9 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

XWM "design and balance" is a game of Whack-A-Mole in which the devs only ever give any attention to the meta-mole that's sticking up too far.

That is objectively untrue. A points update was just released where Captain Cardinal's price was increased. Go ahead and explain how he qualified as a "meta-mole." See if you can do the same for the Dorsal Turret. It is obvious that the individuals doing the points adjustment attempted to adjust whatever they thought was necessary to improve the game and the variety that it allows for rather than simply force people into new lists for the sake of getting them to play something else. Some prolific targets (all popular because of their raw efficiency) were hit relatively hard, but many of the changes were minor corrections to flatten out the game's baseline. Why is it so hard to have an honest discussion about this? You are coming up with conclusions and then looking for arguments to justify them with. Try that in reverse.

after reading my 1E Tycho card i am starting to fear Psycho Tycho with something like Composure and maybe even daredevil he would be hard to pin down and could really make his 2 dice have some real good efficiency if he does come back at his 1E capabilities expect him to show up on more than a few lists as he would be an amazing arc dodger

1 hour ago, Rapture said:

Balance has literally nothing to do with promoting stagnation. In a perfectly balanced game, people would simply choose what they like or what is interesting. Stagnation is playing Rebel Beef for six months in a row. Playing against two v1s and two Aggressors one game and then a swarm of M3-As in the next game (because people would be able to take those ships while still feeling like they are on equal footing) is not stagnation.

If you think that the only thing that would promote players trying new and interesting things with the collection of ships and cards that many already own is a rotating system of making ships obsolete, the that only a symptom of the game being imbalanced.

I completely agree with what you're driving at. That's what I want to see, too. I guess we'll see if that ever happens after several rounds of points updates. Because somehow I suspect that what you see at most tournaments will be what just won the last one. Not all squads are equally powerful because abilities and tactics mesh in so many different ways, so I am not sure how realistic it will be to say, "If I bring my favorite ships 1, 2, and 3, I should be able to stand against [insert meta monster list here]." And I don't think any amount of points balancing will fix that permanently because the value of a ship can change drastically depending on what other ships are flown with it (which we are all aware of; see Rebel Beef). To an extent, variable pricing of upgrades is helping a great deal to balance the game in the arenas of high vs. low initiative and small vs. large base, etc. But what we see is that a squad that performs even 1-2% better than the others will still get copied and flown more than the rest of the ships in a given faction***. I think the devs will be busy with points changes for the rest of the life of this game.

Regarding A-wing prices, I guess I just am tired of everybody begging for this or that to be adjusted down in points. Sorry if I took that out on you. Now that points changes are a thing, we can reasonably expect that underperforming ships can get a boost through points reduction, so when that doesn't happen people can be a little irritated (which can sometimes irritate me, but that's a me problem). But as the devs said on stream, working close to cut-offs where you can add another copy of that ship into a squad is tricky. I don't blame them for playing conservative and not touching the A-wing yet. Who knows? Maybe you will be able to fit 6 in a squad shortly after they are released for Second Edition. For now, I've accepted that the developers, for whatever reason, do not want 6 RZ-1 A-wings, or TIE strikers, or TIE interceptors in a single squad, so asking for a points drop is barking up the wrong tree.

***But I do feel that the spread between good and bad ships is so much smaller than First Edition. To an extent, I feel that you should be able to take anything right now, even A-wings, and have a good showing.

I've been using Jake with outmanoeuvre and predator next to Dutch (VTG/ion), Garven and Wedge (swarm tactics).

Jake proved exceptionally good as a lone flanker, as most of my opponents ignored him for the crucial few rounds. Predator triggered pretty often, especially in one gain against a hapless upsilon.

Would just love an I5 RZ1. An I6 would be a dream come true.

4 hours ago, Parakitor said:

As soon as its balanced, the meta becomes solved and it stagnates

I call BS. As soon as it is balanced, there is no meta because every card in the game has a real use, and every strong list has a hard counter. The game moves on to the point where people play what they like because they like it and that's how they want to play. Is Leebo currently playable? Are Ion missiles useful for anything? Where was the Jumpmaster in the last season? Why would I spend my money on them?

Or are you implying they want to change things up to push product? I've heard that charge several times but I have a little more faith in them than to believe that. It would be dishonest and humiliating if I were found to have done that as a game developer.

