wurms said:

Doesnt matter if its 1-3, 1-5, 1-10, or 1-100. Unless the initiative point gap is substantially larger, like 8pts+ between each initiative, then there is always gonna be a problem as moving up initiative is pennies on the dollar in a game about positioning.

Jek Porkins I4 = 46pts

Thane I5 = 48pts

Its a no brainer.

Echo I4 = 50pts

Whisper I5 = 52pts

This should easily be 50pts for Echo and 60pts for Whisper.

A wider gap NEEDs to be created in order to make those mid,low inits worth it. Unless the ability is bonkers good like Jess.Bastian, Jonus,Biggs, etc. then they just wont get used because finding 2pts to go from I4 to I5 is easy. Finding 10pts to go from I4 to I5 not so much.

Yep. That's part of the solution. Although, it seems Echo should probably be more like 55 there?

Part of the issue is also that it seems like FFG didn't seem to formalize a curved scale for PS.

On 1/15/2019 at 4:10 PM, Kieransi said:

Initiative could probably be collapsed to four tiers without sacrificing a lot in terms of gameplay. i5 and i6 are distinctly different and that's important, but honestly i1 and i2 merging and i3 and i4 merging doesn't change much. I'm pretty sure @Marinealver said something along those lines in a different thread a while back.

Well I2 is a weaker I1 in perspective. Sure I2 can be a blocker but it gets out rushed by I1s. The point I was making is that the most powerful Initiative values are the ones at the end being the 0 and 7 which can only be achieved through an upgrade/pilot ability/special rule. The most powerful natural values are 1 and 6, then followed by 5 and 2. Initiative 6 is more powerful than 5 but for now the cost is so high and the selection of I6 pilots so limited that it is better to go with an I5 and make a bid then go with I6 and not have a single point to spare for a bid.

As for Iniative 1 and 2 well now every ship just about has I1, back in 1st edition PS1 was a more restricted thing with only 19 out of 54 ships (counting multi-faction ships multiple times excluding huge ships) had a PS1 pilot. Extended has 29 out of 58 ships with an Initiative 1 pilot so there is a lot more options for ships to go under that 2 value. As for 3 and 4, with them being in the middle they are at the bottom of the smile curve.

2 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

Yep. That's part of the solution. Although, it seems Echo should probably be more like 55 there?

Part of the issue is also that it seems like FFG didn't seem to formalize a curved scale for PS.

Yeah it was pretty much a linear increase. Generally it costed 1 squadron point to increase pilot skill by 1 as in example Rookie a PS2 pilot for 21 point to Red Squadron a PS4 pilot for 23 points. Unless it was a cheap ship like a TIE Fighter then it was only 1 point to increase pilot skill by 2 (Academy to Obsidian Squadron). Now why on Correscuant did FFG make Veteran Instinct cost only 1 point instead of 2 (especially when shield upgrade costed 4 points) is beyond me but that is all in the past.

The thing is when starting at Initiative 1 as you go up in initiative you lose in blocking potential but gain in reaction power. Now the first gains in reaction power (I1 to I2, I2 to I3) are not worth the loss in blocking potential, but eventually (I5) they cross over and start to overtake all losses. However the point addition is still linear starting at 1.

This is why I say there should be no point increase from 1 to 3, because in that bracket the cost is in the loss in blocking power for the pilot ability and in face offs to be able to outpace the I1s in shooting. However there is a way to sort of boost the middle pilot skills using upgrade slots. As the Talent slot was meant for higher skill/initiative pilots with the lowest being initiative 3, all you have to do is make a talent that works against a higher pilot skill. The potential trouble in that is if all the high Initiative pilots start to get out gunned then the meta will drop to I1 TIE/Headhunter/Vulture swarms. So it is a real balancing act to get everything right.

18 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

21 hours ago, gadwag said:

Considering they removed the stats and I've argued for those to be mutable too... I don't know if your argument about non digital PS holds the same way.

I know I'd be pretty frustrated if I needed to check my phone in-game for stats. I don't mind pulling it out for points calculations at the end (only because launch bay next has such a quick calculator) but that would be too annoying

Edit: if there were no cards at all then I'd be fine with an entirely digital text side of the game (but FFG would need to improve their app a long way)

I agree. Initiative should have been 1-5

1. generic pilots
2. veteran generic pilots
3. pilots with cool abilities
4. aces
5. limited super aces

But it doesn't matter the number of initiative slots because FFG purposely, or through ignorance, still doesn't cost initiative correctly. Most I5 pilots are undercosted specifically because of their valuable I5. Tali in the resistance A-wing is the blaringly obvious example.

All this time I thought 1ed had IN 1-9 only because the number 10 wouldn't fit in the card... 🤔

1 hour ago, OoALEJOoO said:

All this time I thought 1ed had IN 1-9 only because the number 10 wouldn't fit in the card... 🤔

This is very likely part of the reason, simply because it’s easier to type send setThis is very likely part of the reason, simply because it’s easier to type send set

5 hours ago, OoALEJOoO said:

All this time I thought 1ed had IN 1-9 only because the number 10 wouldn't fit in the card... 🤔

Quoting myself here. I guess a counter-argument would be that if they really wanted to have 10 levels that fit, they could have used 0-9 instead of 1-10.