4 minutes ago, SabineKey said:

But that doesn’t make it evil. It might be used for I’ll, but that doesn’t make the thing evil itself.

Yeah I'd also add that if the game is unbalanced, I'd rather people know what the good and bad lists are early into the season so that the points adjustments can be more complete.

Not that I'm saying anything about the current state of the game or the meta mind you, just theoretically speaking. If the game were very unbalanced, I'd rather it be very easy for everyone to see what the unbalance is.

Of course, X-Wing is still a dice game and luck influences it greatly, especially amongst experienced players who all make pretty good moves generally. I know that personally, all six of my games this weekend felt very decided by dice luck, both when I won and when I lost. I consider this a side-effect of 2.0 removing the ubiquitous passive mods and cheap reposition that 1.0 had.

Where I'm going with that is to say that data is just a plurality of anecdotes, and especially within specific points/waves, we really don't have a lot of data from which to determine this stuff. Most people realize that although Mitchel Hurst was somehow able to bring generic Silencers to the final table this weekend, the odds of anyone else repeating his feat are extremely low, so just looking at what did well at events won't necessarily tell you the best/easiest list.

1 hour ago, svelok said:

Porkins meta!

2 hours ago, Gilarius said:

Porkins meta!

I love Porkins. He's just in that spot of almost-ace but cheap enough to put him in a 4-ship build. I want to see more pilots like him and Jake that can out-ace the swarms but out-beef the aces if you're really good.

11 minutes ago, ClassicalMoser said:

I love Porkins. He's just in that spot of almost-ace but cheap enough to put him in a 4-ship build. I want to see more pilots like him and Jake that can out-ace the swarms but out-beef the aces if you're really good.

I feel like deathrain fits in the category as well, a movement advantage that you can really take advantage of given the right circumstances.

13 minutes ago, ClassicalMoser said:

I love Porkins. He's just in that spot of almost-ace but cheap enough to put him in a 4-ship build. I want to see more pilots like him and Jake that can out-ace the swarms but out-beef the aces if you're really good.

He has access to the action economy to pull it off for certain.

17 hours ago, TheCeilican said:

Metawing is evil.

It definitely got us 2.0. Not excited at the idea of where this may lead. More casual for me and less competiive events is my solution.

10 hours ago, ClassicalMoser said:

I love Porkins. He's just in that spot of almost-ace but cheap enough to put him in a 4-ship build. I want to see more pilots like him and Jake that can out-ace the swarms but out-beef the aces if you're really good.

Me too. I took him to Gdansk Open back in November, alongside Wedge, Thane, and Garven.

If Chopper was hyperspace-legal, I'd be flying him in those.

Meanwhile, a friend of mine took him to top 8 at the UK System Open as part of an otherwise standard rebel beef list.

On 4/29/2019 at 5:36 AM, ScummyRebel said:

From my point of view, the Jedi are evil!

Honestly? I think this doesn’t change much - we all knew the top performers by watching the streams of events. I personally like having this because it lets me scout out the competition and make a rough game plan for “what happens when I run into X?”

That said, you still can’t bet on that match up - Adepticon 2018 was all about how do I kill Ghost Fenn and I played... one.

Yep. I hopped on the new Metawing and... it just told me what I already knew. 4 Sigmas, Rebel Beef, etc.

What Metawing does is it brings knowledge of the Meta to more people, and provides a way for FFG to identify popular and effective builds. I'd even go so far as to say that 2nd edition X-Wing owes it's existence to Metawing.

One concequence is that netlisting is easier. But then, we see that netlisting was pretty popular during the Hyperspace Trials and System Opens, so I'm not sure it's that much of a difference.

3 hours ago, Koing907 said:

Yep. I hopped on the new Metawing and... it just told me what I already knew. 4 Sigmas, Rebel Beef, etc.

What Metawing does is it brings knowledge of the Meta to more people, and provides a way for FFG to identify popular and effective builds. I'd even go so far as to say that 2nd edition X-Wing owes it's existence to Metawing.

One concequence is that netlisting is easier. But then, we see that netlisting was pretty popular during the Hyperspace Trials and System Opens, so I'm not sure it's that much of a difference.

Netlisting is great. It puts players on equal footing and leaves games to be determined by player skill, not gaps in list building information.

It also increases the chances of paying to go to an event and facing the same list again and again. This is a Bad Thing (tm) .

9 minutes ago, Estarriol said:

It also increases the chances of paying to go to an event and facing the same list again and again. This is a Bad Thing (tm) .