Look at Armada. There are certain fleet construction principles that win out over others, but generally speaking there isn't much of a meta. What does exist certainly would have been fixed before now except that they have printed costs on their cards. Really, the cost of a thing shouldn't have to change at all if it's been out for more than a couple of years. If it's found to be usable and the efficiency level is correctly benchmarked, then acceptable values can be maintained.

I'll point out that Zero tournament presence is outside the bounds of acceptable values, and several Sheathipede, YT, Jumpmaster, Kimogila, Scyk and other pilots and many upgrades fall into that category, and it's not because the sample size is too small. They genuinely don't hold up to the standards the game has set for itself.

/end rant.

That said, I don't think the Rebel A is in that bad of a place, but I haven't played against much Resistance so I don't have that to compare it to.

1 hour ago, Parakitor said:

But what we see is that a squad that performs even 1-2% better than the others will still get copied and flown more than the rest of the ships in a given faction***. I think the devs will be busy with points changes for the rest of the life of this game.

I agree with everything you said, but I want to highlight this point. Because it at this point that the players themselves sabotage what they say they want.

The community will always find the slightest flaw in the game and exploit it for the personal glory of winning tournaments.

The devs will never be able to create new material AND play keep up with balance. If you want perfect balance, then you also want NO NEW MATERIAL in the game, so that the devs now have a closed system in which to make the perfect tweaks.

1 hour ago, ClassicalMoser said:

As soon as it is balanced,

This is a pipe dream. Sure, it would be great, but as I said above, if the game is balanced, the game is over.

And as an aside, I have my own pipe dreams for the game. I wish TIE Interceptors were good because they are my favorite ship. I had hoped 2.0 would get them up to speed. But I don't expect the devs to drop everything and fix "my ship."

24 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

This is a pipe dream. Sure, it would be great, but as I said above, if the game is balanced, the game is over.

Balanced so everything is equally performing at the competitive level? Sure that’s a pipe dream.

But balanced so everything is potentially competitive and the fans of a specific card can take it and do well? That’s entirely possible and it’s disappointing they aren’t there yet. I expect they will be in a year or two.

6 minutes ago, ClassicalMoser said:

Balanced so everything is equally performing at the competitive level? Sure that’s a pipe dream.

But balanced so everything is potentially competitive and the fans of a specific card can take it and do well? That’s entirely possible

Unfortunately, I think the latter statement is impossible. There are players making card choices based on variances of less than 1%.

So there is Impossible Perfection and Exploitable Imperfection, down to levels so micro as to be unmanageable. And in the One Trick Pony Show of Standard Play, those imperfections are easily found and routinely exploited.

Seriously, it's 3 guys vs. the world. The devs haven't got a chance.

2 hours ago, ClassicalMoser said:

I call BS. As soon as it is balanced, there is no meta because every card in the game has a real use, and every strong list has a hard counter. The game moves on to the point where people play what they like because they like it and that's how they want to play. Is Leebo currently playable?

Man, this sounds sooooo good! I only wish I could believe it. I already shared my opinion, and we will have to agree to disagree. Hopefully in time I am proven wrong.

2 hours ago, ClassicalMoser said:

Or are you implying they want to change things up to push product? I've heard that charge several times but I have a little more faith in them than to believe that. It would be dishonest and humiliating if I were found to have done that as a game developer.

I am not implying this had been done, but I'm not rulng it out for the future. I'd buy a 6th TIE striker if you could run that many in standard play.

cept there aint much use for Prockets.

And being fast or maneuverable in this game isn't worth much. Dial creep has creeped the differential in dials from bad-good. There's less difference now.

13 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

cept there aint much use for Prockets.

And being fast or maneuverable in this game isn't worth much. Dial creep has creeped the differential in dials from bad-good. There's less difference now.

Do you mean, for example, how blue maneuvers on Y-wings are better? That's an interesting point.

I bet A-wings will be good in Epic. Larger playing field should help fast ships show just how fast they are.

6 hours ago, Parakitor said:

Do you mean, for example, how blue maneuvers on Y-wings are better? That's an interesting point.

I bet A-wings will be good in Epic. Larger playing field should help fast ships show just how fast they are.

And generally ships have all gotten much better dials. The days of crappy dials like lambdas and arcs or 1.0 tie advanced are over.

Most ships have a lot of maneuver options. Multiple kturns and flips

and most things are in the general zone of quite decent. The disparity from super good dial from the typical dial has decreased

18 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

There are players making card choices based on variances of less than 1%.

Probably less than 1% of the total player base... yet overbearing in the tournament scene... or in this forum to be sure.

Give us a balanced game for 90% of the players and let the rest try to "solve" the meta until they get bored with it.

I've been using Jake since 2.0 came out, he is stupidly fun and very good. I really liked my squad of Wedge, Jan, Jake, Ap5 and it was a lot of fun. Especially the coordinate jake roll to focus to boost, 2 hard clear, then lock and procket someone from where they never expected it!

Right now my primary rebel list is: 2 Red Sq Vet 2/crack, 2 Green Squad with crack/prockets, AP5. It's also been performing above it's weight class and has been really fun to fly!

18 hours ago, Parakitor said:

I bet A-wings will be good in Epic. Larger playing field should help fast ships show just how fast they are.

11 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

And generally ships have all gotten much better dials. The days of crappy dials like lambdas and arcs or 1.0 tie advanced are over.

Most ships have a lot of maneuver options. Multiple kturns and flips

and most things are in the general zone of quite decent. The disparity from super good dial from the typical dial has decreased

And that is a major problem of deciding that "the A-Wing is bad/not competitive."

It's not a ship that is meant to be stuck in a tiny box slugging it out. It's meant to be flying in fast, hitting hard, and flying out again. Not that feasible in 3x3.

So, if you want it to brawl, it's going to fail. That doesn't mean it's priced wrong; it means it's used wrong.

45 minutes ago, LUZ_TAK said:

Probably less than 1% of the total player base... yet overbearing in the tournament scene... or in this forum to be sure.

Give us a balanced game for 90% of the players and let the rest try to "solve" the meta until they get bored with it.

The problem is that small fraction has a disproportionate affect on the rest of the game.

A few people solve the meta, post the results, and now everyone can copy. Then everyone runs the solved list, and FFG has to address that issue.

It is a long-running grievance of mine--that tournament play and point adjustments suck up all the attention, and then there's no time for official development of missions, Epic, or other alternative play ideas.

Puhleeeeeze bearing the dead horse meta boogey man argument again.

40 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

Puhleeeeeze bearing the dead horse meta boogey man argument again.

You bet.

I'll stable that horse next to:

The Dead Horse of All Cards Can Be Balanced

The Dead Horse of I Know How Many Points This Card Is Worth

and

The Dead Horse of Why Is My Fav Ship Useless.

Then, the 4 Horsemen of the X-wing Apocolyse can all mount up together.

Jake is exceptionally great all around. Arvel is not quite as good, but pretty darn good.

I really don't think the lack of A-Wings is a power issue; it is just more mentally exhausting to get the most mileage out of the A-Wing aces than it is to just set 1-forward and let raw numbers of dice / raw amounts of shields do all of the work for you.

I remember everyone talking smack about the A-Wing in 1.0 (where it really did look like a points-inefficient buy), even after the refit fix, and then Paul Heaver quieted everyone down by demonstrating how disgustingly good a well piloted rookie in an A-Wing could be when used as a blocker. And that was in an environment completely saturated with TLTs.

On paper it looks like the same is probably true today. If you want a cheap blocker or two you can just go with Bandit squadron, but if you want a real deal blocker who can genuinely frustrate your opponent the entire game? You need to upgrade that bandit to a Phoenix squadron pilot for 7 points.

8 hours ago, President Jyrgunkarrd said:

Jake is exceptionally great all around. Arvel is not quite as good, but pretty darn good.

I really don't think the lack of A-Wings is a power issue; it is just more mentally exhausting to get the most mileage out of the A-Wing aces than it is to just set 1-forward and let raw numbers of dice / raw amounts of shields do all of the work for you.

Except generic Strikers see tons of competitive play (or did at one point, I'm not super caught up with the recent meta) and they are way more mentally taxing than A-Wings. There are plenty of competitively successful ships in the game both generic and aces that are more complicated to fly than an A-wing.

They are simply too expensive. There is no reason an A-wing should cost 7 points more than a Z-95. They all need to come down by at least 3 points.