I would be willing to bet there is a strong overlap between people who consider metawing a valuable resource, and people who believe X-Wing should be more about manuevering and less of a card game.

The onus of a balanced game is on the designers, not the players. Dissemination of information can only empower players.

1 hour ago, AceWing said:

The onus of a balanced game is on the designers, not the players. Dissemination of information can only empower players.

It’s on both! I don’t want to give my opponent an unfun game. My choices on list build cannot be blamed on the designers.

On ‎4‎/‎28‎/‎2019 at 11:47 PM, Estarriol said:

A direct consequence in 1E was a rise in netlisting and narrowing of the meta. Hope it doesn’t happen now.

Nice to have the data back though!

It will still happen, it is just now the game is set up for the devs to have more tools in shaking things up abet. Still the risk is that the process of something new could have tilted the meta in that direction only for it to get nerfed by the next wave making it appear that FFG is releasing OP stuff then nerfing them for the next wave. But right now with all the rereleases being of nothing new and the new factions still trying to get filled out with only a few ships, that trend hasn't happened yet.

On 4/29/2019 at 4:47 PM, SabineKey said:

But that doesn’t make it evil. It might be used for ill, but that doesn’t make the thing evil itself.

So basically it's an evil enabler?

17 minutes ago, Estarriol said:

It’s on both! I don’t want to give my opponent an unfun game. My choices on list build cannot be blamed on the designers.

The designers make things playable or not so, to a large extent, they do decide what you play, unless there's some kind of gentleman's agreement and everyone plays stuff they shouldn't. When I say shouldn't, I mean in the context of a tournament.

42 minutes ago, AceWing said:

The designers make things playable or not so, to a large extent, they do decide what you play, unless there's some kind of gentleman's agreement and everyone plays stuff they shouldn't. When I say shouldn't, I mean in the context of a tournament.

My strategy is to always play with gentlemen. The designer is not to blame if I play with a______s.

Ok

2 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

So basically it's an evil enabler?

By that logic, so is air.

3 hours ago, SabineKey said:

By that logic, so is air.

I think a more appropriate analogy would be a loaded gun.

6 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

I think a more appropriate analogy would be a loaded gun.

I can't say I agree. It's knowledge, not a weapon. As with all knowledge, it's how you use it that counts. This knowledge already exists. The "evil" people fear (netlisting and the like) already happens. But so does the good. It was knowledge of what to expect that led to the use of the "Hatchman" Vynder build that won the Denver System Open. Now, with such information more readily available, more people have an easier time figuring out "counter programming" lists to the big meta staples. Heck, even checking to see what's likely to be out there can save frustration. Been plenty of times a personally irksome mechanic has been in meta, so I decide to take a list that minimizes that annoyance while still being a list I want to fly.

Why should the knowledge of what's out there, thus giving the player better tools to maximize their fun, be restricted? Like I said, this knowledge already exists. With Metawing, it's just easier to get to.

There are a lot of reasons 1.0 metas solidified quickly, but I'm not sure metawing was as big a factor as most people think. A lot of those things that will keep a meta stale aren't there anymore.

One significant factor that people don't discuss in why metas in 1.0 seemed to be figured out early was the relationship between Vassal and the (often very early) reveal of points on cards. In my experience, players on Vassal had figured out top meta lists before they were even released and had had plenty of time to test them against a variety of counters. This led to very quick and accurate results being published in any variety of sources, whether it was meta-wing, podcasts, or posts in the forum. There were exceptions, of course, that were found later, but, generally, things had been figured out.

That just doesn't happen anymore since points aren't known and are even subject to change every few months. So, while I think people often blame meta-wing as it boils things down to very simplistic terms and rankings, I don't think it's going to change anything this time around as it was (and is) just one of many sources that publish results.

16 hours ago, gjnido said:

My strategy is to always play with gentlemen. The designer is not to blame if I play with a______s.

but, like always, a good strategy never survives first contact with the enemy .

18 hours ago, Estarriol said:

It’s on both! I don’t want to give my opponent an unfun game. My choices on list build cannot be blamed on the designers.

But it can be blamed on them. If one ship is superior to another, then that ship is going to be flown more often. Add in a few hundred upgrade options, and a few are going to rise to the top. FFG create these ships and upgrades, and are ultimatley repsonsible for them being available to play with.

The alternative is to force everyone to play with a randomized squad, (like some kind of draft) which would be difficult to implement with X-Wing.