A-Wing has about the toughness, though, of a Z-95 with a Hull Upgrade, and they've got a better dial and a pretty potent ship ability in Vectored Thrusters. Maybe that's not 7 points, but it's probably 5 or 6 points better than a Z-95. A-Wing minus 3 is TIE/fo plus 1, and I'd say it's probably worth at least 3 more than a TIE/fo.

But then, I think the TIE/fo probably got a bit overbuffed and probably would be fine at 27 and not 26, or just cuts to weaker Unique pilots.

On 6/26/2019 at 10:04 AM, theBitterFig said:

That said, I've seen a decent amount of Jake Farrell. He's a solid support ship/pocket ace.

Meanwhile, there aren't many good talents for Rebel A-Wings. Resistance can get good mileage out of Heroic and Trick Shot (well... maybe that's too expensive now)... Rebels have pretty much only Crack Shot. Meanwhile, B-Wings have been so cotdam good that they've crowded out a lot of other Rebel ships.

Yeah, selfless is great for tanky ships, but rebels really need a more thematic Elite for the more fragile ships. Even a unique version of heroic, call it “hero of the rebellion” or something.

Ive always loved using them, but I can say for myself at least the 2 attack stat just doesn't cut it, even in 2 ed. A bare bones ps1 is still a great blocker/harraser and Jake has some good utility, but its just hard beyond that to get them to pull their weight.

Its tempting to start loading up on upgrades/missiles to fix this problem but then I feel like I might as well take a ship with a natively stronger attack as the A Wing quickly becomes more expensive.

I take one in almost all my games jist becausw they look nice really.

On 6/27/2019 at 1:59 PM, Neos472 said:

i feel the RZ-1 A-Wing is going to get a real nice buff near the end of July with the return of its best pilot "Psycho" Tycho Celchu since we got a big hint that card packs are going to be announced at GenCon

I can only hope. I used to love fly AWs in 1st edition - now, at best, they just feel over priced. Headhunters provide a similar (if more sluggish) platform, but fill in a similar roll at a cheaper price.

I was pretty annoyed that they were skimmed iver again with the points adjustment. Then again, nearly all Rebel stuff got hit either through their own stuff or all the general upgrades they use. Oh well.

11 hours ago, Tvboy said:

Except generic Strikers see tons of competitive play (or did at one point, I'm not super caught up with the recent meta) and they are way more mentally taxing than A-Wings. There are plenty of competitively successful ships in the game both generic and aces that are more complicated to fly than an A-wing.

They are simply too expensive. There is no reason an A-wing should cost 7 points more than a Z-95. They all need to come down by at least 3 points.

How in the world is a Striker hard to fly? Strikers are so easy to use that the vastly incomplete FlyCasual AI has its best results with a swarm of them.

'Set 1 bank, go. Proceed to roll 3+ attack dice' is not hard.

20 hours ago, Tvboy said:

Except generic Strikers see tons of competitive play (or did at one point, I'm not super caught up with the recent meta) and they are way more mentally taxing than A-Wings. There are plenty of competitively successful ships in the game both generic and aces that are more complicated to fly than an A-wing.

They are simply too expensive. There is no reason an A-wing should cost 7 points more than a Z-95. They all need to come down by at least 3 points.

Interestingly enough, the Rz-1 saw play 81 times in listfortress, while the Striker only saw play 52 times. Duchess sees play about as much as Jake granted (46 to 50) but the striker generic is used much less. I think this is as much because of the Strikers vulnerability to torps / alphas as the difficulty of flying it.

8 hours ago, President Jyrgunkarrd said:

How in the world is a Striker hard to fly? Strikers are so easy to use that the vastly incomplete FlyCasual AI has its best results with a swarm of them.

'Set 1 bank, go. Proceed to roll 3+ attack dice' is not hard.

The Striker is difficult to fly because of the complexities of the Adaptive Ailerons ship ability. An ability, that as of Fly Casual 0.9.1.1 the AI does not use. As a side note, the 1 bank should not be your default option with the ship. Force them into a turning battle by getting closing fast and catching ships they don't think you can, not by just going slow and treating the Striker like a jouster.

Re: the Rz-1. It's seen some competitive results, which is why it didn't come down, but if you want to use it well don't spam it. one or two with Crack / Predator / Intimidation make great blockers. Remember to grab Target locks on disengage turns and the 2 die gun gets scarier.